Cayton was completely and utterly undermined by Robin. She knew what she wanted and she knew just how to get it. Fake pregnancy to secure the wedding to boot. Convincing him to fire Steve Lott as well.
Im certain King was paying people around Mike to keep the story going. King did the same things with Ali. Except Ali was not any smarter than Tyson buisness wise he just had a manager. And murderous Religious cult that may have kept him from controlling Ali's last segment of fights
That is a possibility. With that said i don't think Rooney could have stopped the bleeding himself. Stopping Mike from Self Destructing would have been like eating soup with a fork.
By most accounts, Bill Cayton was an aloof dick. Every fighter Cayton worked with fired him. Benitez fired him. Morrison fired him. Pazienza fired him. Michael Grant fired him. Omar Sheika fired him. And most didn't last as long with him as Tyson did. Cayton and Tyson had basically no personal relationship at all. Jacobs and D'Amato and King all had personal relationships with Tyson, Cayton could care less. And Cayton had YEARS to build a relationship with Tyson. He just never did. And, after Mike Tyson dumped Cayton and left HBO, Tyson's purses went thru the roof. Tyson's combined purses from Ruddock 1 thru Botha were upwards of $200 million. He had $30 million purses each for the Bruno, Holyfield 1, Holyfield 2, Seldon and McNeeley fights. Millions more for the two Ruddock fights, Botha and Mathis. Those would be considered among the biggest purses in boxing today, and that was a quarter century ago. Compared to the deals Cayton negotiated, like $2.5 million for the Tucker fight, and $7 million for the Bruno fight (basically less than one-fourth of what Tyson got for Bruno II) Cayton's deals weren't even in the same ballpark. Don King wasn't needed to push Paz, Grant, Sheika, Williams, Morrison and Benitez away from Cayton, and it didn't require a strong push to separate Cayton and Tyson. There were no ties to begin with, except in a contract.
Fight Holmes when? Fight Cooney when? Larry Holmes lost his title in September 1985, lost the return with Spinks, and retired in 1986 before Don King ever worked with Tyson. And the only reason Holmes fought Tyson in 1988 was because Tyson had all the belts. When was this 'initial' plan to fight Holmes supposed to happen exactly?
Exactly. The Tyson juggernaut was always going to get the big fights. Sugar Ray Leonard sure did ok without signing on with him.
Robin Givens didn't become Mike Tyson's manager, like some boxer's wives have. She had Cayton's cut reduced from 33 percent to 20. She was his wife. Wives tend to have a say in who manages their husbands careers. You guys act like this was shocking. A wife complaining about the cut her husband's manager is taking. How outrageous! What a scandal. (LOL) The wives of Johnny Tapia, Chris Byrd, Steve Cunningham, Shane Mosley, Amir Khan, etc., would probably all say Givens didn't go far enough. There is an organization now made up entirely of the women in boxers lives. It's called the Boxing Wives and Girlfriends Association. (Seriously) But string up Givens. She's evil. Made Cayton take a pay cut.
Don King didn't exactly control the welterweight division in the late 70s, like he did the heavyweight division in the late 80s. How does the Juggernaut begin without the King-promoted HBO tournament, which occupied all the belts? How does the juggernaut begin when a number of guys Tyson actually fought in the late 80s only did so because Tyson had all the belts? And, if he didn't have any belts, they would've avoided him like the plague? Like Michael Spinks, for instance. What big fights were there without King? If Tyson is just another contender who never won a belt when the Bowe-Holyfield, Lewis-Ruddock situation happens in 92, does Tyson even get past Lewis, Bowe or Holyfield? If Tyson was forced to take a longer road to the title, and he had to join the mix of Bowe and Lewis in the early 90s, whose to say Tyson even wins a belt? He could've been an earlier version of Tua. Lots of KOs. No belts. I just don't see how he avoids King and has a greater career.
Cayton actually managed Tyson while he acquired those belts. King was not even aligned as Tyson's sole promoter at that time. Whether he promoted the HBO tourney or not is totally irrelevant. Tyson was not signed on to him. This is why King had to get devious. The Juggernaut was long in motion and certainly not about to stop if Tyson didn't let King white ant all of his long term ties. If Jacobs didn't die things would have been different - he would have shielded Tyson. King needed Tyson more that Tyson needed him. Tyson had the belts and was putting boxing at the forefront of the publics mind.
Yea, no. HBO isnt financially investing in a tournament of Manbreasts and slow dancing. The tournament was a way to make Tyson's spectacular wins leave no doubt about who the Top Dog was. Don King would have traded every heavyweight in his stable for Tyson. He was the reason anybody watched it.
King would have always promoted some Tyson fights. It's virtually impossible he would not have. They were going to the highest bidder at one point. This would have been the norm moving forward. The way i am looking at the thread is from the viewpoint that a King kept at arms level would not have been able to back stab Cayton and Rooney with the success that he had.
Whether King promoted the HBO tournament or not isn't irrelevent at all. Don King promoted all of Mike Tyson's fights from the Trevor Berbick WBC title fight to Tyson's fight with Botha 13 years later. The fights were laid out in order by King. When did King not promote a Tyson fight from Berbick to Botha? So why did King have to get 'devious' again? Hell, which fights did Cayton actually pick apart from King? Every bout Tyson fought was either a fight in the tournament or a mandatory set by a sanctioning body, other than the Holmes and Tubbs fights, which were also promoted by King. Cayton wasn't some mastermind. He was essentially along for the ride from Berbick on. It's not like he said, 'screw King, I'm picking the fights." Because Cayton didn't pick them once Tyson entered the tournament. I remember interviews with Cayton where he was like "We're going to have Tyson fight Adilson Rodriques in Brazil. And we're going to fight Bruno in London. And we're going to go all over the world." And none of that happened, because Cayton wasn't managing Tyson's career at all once the tournament began. And King clearly showed, when Tyson went to prison, he didn't really NEED Tyson as King put on some the greatest cards in history during that period from fighters of all weights. Not to mention the all-time classics King (Foreman-Ali, Ali-Frazier III, etc.) put on before Tyson ever picked up a boxing glove. Cayton and Rooney can't say the same. They certainly 'needed' Tyson. King was a great promoter before Tyson came along. King was a great promoter when Tyson went to jail. King helped Tyson achieve greatness. Shutting King out wouldn't have made Tyson greater. If Tyson had to wait until the next wave of heavyweights like Bowe and Lewis and Mercer and all those guys turned pro and became contenders, honestly, Tyson may never have achieved a fraction of what he did. I certainly see no way he would have had a GREATER career. It was pretty great as is.
