Mike Tyson

For Tyson, it was the beginning of the end. Not that it was obvious in the ring. Shortly after the Douglas fiasco he began his comeback, knocking out former Olympian Henry Tillman in the first round on June 16, and defeating Donovan "Razor" Ruddick twice in 1991. He was all set to take on the new heavyweight champ, Evander Holyfield, in November, 1991. The fight never happened.

While attending the Miss Black America Pageant in July, Tyson had earned a bizarre new title when a pageant organizer called him a "serial buttocks fondler," accusing him of assaulting 11 of the 23 contestants. It was easy fodder for late-night comedians. But nobody was laughing when one of those contestants, Desiree Washington, brought a much more serious charge. According to her, Tyson had lured her to a hotel room during the contest and then raped her. He was tried and convicted, and in March 1992, he was sentenced to six years in prison.

It was a stunning turnaround for the champ who once seemed so unbeatable, so exciting, and of course it brought an immediate backlash. In the popular mind, Tyson was now a brutal thug who could not control his impulses, and had landed where he should have been all along. Before long Tyson was in trouble, accused of assaulting a guard, and placed in solitary confinement. Before long, odd stories began to leak out, that Tyson was reading up on communism. Perhaps this was a response to rumors that Don King was squandering his fortune, that Tyson might be a penniless proletarian by the end of his jail term. There were stories that he had converted to Islam. People wondered if Tyson was a changed man. At any rate, he emerged from prison on March 25, 1995, having served only three of his six years.