Happy Birthday Mike Tyson: 10 Quotes To Celebrate The Boxing Legend

Mike Tyson, the former youngest undisputed heavyweight champion in the world, turns 55 on June 30. Tyson was nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and was later known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet."

Tyson was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He had won the WBC (World Boxing Council), WBA (World Boxing Association) and IBF (International Boxing Federation) heavyweight titles by the age 20. In 1990, Tyson took over Michael Jordan as the world’s highest-paid athlete that year, with $28.6 million earnings. Tyson has been married thrice and has eight children.

Here are some quotes from Tyson, collected by Mighty Fighter, for all his fans:

1. “Everybody thinks this is a tough man’s sport. This is not a tough man’s sport. This is a thinking man’s sport. A tough man is gonna get hurt real bad in this sport.”

2. “Everyone says “I wish I was in your shoes…”, the hundreds of people that wish they were in my shoes don’t know the tenth of it. If they were in my shoes they would cry like a baby.”

3. “When you have something in life that you want to accomplish greatly, you have to be willing to give up your happiness…I’ve lost all my sensitivity as far as being embarrassed, being shy, you just have to lose that.”

4. “Discipline, doing what you hate to do but do it like you love it.”

5. “These books ain’t window dressing. I think Machiavelli’s the most sophisticated writer outside of Shakespeare. Way ahead of his time. Such a manipulative person. Everything he accomplished he did by kissin’ ass.”

6. “I’m gonna make sure you talk about me, and your grandkids and kids after that gonna know about me…your great grandkids will say “wow, wasn’t that a bizarre individual?”

7. “One of my friends once saw another guy’s (criminal) record and said, ‘Look, this guy is a born troublemaker, just a loser.’ I had to tell him, ‘No, that’s my record—and it doesn’t include my juvenile history.”

8. “Y’all guys know what I do…I put people in body bags.”

9. “I’ll fight anybody my trainer puts me in with because I’m confident I can beat any fighter in the world. If anybody can see I’m almost a master at evading punches coming at me.”

10. “I just have this thing inside me that wants to eat and conquer. Maybe it’s egotistical, but I have it in me. I don’t want to be a tycoon. I just want to conquer people and their souls.”