Mike Tyson’s final career win included new face tattoo and crazy KO despite fighting with a ‘broken back’ against rival sentenced to 160 years in prison

Mike Tyson recorded the final win of an illustrious career and it was arguably his craziest knockout.

The bout, in February 2003 against Clifford 'The Black Rhino' Etienne, involved a fresh face tattoo, a ‘spinal’ injury, both boxers trying to pull out during fight week and a brutal 49-second stoppage.

Like 'Iron Mike', Etienne was viewed as a dangerous puncher. Having learned to box while in prison for attempted armed robbery, he had built a 24-1-1 pro record – scoring 17 KOs along the way, including 11 in the first round.

He was chosen as the 36-year-old Tyson’s comeback opponent after his loss to heavyweight boxing's last undisputed champion, Lennox Lewis, because Etienne had also suffered 10 knockdowns. The thinking being that he wouldn’t be able to cope with the former undisputed heavyweight champion’s destructive power – which proved true with a spectacular, if controversial, ending to the fight.

Tyson’s new trainer, the legendary Freddie Roach, actually pleaded with his fighter to postpone the event billed as ‘Back to Business’ due to his poor conditioning. Tyson had gone through a messy divorce in January and has since admitted he’d been hanging out in drug dens, taking coke and weed, in the aftermath of his fight with Lewis. Roach feared that a defeat to Etienne could end Tyson’s career.

The fact that Tyson got his Maori facial tattoo just a week before the fight also threw the event into doubt. Any tattoo close to a fight is ill-advised as it can bleed or become infected. Yet Tyson was determined, originally wanting a bunch of hearts on his face (“I was going to be the man of hearts, baby”) until his tattoo artist convinced him that Maori warrior ink was a better look.

The fight looked on the brink of being cancelled until Tyson belatedly showed up in host city Memphis. The confusion around whether the contest was even happening then caused Etienne to pull out – before he changed his mind 24 hours later, perhaps realising there weren’t too many other $1million paydays on his horizon.

The fight itself was shockingly brief. Rather than attempting to box and testing Tyson’s by now suspect stamina, Etienne came in to try and blast boxing's most famous heavyweight out – with predictable results. As the two swung wildly at one another, Etienne was caught clean with a couple of blows before the pair clinched and wrestled one another to the canvas.

After the fight resumed, Tyson missed with a left hook but then connected with a thunderous right hand to the jaw that caused Etienne to collapse, his back leg buckling in spectacular fashion. There was no way he was getting back up. Etienne had landed only one left hook, failing to even test the tattoo on the left side of Tyson’s face.

It looked like just another highlight reel Tyson KO except for one detail quickly spotted by viewers: Etienne, lying flat on his back on the canvas with his eyes closed, reached into his mouth to remove his gum shield mid-count.