Before Mike Tyson faced Evander Holyfield for the second time he went on an unexpected spending spree. In an exclusive clip of the podcast Badlands Season 2: Sportsland, host Jake Brennan takes a look into the life of Tyson. One day before Tyson was set to face Holyfield in 1997, he burned through $1.15 million, leading to his manager at the time, Don King, stepping in.
$350,000 was not actual money Tyson spent. That was the price of the Lamborghini Tyson crashed while in Las Vegas. Since Tyson is very superstitious, he thought that getting into an accident meant that he was going to lose the fight. Tyson gave the keys to a nearby parking attendant and told him to not only get the car away from him, but Tyson also said he could keep the vehicle. The former heavyweight champion then walked over to the Versace store at Ceasars Palace and spent over $800,000 on scarfs and shoes.
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Tyson spent the money after getting a $30 million paycheck per the contract. It was good that the $1.15 million didn’t hurt him too much since he earned a big payday. But things didn’t get better for Tyson as he lost to Holyfield via disqualification. That was Tyson’s next-to-last chance to win the heavyweight championship. His last opportunity came in 2002 when he lost to Lennox Lewis in the eighth round via knockout.
Badlands Season 2: Sportsland is a series that will take a deep dive into the most sensational true crime stories in the sports world, along with Tyson, Brennan will take a look at crime stories from Oscar Pistorious, Tonya Harding and Evil Knievel among others. Brennan is also the host of the very popular music true crime podcast Disgraceland, which launched in 2018.
“I grew up in the music industry, and my dad is a musician,” Brennan told Medium in 2020. “I’ve been hearing a lot of these stories — some well before they became common knowledge — secondhand, backstage, and in vans with dirty, plugged-in band dudes. I became obsessed with music history and also, for whatever reason, true crime. Reading Helter Skelter at 15 kicked off the true crime obsession. I really wanted to listen to a podcast that combined two of my favorite interests: music and true crime. It didn’t exist so I created it. ”
