At the peak of his powers, Mike Tyson was the most feared fighter in the sport of boxing.
He exploded onto the scene back in 1985, establishing himself as a serious heavyweight contender within a matter of months with his first 19 professional victories ending via knockout.
Tyson wrote his name into the boxing history books in 1986 when he became the youngest world heavyweight champion of all time – a record that stands to this day – stopping WBC champion Trevor Berbick in the second round of their bout in Las Vegas.
He followed that historic victory up by capturing the WBA and IBF titles with respective victories over Jamies Smith and Tony Tucker, achieving undisputed status just one month after he turned 21 years old.
Despite proving to be one of the most ferocious fighters ever, Tyson has now recently revealed the one man that he believes was even scarier than any version of himself.
Speaking on The Big Podcast with Shaq, ‘Iron’ Mike made no mistake in naming the late great Sonny Liston as the ‘scariest fighter ever’, claiming there was ‘nobody like’ the former undisputed heavyweight champion.
“Listen, Sonny Liston is the scariest fighter that ever lived. Sonny Liston would come to a town, say he’s in St. Louis and he comes to Chicago, the cops would be [like] ‘Listen, you can’t come’, he knocked out around four cops, broke their jaw, took their gun, they were beating him with the night stick over his head … There’s no fighter like Sonny Liston, Sonny Liston’s a monster.”
Liston held the world heavyweight championship between 1962 and 1964, before he was eventually dethroned by Muhammad Ali, also falling short in his attempt at getting revenge in their rematch just over one year later.
He suffered just four defeats throughout his professional career, picking up 39 knockout from his 50 wins. As Tyson alluded to, Liston faced numerous troubles outside the ring, including ties to organised crime, multiple arrests, and a mysterious death that fuelled speculation and controversy on December 30, 1970.