WHEN

he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011, Tyson brought up Carmen Basilio [above], who he was warned about, who walked the grounds looking to dig one into unready ribs. “They say he’s a silly old man,” Mike said. “But I don’t know him like that. I know him as a man who would fight you to the death.” In 2013, he journeyed upstate again and took a guided tour of the Hall. He wore a T-shirt that said ‘Pardon Jack Johnson’ and as he stopped and read the plaques on the wall he took over the tour. “I look at these guys as my heroes and I’m here because of them. They inspired me,” he said as the small crowd pressed in around him. “I really love these guys.” His favorites? Joe Gans and Dempsey “because they suffered a lot.”