Mike Tyson: 1981-1991

Collection of never before seen photographs showing a very little known side of Mike Tyson at his prime and peaking the 1980’s and 1990’s, in and out of the ring, sometimes with epic legends.

It all began with an art school photography assignment: Lori Grinker was shooting a project on young boxers under the guidance of the legendary trainer Cus D'Amato. Her main focus became a nine-year-old boxer Billy Hamm. While photographing him, Cus wandered over and asked why Lori was shooting that kid, when the bigger kid in the corner working a speed bag would one day be the heavyweight champion of the world! The kid was a then 13-year-old Mike Tyson.

Lori’s early boxing photographs of Mike Tyson are without peer–little exists from that era and all of Grinker’s work is personal with uniquely privileged access in and out of the ring.

Over the next decade Lori would photograph the coterie that surrounded Mike; Cus’s funeral, going home to Brownsville, old friends, trips abroad, in hotel suites before and after fights, his hook-up with Robin Givens, their wedding, their divorce, and the training and fights in between until Tyson’s first defeat–the Buster Douglas fight in 1991. This is a side of the Mike Tyson story rarely seen or shared.