Those who were around during Mike Tyson’s boxing career wondered collectively whether he’d be alive today. So did Tyson.

“I absolutely believed that as well,” he told RingTV.com over the phone Monday, “doing what you want to do and having no restraints.”

Yet here he is, very much with us at 43. And he no longer comes off as the reckless Tyson of old, the one who ranted and raved and seemed to self destruct in one way or another whenever an opportunity presented itself.

A remarkable new documentary, “Tyson,” which will be released on DVD on Aug. 18, seems to reveal an introspective, relatively mild-mannered middle-aged man with an undeniable dark side who says he’s now grateful for all the good things in life.

Now, he said, he wants just one thing from the public.

“I want them to see me fairly,” he said, “to look at me just as a person. If you look at me fairly, you’ll see who I am. If you’re not objective, then you probably have an ulterior motive. Objectively, I’m just a normal person.

“I live responsibly.”

Tyson admitted that he wasn’t comfortable opening up when he sat down with director James Toback to film the documentary because he had adjusted to life out of the public eye.

And, he said, his many regrettable moments on camera in the past “shell-shocked me a little bit.”

“It was a little awkward at first, to be honest,” he said during the phone interview. “I was used to being an almost-private person, someone not accustomed to being seen every day. Now, with this brand new fame, I’m back on the late-night shows. I’m going back to where I used to be.

“I’m not comfortable where I used to be. I thought maybe fame was not for me, superstardom, whatever you want to call it. It was a perplexing situation.”

Once the camera rolled, however, Tyson didn’t hold back.

The former heavyweight champion talked about a childhood with no family structure, which spawned a 12-year-old criminal who was guided by fear. He talked about beloved father figure Cus D’Amato and became tearful.

He admitted that he “took advantage of women” but lashed out at Desiree Washington, the woman he was convicted of raping. He insists he didn’t do it. He talked in detail about his 3-year hell in prison.

He talked about his triumphs and failures in boxing, including his brutal knockout losses to Buster Douglas and Evander Holyfield. He talked about what’s important to him now – his family, his children.

And there was so much more in the film, as if it were a 90-minute therapy session.

“It’s something I had to do,” he said of the documentary. “I had to let it out. The finished product was beautiful. I have no regrets [about anything he said], no.

“I just told who I am.”

Toback has known Tyson a long time but even he learned things.

“I saw an even more-fascinating Mike Tyson than the one I knew,” he said. “I thought a lot of specific things were intriguing. His breathing problems as a kid, he didn’t know his father, the fear at the core of his being, the fact he was bullied as a kid.

“There was an array of fascinating things that came out in the course of a short shoot.”

The documentary includes a clip of one of his most-disturbing outbursts, a vile verbal attack on a reporter at a press conference in 2002.

And there were many more such instances, which was part of the reason the general public assumed he was either crazy or on drugs – or both. Every time he opened his mouth, it seemed vitriol spilled out.

Today, Tyson seems to be regretful.

“It comes from self anger, self loathing, a lot of things I had way before I got involved in boxing,” he said.

No one knows whether that man is gone, not even Tyson. However, he seems to be sincere when he says that he is trying to distance himself from the despicable brute he was as a younger man.

He insists he wants to be a good person.

“I work on myself all the time,” he said. “I can’t slack off working on myself. I’m working on discipline, humbleness. I work on these things, these characteristics. … I’m fine now, I’m happy.

“If I die tomorrow, I’ll feel like I’ve been overpaid in life. I’m very grateful.”


Michael Rosenthal can be reached at RingTVeditor@yahoo.com