“I’m happy my mother died,” the former undisputed heavyweight champion had said in his Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson podcast back in October 2023. He said something very similar two years ago on the Club Shay Shay podcast as well. Fast forward to today, the boxing legend reflected on his mother’s death again. However, this time, he raised a difficult question while speaking to Muhammad Ali’s former manager Gene Kilroy.

While any Tyson fan can recount his stories from memory, his upbringing is a tale that tests the resolve of even the strongest hearts. Growing up in the crime-riddled neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn, Tyson’s father was never really in the picture, having left the family when Tyson was 2.

This forced Tyson’s mother, Lorna May Smith, to raise Mike and three other children alone. Tragically, she passed away in 1982 after being diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Speaking about his mother’s passing during the ‘Behind The Mike’ series on YouTube, ‘Iron’ contemplated, “My mother died when I was 16. I wonder if she came back to life would she know who I am?” 

Short three years after Lorna’s passing, Mike Tyson started his boxing career, which led him to become the youngest heavyweight champion in the history of the sport in 1986. Had Lorna lived four more years, she could have seen her son achieve this milestone. Tyson would go on to become the undisputed heavyweight champion and become one of the best at what he does.

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Regardless, hearing Tyson’s hard-hitting question, Kilroy, who worked closely with Muhammad Ali throughout his career, and knew Tyson since he was about 13, said, “She’d be proud of you. You didn’t end up staying in Brownsville.” It’s not hard to imagine what would have happened to Tyson if he hadn’t come across Cus D’Amato. 

He could have become just another statistic in the criminal underbelly of the neighborhood. That brings us to Tyson’s statement where he said he was happy about his mother’s death. So what did he mean by that statement? 

Mike Tyson reveals why he was happy about his mother’s death 

Tyson had a history of causing trouble and frequent moves within New York before he was legally adopted by Cus D’Amato, the legendary boxing trainer. From beating up the bully who killed his pigeon to getting arrested 38 times by the age of 13, he was headed for a grim future. However, this was also what made him the ferocious boxer he was later known for. 

Had his mother been around, Tyson felt he would have turned out much differently than he did. Speaking to businessman Grant Cardone in his podcast last year, Tyson said, “I’m happy my mother died. If she was… still around, I’d be a different person, not a successful one. She would baby me all the time. Not let me get beat up and all that.”

Mike Tyson clearly feels the weight of his mother’s absence in his life, and his reflections reveal that her early death may have significantly shaped his journey. It’s intriguing to consider how differently his life might have unfolded had she been there for him. Can you picture a world where Mike Tyson is merely an unrecognized name?