There was once a time when Mike Tyson was the most feared man in boxing, and not because he'd take to biting off a chunk of your lobe whenever he felt a 'lil peckish. The man left a fist shaped mark on both the world of boxing, and video games. Once the big baddie of Nintendo's Punch-Out!!, his ferocity served as the inspiration for just about any video game character to lace up a pair of gloves, be it Killer Instinct with T.J. Combo, or Street Fighter's Balrog (let's not even address the whole name swap thing).
With the boxer having contributed so much to video games, it's about time the medium paid him back. A Balrog fan slapped together some footage of Mike Tyson's fights with some recognizable Street Fighter sound FX, masterfully inserted in exactly the right places and times.
As a result, some Kid Dynamite footage that started out as a simple practice "to brush up on sony vegas skills," went and promptly blew the hell up on Reddit, and it's easy to see why. See for yourself below.
Unfortunate though it may be, the ferocity shown in the video above wouldn't last for Tyson. In just a minute and a half in the ring, Tyson beat the previously undefeated IBF heavyweight champion Michael Spinks in 1988. That point is recognized as Tyson's peak, and would only be followed by a downwar spiral in the following years, starting with a divorce from wife Robin Givens.
He would lose the championship to Buster Douglas two years later, get arrested in '91, and jailed in '92. Winning comeback fights against Peter McNeeley and Buster Mathis Jr. in '95, helped convince others he was finally back in the game. But then came a second fight against Evander Holyfield, and...well...Tyson showed he was still hungry.
Tyson would square off against Lennox Lewis in 2002 in the highest grossing pay-per-view event at the time, but would fall in the eighth round. Retirement and a face tattoo later, he's standing alongside Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms, belting out Phil Collins numbers.
The humerous cameo brought Tyson back into the public eye in a signicantly more positive light. He's since developed a one man show that's been brought to Broadway, spawned a tour, a book that made the New York Times bestseller list, and some of the most harmonious and tranquil tweets this side of Tibet.
A truly interesting twist for the man once known as "the baddest man on the planet."