In his early pro years, Tyson’s adept team parlayed his violent offense and a busy schedule into quick stardom. It was a destiny-fulfilling journey that seemed to scare the pants off half the heavyweight division.

The handful of years leading up to Tyson’s record-breaking first heavyweight title win involved the kind of matchmaking and fighter development boxing will likely never see again. “Kid Dynamite” fought 20 times in about 14 months. No fighter, regardless of division, is doing that now. State commissions wouldn’t allow that kind of turnaround and the extreme glorification of TV dates since the 1990s prevents fighters from working off-TV, which would be mandatory with that activity.

What always made Tyson unique, apart from the blinding hand and foot speed and explosive power, was his age. Many of those early knockouts replayed on sports networks that ended up on literally highlight reels made by Tyson’s management team happened when he was only 18 or 19.

When informed of his trainer and mentor Cus D’Amato's imminent death in November of 1985, Tyson almost imploded his career out of emotional immaturity: “I couldn’t take it. I ran outside. I didn’t want no one to see me cry. I just went crazy and took a subway to Brooklyn.”

D’Amato’s death left Tyson with deep wounds that he might say have never fully healed, even now. But Tyson used the pain, as D’Amato would have told him, to fuel a rise through the ranks over the next several months that all but assured him a chance at everlasting glory.

Opponents who ran from Tyson were chased down and run over, and fighting it out was a grave miscalculation. A few of his foes quickly realized they could stall the 5-foot-10 spark plug’s output if they avoided the punches he threw on the way in and tied him up inside, where his shorter arms snapped punches better. In February of 1986, the same month Tyson appeared on the cover of The Ring for the first time and around when he was first courted by promoter Don King, he fought through Jesse Ferguson’s holding to get a disqualification victory, officially counted as a TKO.

Months later, in early May of 1986, Tyson was taken the distance for the first time as a professional by James “Quick” Tillis. It was actually a challenging fight for Tyson, and necessary for the sake of his progress as a fighter. It also halted his momentum a tad as a non-stoppage win validated nonbelievers who said Tyson’s knockout streak would end when he faced better opposition.

The win nevertheless lined Tyson up for a multi-fight deal with HBO that was the first of its kind: HBO would pay a fighter directly, and Tyson would receive six figures for his next three fights. The first would be less than three weeks after the Tillis fight, May 20, 1986 against Mitch “Blood” Green at a revived Madison Square Garden.

Green was nine years older than Tyson, six inches taller and had more than a foot of reach on him. In the early 1980s, he was also one of the various fighters named as “Tomorrow’s Champions,” a group of prospects and potential contenders with varying fates. One of them, Tony Ayala, Jr., was a monster who ended up in prison. Johnny Bumphus and Davey Moore both won world titles as a few others dotted the ratings. Green earned the unfortunate reputation as an inconsistent fighter who was quick to question pay checks.

Following an impressive amateur career that saw him win four Golden Gloves titles, Green turned pro and fought to 5-0-1 before leaving manager Shelly Finkel and fleeing to Don King’s stepson, Carl King. The danger of such an arrangement with the Kings was that underperforming or misbehaving could lead to being simply fed to one of the stable’s better heavyweights.

Carl King later said: “Everyone told me [Green] would be trouble.”

Green frequently complained about his fight purses, so his activity slowed. It took Green six years to fight as many times as Tyson did in a single year. Green also blew a shot at facing NABF champion James Broad, another former prospect, by trashing his pay to reporters. In January of 1985, he even tried to attack heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, who was trying to speak with the press about possibly retiring, claiming Don King was “using [his] body” but not giving him fights.

After playing nice for long enough, Green returned from a year-long layoff to face Trevor Berbick for a fringe title and a likely shot at the WBC title. A nasty blood feud began with Green throwing punches at Berbick, who was holding his infant daughter at the time, at a different press conference. The two almost fought at their own pre-fight press conference, but Green settled for a close decision loss.

Once again Green stayed out of the ring for months, fighting only once over the next nine months. Finally he landed the Tyson fight, and the former gang member told reporters what he thought of the 19-year-old prospect: “Tyson’s been fighting stiffs, fighting duffel bags. I’m not gonna run like Quick Tillis. I’ll give him lateral movement, but at the same time I ain’t gonna run. The boy’s gonna have to fight.”

Tyson’s answers to questions were mostly canned at this stage of his career. Occasionally he went off-script, but “drunk with power” came later. Tyson’s team praised Green’s hand speed and boxing ability, and they hoped for the best.

At the weigh-in, Green learned Tyson would make more than $200,000 while he would take home $30,000. Green hollered at Don King and Carl King that he wouldn’t show up to the fight and asked about the pay difference. José Torres, one of Cus D’Amato’s former fighters and head of the New York State Athletic Commission, stepped in to remind Green of the contract he signed and how breaching meant he couldn’t fight in any U.S. state. Grumbling the whole way, Green accepted. And he didn’t run.

What Green did instead was refuse to play ball. Several fighters before him cowered at the sight of Tyson across from them and got knocked out on fear alone. The ones who brawled with Tyson walked into a trap. Green did neither of those things and simply neutralized Tyson when and where he could, rarely giving the Madison Square Garden crowd what it wanted, nor what his promoter could use to market Tyson in the future.

Tyson pressed forward and chucked missiles at Green, who absorbed a surprising amount and even looked wobbled in a handful of rounds, like Round 2, where Tyson knocked loose Green’s dental bridge. But Green quickly grabbed Tyson around the elbows on the inside, which visibly frustrated the younger fighter. Tyson used his head to break out of clinches and threw low blows, while Green flirted with point deductions for his hold and stalling.

On some level, Tyson capitulated and allowed Green to hold him inside. He wasn’t creating angles with his footwork like he’d been taught and there wasn’t enough combination punching. He could have prevented a lot of it. But Green fought uninspired, to say the least, and landing clean on someone intent on simply lasting to the final bell can be a chore.

An eighth-round rally was all Green could muster before Tyson won a clear decision that The Ring scored 10-0 on its unofficial card.

“I didn’t want to knock him out,” Tyson claimed after the fight. That’s not how he fought, though. In fact, he sought the knockout and in doing so missed opportunities to actually land.

Green said the distraction of getting paid so little was simply too much to bear. He couldn’t fight to win knowing he was getting paid so little. Nobody bought it at the time, though the ashes of Don King’s 1980s heavyweights remain silent still.

Two years later, Green approached Tyson at a Harlem boutique late at night to again complain about his fight purse. The encounter ended in a scuffle that broke Tyson’s hand and busted Green’s eye, drawing more interest than their actual fight at Madison Square garden, which only about 6,500 fans attended.

The win over Green only got Tyson to the No. 15 spot in The Ring’s ratings in the same issue reporting on the bout. He was a few short months from rattling the boxing world to its core. In hindsight, it was one of many steps toward the heavyweight title, thus easily overlooked.

Tyson was also a month shy of turning 20 and wanted the heavyweight division at his feet. The young man would have to settle for only a soda.