Mike Tyson’s conviction for rape came as little surprise to his former manager, who claims the ex-boxer could have been the greatest of all time but for his ‘weakness for women’.
Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in history aged just 20 when he beat Trevor Berbick in 1986 to claim the WBC title before going on to earn his status as undisputed champion.
But Rory Holloway, a friend of Tyson since the pair were teenagers, claims in his new book, ‘Taming the Beast: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson’, that the 48-year-old’s ‘sex addiction’ stopped him from going down in history as the best ever.
‘I knew there was nobody in the ring who could stop him. The only reason he may not go down as the best is because of his weakness for women. Every decision he made was around women and sex,’ Holloway is quoted as saying in The Mirror.
‘I knew it would catch up with him, and it did. I don’t think there is a single person alive who could’ve changed the outcome.’
Tyson was arrested in 1991 for the rape of 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant, Desiree Washington, in an Indianapolis hotel room.
The former champion was charged the following year and sentenced to six years in prison and the only surprise to Holloway was that Tyson was not the subject of further complaints.
‘The rape case was inevitable. I’m surprised more girls didn’t make claims against him.’
Tyson served half of his sentence but Holloway reveals even during his three-year spell behind bars, the Brooklyn-born fighter still had his pick of women.
‘All my life, I’d fought to keep Mike away from women, but I’d pull up at the prison and the guards would tell me I couldn’t visit till the next day because Mike’s got women lined up to see him.
‘He was getting more women in there than he was outside. I ended up sleeping in the damn parking lot.’
















