Tyson Says Heavyweight Belts 'Garbage'

Mike Tyson says heavyweight belts are 'garbage' to him now

New WBC world heavyweight champion boxer Mike Tyson after his 3rd round TKO of champion Bruno in their title fight at MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, 1996.

Mike Tyson arrives on the red carpet for the premiere 'The Hangover Part II'.

Former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson says his title belts are nothing more than garbage to him now that he is a reformed family man, CBS News reported yesterday.

At 44, the one-time self-proclaimed "baddest man on the planet" has traded in a life of excess for the Las Vegas suburbs where he lives with his third wife, Kiki, and two of his eight children, Morocco and Milan.

It is also where he trains his beloved pigeons, with his passion for racing the birds detailed on Animal Planet program Taking on Tyson.

In an interview with CBS, Tyson said he was two and a half years sober and a completely different person to the brash, aggressive man who was once one of the most recognised athletes in the world.

"I can't handle being that guy," Tyson said about his younger self.
"You know, that guy's a creation. 'Iron Mike,' the baddest man on the planet. There's nobody like that. People like that don't exist. I just had the audacity, the idiocy, to say it."

Tyson said he was experiencing the happiest period of his life as a full-time family man.

"Right now supersedes all those championship belts, all that money, all that liquor, all that dope," he said.

"I have my wife and my kids," he said.
"I had all the pleasures you could ever give me and still it doesn't match up to my ankle compared to my wife and my children. And they like me and respect me, a little bit at least. So it can't even compare to that. It can't. Not even a little bit."

Asked what his title belts meant to him now that he has changed his ways, Tyson said, "This is garbage. I can say I bled for garbage.

"At one time it meant a lot - when you're just a young kid, this is everything to you," he added.
"But then you realise your priorities change. And you just want your children to be happy and do nice things and that makes you happy. This stuff is nothing. This is just nothing, man."