Mike Tyson's four-part Netflix series is gripping and candid, yet it stops short of owning the darkest chapters of his story.
Mike Tyson never expected to grow old. Yet here he is at 60, a grandfather who has outlived his parents and the Brownsville bullies who mocked his lisp and slight frame. He is trading shots with Jake Paul, sitting down with podcasters, and even drifting into an impromptu White House press briefing on a trip to Washington, face tattoo front and center.
That unlikely survival is the engine of Tyson, a new four-part Netflix series on his turbulent life. "I don't have to exist," the former heavyweight champion says. "Some reason, something allowed me to exist." It is a striking line from a man who has lived through prison, vast fortunes won and lost, and long battles with alcohol, drugs and fame.
In his prime, Tyson was an event all by himself: the knockout machine who rattled opponents on sight, finished them in seconds and shrugged at the wreckage. The controversies only fed the myth, from his stormy marriage to actress Robin Givens, to the rape conviction that sent him to prison, to the night he bit Evander Holyfield's ear. Now, in the winter of his career, it's his own self-examination that grips audiences, even when it tips into self-parody.
That is also where the series falls short. Tyson is frank and compelling on camera, but the portrait is incomplete, because he is reluctant to take real accountability for the worst moments of his past. It's good television about a fascinating figure, but not the full reckoning that story demands.
