I love sports. I’ll watch most any sport out there. Usually, I’m more of a team sports fan with basketball and American football leading the way. I love hockey but trying to find ways to watch it is tricky sometimes. More popular international sports have also caught my attention too. I really like watching football (or soccer in the US), cricket, and rugby (my wife from New Zealand would be super proud of me to admit that, go All Blacks). I also really like individual sports too. Tennis and golf in particular are favorites of mine. The only sports that I’m not really a huge fan of watching are combat sports like MMA and boxing. I get squeamish when someone gets an injury during a game so watching something where the point of the activity is to beat the other person to submission doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not even a huge fan of fighting in hockey either.
That doesn’t mean that I think boxers are dull people though.
Mike, created by Steven Rogers, tells the story of heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson (Trevonte Rhodes). It explores his childhood, what led him to boxing, his elite boxing career, legal troubles, mental health struggles, and personal successes and failures. It also dives into his relationships with key players including his mother Lorna (Olunike Adeliyi), original trainer Cus D’Amato (Harvey Keitel), promoter and eventual manager Don King (Russell Hornsby), and the various women of his life. Mike is eight episodes and it’s currently streaming on Hulu. This is a limited series so there will not be a second season.
Trigger warnings right off the bat. Mike, obviously, is a violent show that deals with a boxing legend. There are also topics ranging from mental and substance abuse subjects to domestic violence, and sexual assault. All of these topics are part of Tyson’s life so they were bound to come up sooner or later throughout the course of the show. So if these are topics that make you feel uncomfortable, think twice about watching this show.
In addition to triggers, there is something to be said about this show being made without Tyson’s involvement. This is a dramatization of his life and by the sounds of it, Tyson didn’t really like the outcome that much. I do find this a little disheartening, as Hulu has had trouble with this in the past with Pamela Anderson. She wasn’t involved in the making of Pam and Tommy, and she wasn’t a huge fan of how they were portrayed. Sure, the easy way out for something like this would be to just get over it and support the project. However, Tyson’s lack of involvement does make me a little uneasy about the show. I’m not looking for a shot-for-shot remake of the events of Tyson’s life but some level of involvement would have been preferred versus no involvement and backlash on the back end.
Mike is told in a way that parallels the one-man show that he did a few years ago. I found this to be a curious decision. It makes me wonder why they didn’t just tape one of his shows and do that versus dramatizing the one-man show and then splice in pieces of his life in clips. I would have found that a little more compelling because it would have come directly from Tyson himself. Overall, I’m glad that the producers and showrunners made this decision over doing a conventional, chronological biographical show of the life and times of Mike Tyson.
From a performance standpoint, Rhodes does a great job of portraying Tyson. He sometimes veers into a parody or an impression of Tyson but he nails the mannerisms and voice really well. In addition to Rhodes, I thought Keitel was great in this series in his limited role as D.Amato. The real standouts of this show are the women, particularly Desiree (Li Eubanks) who accused Tyson of sexual assault. That episode was pretty gut-wrenching while also showing a really low moment in Tyson’s life. Kiki (Ash Santos), his wife later in life, is another standout as someone who understands him and tries to help him in whatever way she can. Santos and Eubanks, by far, have the best performances of the series.
I do understand that Tyson’s life is very interesting but I was a little miffed by how there wasn’t as much boxing as I hoped there would be.
Above anything, Tyson’s reputation as a boxer should take some precedent because it’s what made him who he was today.
The boxing scenes were great, showing the power that Tyson’s fist had on the other person’s body. These scenes were well done but I could have used more of them.
From a story standpoint, it’s pretty straightforward and linear. They add in some narration from Rhodes, who also breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience. It shows the major highlights and I guess what I was hoping for was to learn something new about Tyson. I like the journeys that he had about his spirituality and coming to terms with who he is but I wish there would have been more of that instead of highlighting his career and personal lowlights. This feels a little on the generic side for me though.
Overall, Mike will go down as a show that showcased some moments, both good and bad, around Tyson’s life that everyone already knew about.
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The lack of boxing and the lack of anything different to tell made this a slight disappointment for me. I was hoping for a knockout and all I got was a jab. The performances are fine, with some standouts from the women of Tyson’s life. I really think they would have gotten more mileage from this show had they decided just to tape one of his one-man shows and put it on Hulu as a special. I’m glad I watched it but I think I may seek a documentary or something else in the future if I want to watch something about Mike Tyson.
Score: 6/10
