Tyson Is Quoted in Book as Saying He Struck Givens

NEW YORK —  Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is quoted in a new book as saying that he likes to hurt women during sex and that the best punch he ever threw was at Robin Givens, his former wife.

The book was written by Jose Torres, former light-heavyweight champion and one-time head of the New York State Athletic Commission, who once was close to Tyson.

“I like to hurt women when I make love to them. I like to hear them scream with pain, to see them bleed. It gives me pleasure,” Torres quotes Tyson as saying in the book, “Fire and Fear, the Inside Story of Mike Tyson.” Excerpts were published in Friday’s editions of the New York Daily News, and further portions are scheduled to be published in the August issue of Playboy.

Neither Tyson nor Don King, his agent-promoter, was immediately available for comment on the book, but King’s New York office said in a statement: “Mike Tyson and Don King are consulting with their attorneys and therefore do not have any comment to make at this given time. A statement is being prepared by the attorneys.”

Torres, a champion in the 1960s who was trained by Cus D’Amato--Tyson’s first trainer and father-figure--wrote that when Tyson began dating Givens in 1987, the two stayed at the Manhattan apartment belonging to Steve Lott, Tyson’s former assistant manager.

According to Torres, he asked Tyson to describe the best punch he had ever thrown in his life.

Tyson smiled, Torres wrote, and said: “Man, I’ll never forget that punch. It was when I fought with Robin in Steve’s apartment. She really offended me and I went bam .”

Torres described Tyson as throwing a fast backhand into the air to illustrate.

“And she flew backward, hitting every . . . wall in the apartment. That was the best punch I’ve ever thrown in my . . . life,” Torres quotes Tyson as saying.

Tyson and Givens married in February 1988 and divorced less than a year later. The actress, who appears in the television series, “Head of the Class,” has accused her husband of physical violence during their marriage.

Torres writes that violence was everywhere in Tyson’s early life in one of New York’s toughest ghettos--in his home as well as on the streets.

Torres describes how Tyson, his brother and sister once beat their mother’s boyfriend to keep him from hitting their mother.

The book also says that a young Tyson grew to enjoy stealing and beating people before he was a teen-ager.

“We were a bunch of maniacs,” Torres quotes Tyson. “Sometimes we got really crazy, nuts, got guns and just started shooting in the neighborhood.”