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[Previous entry: "WBA Lightweight Championship on DonKingTV.com"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Chicago Boxing Club News: Women's Cardio Kickboxing Class"] 05/16/2008 Archived Entry: "Boxing Insider Steve Lott: Tyson Lies in NY Times Article and New ‘Tyson’ Documentary" Boxing Insider Steve Lott: Tyson Lies in NY Times Article and New ‘Tyson’ Documentary
By Juan C. Ayllon
Mike Tyson (center) in happier times
If the name, “Boxing Hall of Champions” doesn’t ring a bell, it was formerly known as “Big Fights,” the company founded by former Tyson co-manager Bill Cayton, who managed Tyson along with Jim Jacobs prior to Tyson’s downfall. Big Fights had rights to vintage boxing films going back to 1897, according to Wikipedia. Those films were eventually sold to Disney, which shows the films on ESPN Classic. According to Lott, “Boxing Hall of Champions” owns rights to these fights when it comes to halls of fame and libraries, rights they intend to put to use when they build a new boxing hall of fame in Las Vegas.
Lott counts himself among those who were close to Mike Tyson in the golden years. No longer in Tyson’s inner circle, Lott takes exception to an article written by Tim Arango in the New York Times. And if that’s not bad enough, he’s really appalled by the allegations that Tyson made in the new bio film.
“The writer was way off base on the timeline,” Lott said. “That bit about Tyson being high all the time was wrong,” he added, citing that Tyson did some work with law enforcement agencies, which would pick up on tendencies very quickly. However, Lott conceded that addiction recovery programs also encourage their clients to believe that they’re out of control in order to facilitate recovery.
“Mike’s lies and fabrications shocked me,” Lott emails, “Especially when he called Jacobs and Cayton ‘Slave Masters.’ I have seen the documentary and it is obvious that Mike continues to surround himself with people interested only in their own good.” Lott continues: “This past week the New York Times ran a story on Mike Tyson and the new documentary he has completed with James Toback. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/movies/11aran.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=mike+tyson&st=nyt&oref=slogin “I thought you might be interested in my letter to the Times as well as all the documentation to support my comments. Your readers may be interested in this information.” What follows are some of Lott’s supporting documentation that suggests, at best, a conflagration of miscommunication, misunderstanding and missteps and, at worst, the darker and seamier side of the sport of boxing which always seems to rear up when there's big money to be made.
Next, here's a trail of emails with Harlan:
On the movie, "Tyson":
On the New York Times Article:
Below, Tyson's endearing message to the late Bill Cayton, which runs contrary to the descriptor, "Slave Master" which Tyson allegedly used in the movie to describe his former manager
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