The eyes in this picture belong to someone who’s been scarred by life but saved from destruction, and this is the point of placing them on the cover: Mike’s moral renaissance is written on his face. His eyes, which glisten, look weary yet serene, and evince more humility than during his heyday, when they would jolt vacantly as he launched press conference epithets at his opponents. Over his right eye remains the Maori tattoo which he obtained in New Zealand to deface himself. His jaw is set passively and his solemn expression evokes experience and hard-won wisdom. There is no title on my cover of Undisputed Truth, only a close-up of Mike’s face. Early in his story he admits: “I always thought I was shit.” These were the early days that broke his psyche, and throughout his autobiography, Undisputed Truth, Tyson connects various problems and setbacks to the Brooklyn hellscape that taught him his worthlessness. To say Tyson has the resilience of a cockroach draws a crude but apt association as that same insect no doubt cohabited with Mike’s family when his mother sought refuge for her brood in abandoned buildings. That he’s defied prison, drug abuse, bankruptcy, Don King, alcoholism, a litany of scandals and even mental instability to finally emerge as a person evidently at peace with himself, might be the greatest surprise of his stormy life. Never boxing’s patron saint but no longer its pariah, he might be the celebrity world’s hardiest survivor. “The only thing we knew was violence in Brownsville, even with people we love.” - Mike Tyson
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