The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books)

by Robin Barratt

  If, as I believed, this “new me” was a self-made man, made calmer by good choices, positive people around me and learning from life’s experiences, then how much of my anger, resentment, depression and generally anti-social behaviour back then was down to my early life experiences. I thought of nothing but my childhood for days.

  “Nature versus nurture” is an expression used to compare someone’s innate qualities and genes versus their learned experiences when determining how responsible we are for our own behaviour. At this point in my life I keenly explored these concepts in an effort to better understand myself and my conflicting emotions.

  Some things are definitely genetic and are personality traits or physical characteristics we inherit from our parents whilst other factors can be attributed partially to genes and partially to the learning environment we find ourselves in. For instance, my mother is artistic and thus my pursuing a career in art may be partially due to innate creativity. (That and the fact that art college seemed a great way to do bugger-all for three years whilst staring at girls.) However, art – like many talents – can be taught and there is no doubt that my basic skills were improved upon by studying the mechanics of art: proportion, tone, perspective, etc.

  Again, with sportsmen whose sons or daughters follow them into professional sport, how much is genetic inheritance and how much applied technique and learning?

  Personality has been proven to be genetic, although it can be influenced by external factors and people may try to model themselves upon personalities which attract them. In a series of studies, identical twins that had been separated at birth were found to have very similar personalities when later reunited; far more similar in fact than adopted siblings who were raised together.

  One of the great questions about genetic inheritance controlling our later behaviour is “What about free will?” At what point do we take control of our own destiny and make decisions based around what’s right for us and not based on the previous actions of others?

  Genetically, certain diseases have been passed down through generations but where does this leave addiction such as alcoholism? It’s been proven that a susceptibility to nicotine addiction is genetic but debate continues as to whether alcoholism is genetic or learned behaviour from watching other people who abuse drink.

  This was definitely one of the factors which intrigued me. The period when I’d drunk a crate of brandy per night in order to forget that I was married to that abusive cow Liz had left me believing that I’d inherited my dad’s (and granddad’s) propensity towards over-indulgence. Certainly, when I’d stayed with him we’d sit up drinking until the early hours, pouring glass after glass of alcohol until it was either all gone or he’d decided it was time to spew. (Sometimes he decided it was time to fall over various items of furniture first.)

  I’d always convinced myself that I couldn’t possibly be on the road to alcoholism – (just off the M4) – because I didn’t feel the urge to drink alcohol every day. Often it was just weekends that I’d drink (although weekends tended to last from Friday to Thursday when I was with Liz), and so I reassured myself that I was in control. Then I read an article which explained that alcoholism was not – as most people thought – a constant craving for booze but an inability to stop drinking once you’d started. This was me!

  I’d never met a bottle of red wine I didn’t like. In fact I liked them all so much I had to drink them from start to finish, just to show my appreciation. Once I had “the taste” for alcohol I would not look back.

  My sister Lisa was lucky. She also liked a good drink but had the capacity of a three-year-old to absorb it. Thus, she’d get drunk after three glasses and then just giggle for hours (except one night at my house when I had to carry her upstairs because she had “alcohol blindness” and couldn’t see).

  Anyway, maybe alcohol addiction is inherited; maybe it isn’t, but either way, if you’re surrounded by heavy drinkers all your life it’s bound to make an impact. Perhaps more pertinent to me, though, was whether my dad’s uncontrollable anger was an inherited trait or, again, learned behaviour.

  Biologically anger is not actually a problem; it’s an instinctive reaction to threat and part of our primitive inner selves, designed as a vital aspect of our survival mechanism. As with fear, anger triggers the adrenalin rush which gives us the energy for fight-or-flight and better enables us to defend ourselves and our loved ones.

  However, in modern society it’s how we behave when feeling this emotion that causes other people’s perceptions and interactions with us to be negative or fearful. Shouting, violence and hurtful comments are prime ingredients of uncontrolled, damaging anger. (Although I take serious exception to sarcasm being described as a negative by-product of anger. Sarcasm, in my humble opinion, is a magnificent art-form and I will continue to use it lovingly throughout the remainder of my life!)

  In today’s society there are causes of anger unrelated to a Neanderthal about to club your partner over the head. Unhappy relationships, low self-esteem, exclusion, fear, jealousy, poor communication skills, alcohol, drugs and learned behaviour can all cause outbursts of anger.

  In the case of my father and myself – and Tyson, let’s not forget that he’s involved here, due to his own well-chronicled angermanagement issues – the nurture side of the equation is probably more pertinent than the genetic inheritance. Anger may well be inside all of us but it only explodes outwards in such damaging degrees in certain individuals. (And we are those certain individuals!)

  Examining the above reasons for anger problems, it has been seen that I’ve endured unhappy relationships, fear and alcohol abuse but how much of that is because of my father’s negative influence? (Oh, I’ll go for “pretty much all of it”, actually!)

  I can’t blame him for Liz. I need to blame my overactive penis for that one. But, I’m sure I wouldn’t have married Susan if it were not for the fact that I wanted to get away from living at home with my dad and then I promptly treated her exactly the way he’d abused my mother for twenty-odd years. Well, not exactly – I didn’t throw hot coffee over her head, whilst shaking the living daylights out of her and the kids – but I did shout abuse at her and talk to her as if she were retarded.

  I believe now that my anger was derived from childhood fear of my father; a disappointment that my mother didn’t intervene more positively when my sister and I were younger (although I understand that she was going through her own form of fear of my dad); and a general bitterness that the relationship I’d seen my mother enjoy with her own loving father had not been replicated in any way between my dad and I. He was cold, bullying, abusive, angry and unapproachable, and I hated him for it.

  I once put my arm around him – he hadn’t been speaking to any of us for days and the atmosphere indoors was awful – and I asked him, “Why can’t we just be a normal family and love each other?” He turned and laughed in my face, called me a “silly bastard” and walked off.

  Ah, memories! It was like the Waltons … only with violence, swearing and things being thrown around the room.

  As I grew older I put my bitterness to the back of my mind and got on with my life. Except that I didn’t really. I now recognized that my constant anger – made worse by alcohol and general disillusionment with my life and relationships back in the mid 1980s to 1990s – was the unhappy child inside me screaming to be heard and loved. (I know … I’ve read that bit myself and it does sound like tree-hugging hippy shit! But, hey, this is me exposing myself to you and if you don’t like it, tough.)

  It is a recognized fact that most psychotherapy centres upon our relationship with our parents and our childhood memories. Freud placed great emphasis upon the influence of parental behaviour upon a child’s developing psyche. Hey, if it’s good enough for Freud …

  My mum certainly didn’t mean to damage us but, indirectly, she did through not telling my dad to “change his ways or leave” when we were small.

  But, what of Tyson? Where did all of his burn
ing anger come from? What – or who – were the emotional skeletons in his closet?

  Mike’s own father left when he was just a baby and contact had been minimal afterwards. (Interestingly, there is no firm evidence that a father dying or leaving a family when a child is young actually affects the child’s emotional development. Usually it’s only a financial impact but this can be huge, as poverty will impact upon anyone’s development.)

  Many observers have claimed that Tyson saw Cus D’Amato, his co-manager Jim Jacobs and Don King as successive father-figures, looking to them to fill a void in his life, but Tyson himself has always angrily denied this. Ultimately, only Mike knows the true impact of a lack of a father in his emotional development but there is little doubt that Tyson’s mother’s struggle to provide financially for her family and her exasperation at her son’s attraction to the criminal element amongst his peers led to his estrangement from her.

  Environment played a huge role in Tyson’s emotional development, for it was the violent streets of deprived Brownsville in Brooklyn and the moral-free gangs which roamed unchecked that “nurtured” the young Tyson’s psyche.

  Every day he awoke and witnessed or participated in muggings, shootings, abuse and general anti-social behaviour. This is what passed as normal conduct in Mike’s childhood and what almost certainly shaped his personality for years to come. Even when he was scaling the heights of professional boxing, hailed as a hero everywhere he went and earning extortionate amounts of money, Tyson’s behaviour remained that of a brutal teenage street-thug. The anger and resentment he’d felt for the formative years of his life was all he knew. It comforted him in its familiarity, even when it was also destroying his life. Allied to his natural anger was confusion over what exact role “race” played in his ability to progress. As I well knew, anger and resentment were hard companions to say goodbye to when they’ve been held so closely for so long. And yet … it was time for both of us to move on.

  I read the eulogy at my dad’s funeral and, upon arriving back home, covered the walls of my house with photos of my mum and dad. He was a man full of faults but I’m sure he had his reasons. Who knows what incident or person in his own past had turned him into the insecure, bullying figure of my youth? One day, we’ll all be judged by a higher power.

  He’d tried hard to alter his persona and make amends over the last few years of his life and perhaps that was more important ultimately than the violence, anger and hostility he’d evidenced for the vast majority. I needed to believe so, otherwise I’d be judged for the man I’d been for the first forty years of mine.

  The control and suppression of anger is a learned skill and is acquired only if an individual wants to change. I wanted to change! I’d learned what had made me so bitter and angry over the years and now I was able to put it to rest. Allied to this, the natural maturation process and the understanding that we need to surround ourselves with positive people and the tools are there for anyone to change if they really want to. Accept what made you unhappy and then focus upon all the things which currently make your life worthwhile.

  So, no more bitterness and looking back with bile. I wouldn’t waste any more energy on negativity. My focus now would be on the future.

  Tyson’s future remained as uncertain as ever. In June 2005 he faced the huge Irishman Kevin McBride, a year after the Williams debacle and a few days prior to his thirty-ninth birthday. Ever more severely in debt, nothing else had come along to offer Tyson an opportunity to earn anything approaching what boxing could garner him. So, despite the blatant evidence of his decline, he sat and watched his hands bandaged and taped once more, preparing to give the Tysonhungry fans – who’d had twelve months to forget the Williams surrender – another taste of “Iron” Mike.

  Except that he simply couldn’t do it. At least against Williams Tyson had blazed briefly for two rounds before running out of gas and desire. Against the lumbering McBride – who, like Danny Williams, had been chosen to politely fall over for Mike – Tyson looked like an old man. The expected opening round barrage didn’t happen. For five rounds Tyson and McBride plodded around the ring, throwing nothing of any great significance at each other.

  For the first time ever, for a Tyson fight, I sat back in the chair and watched events unfold with a sense of sad acceptance. Even though I realized that his prime was long gone I’d still expected him to defeat Williams and had cheered his opening round explosion, just as I’d vocalized my ardent support so many times before. But there was a lesson to be learned from that bout.

  Although Tyson was no longer a force to be reckoned with, his sheer iconic status and selling-power meant that victory over even a faded Tyson had garnered Williams a world title shot. My worry here was that McBride and his managers would foresee the potential for huge earnings and title fights if they could replicate Williams’s desire and fortitude. I doubted very much that Mike would be taking this bout as seriously. If he couldn’t motivate himself to train hard for the likes of Ruddock and co. when he was in his prime it seemed highly unlikely that he’d over-exert himself now that he was nearing his fortieth birthday. Champagne and loose women were far more important to Mike than punch-bags and sit-ups. (He’s a very wise man, bless him!)

  Even though Tyson wasn’t even a fraction of his former devastating self, he still won the first few rounds but then, as his stamina visibly expired in the fifth, McBride saw his chance of glory and began to exert more pressure, pushing the pace further than Tyson was now capable of matching.

  I sat and listened to the hysterical screeching of the commentators. Sensing an imminent and humiliating defeat, a weary Tyson once again panicked and reverted to street tactics, butting McBride, twisting his arm in an effort to break it and then biting him on the chest in a clinch! All to no avail.

  Unlike Holyfield and all the countless others who’d stopped and complained about Tyson’s illegal tactics over the years, McBride remained emotionless. He scented victory and ignored Tyson’s blatant rule-breaking, bullying Mike into the ropes and then pushing him disdainfully down to the floor. Where Mike remained … simply refusing to get up.

  The bell rang to end the round and Mike Tyson’s career. Mike refused to come out for the seventh round, diminishing his reputation even more than he had against Williams. As with Nigel Benn’s refusal to continue against Steve Collins several years before and Roberto Duran’s infamous cry of “no more” against Sugar Ray Leonard, the boxing media attacked Tyson for not continuing. In a combat sport such as boxing, the cardinal sin is giving up before the opponent has the chance to finish you. It’s a macho thing to be “carried out on your shield”, presumably in the same way as Michael Watson and Gerald McClellan were carried into the nearest hospital emergency ward. (It’s so easy to be brave when you’re sitting on the outside of the ropes criticizing men who are damaging each other’s brains for your entertainment.)

  Tyson’s only saving grace was that he was brutally honest with them afterwards!

  When questioned about his decision to quit on his stool Tyson replied: “I just don’t have the guts to do this any more!” He then added, “If I can’t beat Kevin McBride, I can’t beat anyone”, a comment which forced his Irish opponent to counter with, “I didn’t think great champions quit on their stool.”

  Tyson was unmoved. He realized the full extent of the dissipation of his skills and saw no reason to risk serious injury by continuing once his reserves of energy had petered out. After all, as he admitted, he was “only in it for the money”.

  Attempting to explain his lacklustre performance Tyson commented, “I look good. I feel good. But, when I get out there, I can’t do it! I don’t have the heart for fighting anymore. Not for fighting, nor for training … I can’t beat Father Time. It’s over. I’m finished.”

  These statements were revelatory enough but it was when Tyson then admitted that he’d been “living a lie since 1990” and confessed that losing the titles to Buster Douglas in one of the biggest shocks in boxing his
tory had upset other people more than it had himself, as his desire for boxing was already on the wane.

  He claimed that, since the early 1990s, he’d been in the sport only for the financial rewards and no longer the glory, and that when he looked back at images of himself decimating the heavyweight division back in the 1980s, he didn’t “even know that guy”.

  As a loss of anger had effected a change in my psyche and lifestyle, so too did it impact upon Tyson. As exemplified against Lennox Lewis and Danny Williams, Tyson without the burning anger and resentment of 1985–9 was a less-than-devastating proposition. At one point even a mildly angry Tyson had still been good enough to destroy the likes of Bruno, Seldon, Francis, etc., but now a fully contented Tyson couldn’t even dispatch a journeyman like McBride. Power of punch alone couldn’t compensate for a lack of “bad intentions” behind it.

  Whilst the commentators criticized Tyson’s lack of desire, I poured a drink and toasted Mike. I understood his current mindset, just as I’d once empathized with his anger. I found it significant that he and his ex-wife Monica Turner had remained friends and that she was actually managing him now, helping him to bolster his finances for altruistic reasons. (Turner, apparently, waived her fee for the McBride bout.)

  Anger is an emotion lying semi-dormant within all of us; it’s just that it surfaces more readily in some people than others and becomes a hard animal to tame once it’s reached the surface. The experience of years can teach you how to recognize the warning signs and keep the anger subdued, but the person must want to do so. If you’re alone and depressed this can be hard but if you’re fortunate enough to be surrounded by positive, loving people then you’ll be motivated to examine the best method of controlling your emotions. Some can do it on their own, looking inside themselves and finding the strength, whilst for others the process can be engendered by an outside influence.