I see no reason for any major Qawi-isms to manifest in Tyson, really. First, Tyson had far more power and that would come to the forefront sooner than later. What would have been a series of jabbing-ducking-rolling-countering over the top sequences as Qawi would have been far more abbreviated as Tyson, because the power changes it. One sequence of punches from him and the opponent is running for his life. Changes the tenor of a fight. Qawi's arms were longer too, and he was more jab-focused as a result. Tyson was always better jabbing his way in as well, but they were just setups for other punches immediately coming. Qawi could jab your head off from down low and keep a steady flow of them coming. Just different fighters with different gifts, so I only see just so much opportunity for crossover there. One had immediate impact power, the other one chopped you down more gradually, necessitating a different set of skills.
Why train a guy with top tier power and speed to fight in a style focused on grinding the opponent down?
I'm not sure how we could know how he would have employed a different style since we only ever saw him using peek-a-boo (to varying and declining degrees). Given his athleticism, speed, and power, I'm sure he could have made just about anything work to a pretty good extent. I think peek-a-boo was a good style for him, but it was incomplete as he practiced it even at his best. To perfect it he should have spent a lot of time training short-range fighting with Roberto Duran rather than just idolizing him from afar.
If he was 6'4", sure. 5'10" with short arms, he was limited. When was his short range fighting ability really an issue? His issues seemed to be dealing with outfighters with good power, and fighting from a clinch.
Well I think you could consider Qawi a better boxer so dare I say it ,he may improve? But it depends what you’re looking for. I think the rot that came about due to his lifestyle would affect this style more then his old one however. In short I don’t know. At least he’d be able to fight on the inside in his prime?
Because fundamentals and superior boxing win fights. If let’s say Tyson fought like a carbon copy of Billy Conn (with power obviously) he’d be nigh unbeatable at HW.
The entirety of Tyson's training and strategy was built around closing the distance and cutting off the ring against runners with long jabs and lateral movement, and he was very good at it. Opponents of that kind were always looking to create space so they could utilize their reach advantage and avoid his power. In so doing they in fact found themselves stuck at mid-range as Tyson advanced, and mid-range was where Tyson was very, very dangerous. Since the overwhelming number of fighters (especially the good ones) that he faced in his best years were of this type, you are quite right that he hadn't much need of a good inside game. If a fighter wasn't looking to move away from him and thereby gifting Tyson his preferred mid-range, then he got stuck. See, for example, the Bonecrusher Smith fight. Now, Smith also had no ability to fight at clinching range and was only trying to survive, so he never posed any danger to Tyson, but Tyson was not at all impressive in that fight except for a couple instances in which the tried a long jab coupled with a deep slip to the left to avoid Smith's attempt to hug him. But now imagine that fight if Tyson had spent six months with Roberto Duran. Now fast forward ten years to the Holyfield fights, in which Tyson faced a top-tier opponent who, rather than try to get away from him behind a jab, stood his ground and was very effective at very short range. Once Tyson closed the distance with an initial combination he was out of options because Holyfield didn't cooperate in giving him mid-range options. Again, imagine those short-range exchanges if Tyson had gone to school on Roberto Duran. We always hear, and it is true, that Tyson's decline was marked by his abandonment of the frenetic head movement, explosiveness, and rapid high-count combinations of his pre-1990 days. But I don't think any of those things would have helped him much against Holyfield because he would still be finding himself at a range where Holyfield was just better.
Cus definitely taught Tyson how to fight on the inside, Rooney just got too comfortable with him finishing it early and looking for the kill shot if it went even just a little deep, imo Atlas would have kept his inside up to par, he had the left hook and uppercut to apply some Frazier, Cus definitely had him study Frazier, I think at Tyson's best we maybe saw 92% of it, without Cus the show was never complete, with Atlas and Rooney it could have been 96%
I'm not sure if a cross armed block would work for Tyson. His arms were so short and stubby and his superb head movement would decline fighting out of that stance. His combination punching would also go down a notch. On the plus side it might improve his inside game depending on the coach. I don't think the trade off would be worth it tho and Tyson might be far less explosive.
I personally do not think that any trainer could have saved Mike Tyson's career going into his ill fated title defense against a tragically motivated James Buster Douglas on Feb 11 1990 in Tokyo Japan. Tyson lost his desire for boxing, he was not hungry anymore much like the fictional character Rocky Balboa in the motion picture Rocky III (1982) I really wouldn't have mattered if it was the trainer of Dwight Muhammad Qwai, or Emmanuel Steward, Angelo Dundee, or even Eddie Futch. Tyson was lost, he listen to his gold digging wife, Robyn Givens and her mentally ill mother Ruth Roper, in parting ways with Kevin Rooney, the corner he had in Tokyo were a bunch of Yes Men. Tyson's training habits were void as he really seemed to not care about boxing or the title anymore. He is essence got fat on the title, not willing to work hard to keep it anymore, the slope down happened in a hurry.
