You don’t become one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time without having to struggle. But even if we understand that, we might not know just what all that struggling looks like.

Sure, we know what the media has said about Mike Tyson: He’s an amazing boxer, with the majority of his wins ending in his opponent being knocked out. But what about the rest of his life? What about what happened before he rose to the top, and how did that fame change his life afterwards—both positively and negatively?

Well, Hulu’s docudrama miniseries about Mike’s life is here to offer its particular perspective on those events.

The story begins with young Mike’s troubled and violent childhood—one where trouble lurked just around the corner, even before anything went wrong for the boy.

“I ain’t never been arrested,” Mike says as a child.

“What 10-year-old says that?” his mother replies. “It ain’t nothing to brag about. You heading down the path of a doomed child. It’s coming, Mike. It’s coming.”

And what else was on that path for Mike as he rises to become a heavyweight champion? Well, lots—including dealing with a money-chasing manager, the constant need to be liked and jailtime for his rape conviction.

By the end of it all, you may just feel as concussed as Mike’s opponents usually did about five minutes after a match.

It’s no secret that Mike Tyson did not approve of Mike being created by Hulu. In fact, he took to Instagram with some pretty heavy words condemning the series.

“Don’t let Hulu fool you,” Tyson wrote in a post. “I don’t support their story about my life. They stole my life story and didn’t pay me. To Hulu executives I’m just a [n-word] they can sell on the auction block.”

That said, the series does draw from things Tyson has said about his life, borrowing parts of its narrative from Tyson’s 2013 HBO special Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth. In it, Tyson spoke for over an hour on his life story. In this dramatized version, Mike similarly shares his story on stage; but it also cuts to dramatized versions of the events so we can watch them unfold firsthand.

That means that viewers will endure a whole slew of content issues, some of which may be deeply disturbing to viewers (including Tyson’s rape conviction, which will be addressed shortly). Viewers will be exposed to extreme sex and nudity—showing everything except for female genitals. (In one scene, Mike is baptized, and in the next, he’s having sex with a woman who was watching from the pews.) We’ll hear intense amounts of the heaviest profanities; and we’ll see graphic violence, such as when children are shot in the head onscreen, as well as Tyson’s infamous ear bite. And none of that includes the drug use and heavy drinking.

In another category of spiritual content entirely, we’ll also see Mike convert to Islam.  

Along the way, the series shows that Mike has endured a lot of pain and abuse at the hands of others—until it flips the script in Episode 5. There, the narrative focus switches from Mike to Desiree Washington, the woman whom Tyson was convicted of raping. The episode is a difficult one. Though we don’t see the sexual violence Tyson perpetrates, we hear its sounds and listen as Desiree describes what happened.

The episode clearly sides with Desiree, pointing out that despite claims painting her as a so-called “gold digger” who was just after Tyson’s money, she “never sold her story to any publication or received any money for any interview.” It tells viewers that according to the New York Times, Desiree came forward because she felt that, as a Christian, she needed to speak up in order to stop Mike from hurting other women.

Mike Tyson’s life is riddled with pain—his own and the pain others endured because of him. Both this series and Tyson’s own special will make that very clear. But let us make it even more clear for you: If you step into the ring with this series, you won’t come out feeling like a heavyweight champion.

As Mike (the dramatized character) begins to share his story with a theater of people, we get a glimpse of his violent childhood. Mike gets beaten up by other kids and teens. He, in turn, beats others up, too. Mike’s mother spits blood and a golden tooth into the sink after suffering offscreen domestic abuse, and she hits Mike’s dad in the head with a metal saucepan.

There’s more, too. One of Mike’s preteen friends is shot in the head and killed by a police officer onscreen. A child tears a bird’s head off, and the remaining stump spurts blood. Children steal from shops, break car windows and knock over an elderly man as they rob his home. A juvenile convict scares Mike with talk about the violence that happens in jail.

We hear a reference to Mike’s rape conviction. Mike says he “wants to eat your children, praise be to Allah.” People box, and we often see amounts of blood come from their mouths. In one early scene, Mike bites off a part of boxer Evander Holyfield’s ear, and we see bits of flesh and blood fly off.

Elsewhere, we see a photo of adult Mike in his underwear, and we often see him and others shirtless as they box. We hear a reference to prostitutes, and one scene implies Mike’s mother engaged in prostituting herself. There are references to drugs, and people drink alcohol and smoke. Mike vomits after being punched.

The f-word is used about 30 times, with five instances being preceded by “mother.” The s-word is used over 25 times, too. “A–” is used seven times. “P-ss,” “p-ssy” and “h—” are all used once. Jesus’ name is misused once. A man is identified as a “pervert.” In the 1970s, medical personnel use the word “retarded” to describe someone with mental disabilities.

This episode centers on Desiree Washington’s life before, during and after being raped by Mike Tyson. Though the violent act is not directly depicted past a brief shot of Desiree’s face, we hear her pleas and the movement of the bed. Viewers are warned that the scene is disturbing—and indeed, that warning is a necessary one for the graphic way her rape is described in this episode.

In something like an out-of-body narration of that experience, Desiree describes the events which transpired on the night she was raped as she watches the offscreen violence. We hear the bed’s movements and many clear protests by Desiree. Later, a doctor’s exam of Desiree’s finds that her injuries are consistent with “nonconsensual sex.”

A couple of ministers are seen blaming Desiree for being raped (though they believe she is lying about it). “How many times have you said ‘no,’ when you really mean ‘yes’ all the time?” one of the pastors asks the women in his congregation accusingly.

Mike calls Desiree a “good little Christian girl,” and he also threatens to kill her. Desiree is briefly seen in a bra, and other girls are seen in tight leotards. Mike is shown in his underwear. We see a bloody menstrual pad. A doctor makes references to STDs, menstruation and pregnancy. Desiree vomits. A man is said to have called Mike a “serial buttocks fondler.”

Before the trial, Desiree’s father leads the family in the Lord’s prayer. We later read that (the real) Desiree Washington spoke out against Tyson because she felt she needed to do so as a Christian to protect other women.

The f-word is used four times, and “b–ch” is used three times. We hear one instance each of God’s name being misused, Jesus’ name being abused, “d–n” and the profane acronym “B.S.”

Though he was born in Kansas, Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics and hermeneutics. His favorite movie is La La Land.

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