How much of Mike Tyson's success was due to his genes and how much to his training?

Well his speed, power and tenacity were all genetics, those can be enhanced but not given through training

I'd say they helped him as much

 

A little of both .He was lucky to have the genetic s to build in to a fast , strong heavyweight but with out decent training , coaching etc ,he wouldn't have learned the skillset he had . But of course there was also a self imploding DNA strand in there too !

 

99.99% training at least.
If you took a strong and healthy but untrained Mike Tyson off the street at age 19 and threw him in with Sam Scaff he'd get beaten up really badly, wouldn't he ?

 

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Did D'Amato's training methods work wonders for many boxers who weren't already endowed with extraordinary physical talent?

Pretty sure I'd take a Tyson trained by a regular unknown pro trainer over a slower, less powerful heavyweight trained by D'Amato.

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say 99%, but yeah, training > genes.

How can we tell? Simple. Older post prison Tyson who mostly abandoned the springy peakaboo and all the rest of it, who fell in love with dem muscles and power, was not nearly as dangerous as a younger version. Yeah, he could switch your lights off with one shot, but he could also be outboxed.

 

The roids also helped. 5'9 - 5'10 and weighing 220lb of lean muscle!

 

Floyd Patterson s level? Do you mean levelled like Floyd Patterson? This Patterson greatness garbage needs to end. Also the damato greatness dreck. Pure fantasy.

 

D'Amato is one of the greatest trainers of all time. A real genius of the sport.

It's an advantage to be born with genetics, but the wisdom and knowledge of a good trainer will pay dividends.

Someone above mentioned the post prison Tyson, even the post Rooney Tyson, compared to his younger self. It's evident that the better trained athlete was better than the one who relied on his mystique.

 

That's not quite true. IQ is largely genetic, but group IQ differences are very, very likely the result of environmental and cultural influences. What is absolutely beyond any possible dispute is that any hypothetical biologically based differences that may - may - exist, are far, far more slight than the already incontrovertibly demonstrated environmental influences. The difference is a couple points at most, if it exists at all, and if I were a betting man I'd say it doesn't.
It's also worth pointing out that the environmental influences are so much more pronounced that there's no particular reason to just assume that any biological differences that might exist will cut in favor of groups that currently score the highest. For all we know "blacks" could have a biological two-point advantage over "whites" that's entirely masked by the current ~8-12 point environmental disadvantage.

As for Tyson, he clearly had extraordinary genetic gifts, but gifts that needed to be channeled into a strategic framework by a knowledgeable trainer. Teasing this out seems to me a bit like asking whether the wheels or the engine are more important to the functioning of a car.