Mike Tyson would have sex to “loosen up” before his boxing bouts because he was filled with so much adrenaline that he feared he would kill his opponents, his former bodyguard says.
Rudy Gonzalez — who also served as Tyson’s chauffeur during the 1980s — made the claim during an interview with the Sun, suggesting Tyson, now 55, would “bang the s–t” out of random women just before entering the ring.
Gonzalez further explained: “It is no exaggeration to say Mike was like a train hitting these guys. Having sex was his way of disengaging that power and loosening up a bit.”
Tyson was said to be in such a heightened emotional state ahead of his fights that he would also occasionally burst into tears in his dressing room. “One of the greatest secrets with Mike was that he needed to have sex in the dressing room before fights,” Gonzalez said of the allegedly horny heavyweight champ.
“He had to get laid to disengage some of the strength he had. So I had girls tucked away in bathrooms and changing rooms.”
Recalling the ringside romps, Gonzalez stated: “Mike would say, ‘If I do not get laid, I will kill this guy right now.’ Sometimes he’d go in with them [the women] for a minute, bang the s–t out of them, snap his neck and say: ‘OK, this guy is going to live tonight.’ ”
The strategy may have worked. Tyson, now 55, never did kill anyone in the ring, although he bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear in 1997, leading to a disqualification in their infamous rematch.
As Gonzalez explained, the ritual of pre-fight sex was born out of the heavyweight champion’s fear of killing another boxer. In addition to rage and sex, Tyson’s pre-fight routine was also defined by intense anxiety and sorrow.
‘He had an anxiety problem where he would be in despair with anxiety of not feeling good enough or not wanting to screw it up,’ Gonzalez said.
‘Mike had the fear that if he screwed this up, he would end up back in his old neighborhood or be locked up.’
And Tyson had reason to fear his former life.
Abandoned by his father at birth, and orphaned at 16 when his mother passed away, Tyson grew up in Brooklyn’s rough Brownsville neighborhood in the 1970s and had the physical and emotional scars to prove it.
According to several accounts, Tyson was targeted for his short stature and his lisp at a young age, and he responded by getting arrested 38 times by age 13.
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