Mike Tyson didn’t just fight—he overwhelmed, he intimidated, he devoured. Before the first punch was ever thrown, before the bell even rang, he had already won half the battle. The black trunks. The silent walk to the ring. The cold, dead-eyed stare. It was all part of the act—except it wasn’t an act at all.
And then there was the glove bite.It wasn’t for show, and it wasn’t just some quirky pre-fight ritual. It was raw instinct, a signal to himself and the world that he was ready to go to war. The question is: why?
Why Mike Tyson Bit His Gloves
Mike Tyson never gave a detailed explanation for why he did it, but it was something he did before nearly every fight. He’d stand in the corner, shifting his weight, chewing down on his gloves like a predator about to pounce. It wasn’t superstition. It wasn’t routine. It was something deeper.In his memoir Undisputed Truth, Tyson talked about his mindset before fights: “When I go in the ring, I’m a god. No one can beat me. That’s how I think.”
This was a man who didn’t just want to win—he wanted to dominate. His former trainer, Teddy Atlas, once said, “Mike always had this need to convince himself he was a monster before a fight.”
That switch had to be flipped. The stare-downs, the walkouts, the sheer stillness before the chaos—it was all part of stepping into a mindset where hesitation didn’t exist. The glove bite? That was just another piece of it.
The Fight Where Mike Tyson Bit Evander Holyfield
Of course, when people think of Tyson and biting, they don’t think of his gloves. They think of June 28, 1997.The rematch with Evander Holyfield was already heated. Tyson had lost their first fight and was frustrated by what he saw as repeated headbutts. In the third round, he snapped.The first bite was bad. The second was worse. A piece of Holyfield’s ear hit the canvas. Tyson was disqualified, his boxing license revoked, and a $3 million fine followed.
