Sports

The time Tyson confronted Jordan over Robin Givens

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that dinner party.

The night an angry young heavyweight boxing champion by the name of Mike Tyson sat down to eat with basketball superstar Michael Jordan.

Tyson’s longtime friend and manager Rory Holloway recalls the dinner in his new book, “Taming the Beast: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson.”

He was present at the Chicago restaurant along with Tyson, Jordan, Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, star defensive end Richard Dent and boxing promoter Don King.

It happened sometime after Tyson had divorced his first wife, actress Robin Givens, and he was taking the separation hard.

What made the situation explosive was that Jordan had dated Givens before she met Tyson.

“Mike Tyson’s sitting there with his drink of choice, a Long Island Tea, and when he drinks his real feelings come out …,” Holloway writes.

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“I’m telling the server to water his drinks down ‘cause I see where this is going. Mike stares across the table at Michael Jordan. He says, ‘Hey man, you think I’m stupid? I know you f—-d with my b—h.’

“Jordan looks like he just seen a ghost. ‘I know you messed with her,’ Mike says. ‘You can tell me.’

“Jordan, it’s obvious he just wants to get up and run. He wants no part of this. Mike turns to Ditka. ‘Man, you think somebody scared of you, all that racist s–t you been talking?’ He says to Dent, ‘Y’all scared of this damn white man, Richard? He ain’t nobody. You gonna let him talk that way?’

“It was a circus, for real, that night. Don King trying to change the subject. Me and John trying to hold Mike down. Mike telling everyone he’s going to bust Jordan’s ass. Jordan’s dressed sharp as always and he can’t get out of there fast enough.”

One of the other women from Tyson’s youth was British model Naomi Campbell.

Naomi Campbell in 2002AP

The pair met at a Russell Simmons party and as Holloway tells it, hit it off immediately.

“I was there to keep Mike out of trouble, doing my usual babysitting job, and when I looked over, he was talking to this girl,” Holloway writes.

“I had to rub my eyes. I mean, the most exciting thing at that time was Naomi Campbell. She was wild and vivacious, with these legs that went on for days.

“I’m stuck holding their drinks ‘cause Mike says he gotta use the restroom. Next thing I know, Naomi’s following him in there. Holy s–t. Guests are walking up. ‘Bathroom’s taken,’ I’m telling them.

“Minutes go by and it’s getting uncomfortable. I finally crack open the door, ‘C’mon Mike.’ I see Naomi. She’s up on the toilet, heels and long legs spread, skirt hiked up, and Mike’s pumping away.”

Holloway’s book features dozens of stories like these.

He became friends with Tyson while Tyson was learning his craft under Cus D’Amato as a young teenager and was by his side until they fell out in the late 1990s.

Holloway was in the courtroom when Tyson was convicted of raping beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington in 1992 and witnessed one of the bizarre strategies a desperate Tyson took to try to avoid prison time.

Don King and Tyson after a win over Trevor Berbick in 1986AP

“Mike had got himself in a bad situation and he was grasping at straws. I don’t know where he found this voodoo guy … said he was a witch doctor. People paid him to make their problems go away … One day, the guy convinced Mike to go into the shower and pour a bucket of milk all over himself, like it supposed to cleanse him or something.

“Then he tells Mike to write down the names of all the prosecutors and lawyers on a piece of paper. While he’s staring at those guys in the courtroom, he supposed to eat the list and swallow it.

“You see Mike over in his chair, chewing on this damn wad like a madman, staring hard, like it gonna do something. This huckster took tens of thousands of dollars from Mike. Yeah, and look at how that turned out.”

“Taming the Beast: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson,” written by Rory Holloway and Eric Wilson, is available at tamingthebeast.com/eng/index.html.