At 37-0 who did you think was going to beat Tyson

Jerry Izenburg stated that Tyson was a great fighter, but by the time he got to Tokyo, all that was left was the aura of a great fighter

 

Its a good quote.

He wasn't doing any of the things that took him to the top, he wasn't eating right, wasn't sleeping, and was starting to get taxed in sparring.

That's significant. Mike Tyson sparred hard, and he sparred often. Guys starting to hammer him in sparring means he was starting to accumulate hundreds of round of superfluous punishment.

When he got in the ring with Douglas, he was fighting a fighter who had trained like he was desperate to win a championship, and Tyson had trained like he didn't care if he kept it. The result was a completely one-sided butt kicking. We focus often on the talent and the skill in boxing, but the work, the work is just as important. You can be the better fighter, the better athlete, but if you aren't in shape, and if you aren't sharp, it suddenly becomes VERY difficult to beat a competent prizefighter who is.

 

I was there in Tokyo when Tyson was banging those bitches.

If Mike had Cus & Jimmy Jacobs, he would have never gone off rails. He would have been the greatest Heavyweight of all-time.

 

I've heard he was pulling all nighters, getting wasted, showing up to training late...

Man, that's just not a good idea.

 

I think the hunger and animal had gone by then, he was no longer the poor bullied boy from brooklyn out for revenge, he was now Don Kings spoilt little brat wearing big white expensive coats.

According to the Peter Heller book, it states Tyson was living on just soup to bring his weight down because hed ballooned up. Bill Cayton also stated that he believed Tyson had starved himself for the fight in order to make weight. He said this went back to something Cus used to tell Tyson that heavyweights permit themselves to become grossly overweight because they didnt have to make weight and Tyson didnt want to turn up looking like that.

The key word there is sharpness, Tyson had none of it since he left Rooney. As we discussed in another thread, a sharp puncher (hard or not) hurts/stings alot.

Look at how sharp Douglas was and look at how extremely sharp Holy was in 96 compared to Tyson who looked liked a bum off the street.

 

According to his autobiography, he was doing that AFTER the Douglas fight as well.

He was having drink problems before the Stewart fight.

 

I pegged Holy as the guy to do it after he beat Dokes. He had that warrior mentality and was as strong as an ox.

I kind of chuckle at the "if he kept Rooney" mythos -- the very fact that he fired Rooney says all I need to know about that. It shows that Tyson, by that point, didn't think he needed Rooney. And that tells me that regardless of who was in charge of his training, Tyson no longer would listen to them, be it Rooney or anyone else. He was untrainable by that point, which is why he chose lackeys who wouldn't even bother to try to make him work out properly because they were dependent upon him and couldn't stand up to him without fear of losing the gravy train.

The first thing I learned in training figthers (some amateurs, a few pros back in the day) is that they are not puppets. You can tell them they need to run ... and some of them won't do it. You can tell them to be at the gym ... and a lot of them don't show up. You can tell them to hold their hands up ... and they get in the ring and do what they want. The ones who do the work get better, but the ones who want to do what they want to do when and how they want to do it ... they end up losing. And mostly they then blame everyone but themselves.

Tyson lost respect for Rooney -- he would not have fired him if he hadn't done so. And that means all of Rooney's ability as a trainer wouldn't have meant a thing if Tyson chose to chase women, drink, half-ass it in the gym when he bothered to show up at all, etc.

 

I thought as long as he could avoid an eye injury...Bobby Czyz was the one who would do it.

 

I was not surprised at Tyson decline. I thought Holyfield would pull it off and I was intrigued by the prospect of a Foreman match up. I just don't think that the compact slugger has a long shelf life. When the lose a little, they lose alot.....

 

Excellent post

 

Actually, Tyson fired Rooney because Rooney sued him.

Tyson was meant to take Rooney back after the Bruno fight, he made him miss that fight as a punishment, but Rooney sued him during that time and that totally destroyed their relationship.

The reason Tyson was pissed at Rooney was because he took Caytons side, by taking Caytons side, Rooney was going against Tysons wife at the time (and her mother) and Don King.

tyson always respected rooney and actually listened to his advice in th corner, something he never did with the others including Giachetti, Brooks and Roach. King was whispering to tyson to get rid of Rooney for financial reasons and Rooneys skin colour, it had nothing to do with Rooney being 'hard' on tyson. That only became an issue after King got into tysons ear, once King got hold of Tyson he used every excuse he could to rid of Rooney

 

No Tyson didnt even fire Rooney, he just never called him again. He was too much of a ***** to call Rooney and fire him. He didnt lose respect for Rooney either, he just didnt want to train hard anymore, and he didnt call back Rooney because Rooney went on talk shows and HBO and said that he agreed with Bill Cayton and went on record saying Tyson was doing the wrong thing. With Rooney went Lott and Cayton, and really Tyson wasnt planning on going with King, he was going to let Roper, Givens and Trump manage his career. Once Roper and Givens realized they had no clue, King swooped in for the kill and eliminated all of them.

After the Spinks fight, I dont think anyone could honestly say Holyfield was going to be the one to beat Tyson. Holyfield was looked at as too small and too wild to match up well with Tyson at that point. Lewis and Bowe were still green. With Tyson screwing off the way he was, people familiar with how boxing works, believed it could have been anyone with any type of skills, ie Douglas to beat him. Mentally Tyson was no longer the focused well disciplined fighter. A top ten guy willing to step up and not be afraid was going to take him out and in retrospect seeing how he performed against Bruno was pretty telling as to what was going to come.

 

Rooney himself stated he knew Tysons time was up during the Bruno fight. he said had bruno been a better fighter, hed have got Tyson out of there.

Tysons record with Rooney was 36-0. Post Rooney he was on his ass picking his gumshield off the canvas like 2 fights later.

 

Did you join in, or just watch ?

It's a nice thought, but in reality, the 21-year-old Tyson would probably easily grown tired of Cus's plans and philosophizing.

He's a young black multi-millionaire mega-star in 1988 with access to the whole menu of *****, wants to go rolling through Harlem at night and get some love from his peoples, and why not ?
I doubt he'd want to be spending every night listening to a 90-year-old Cus talking about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

The irony is that now hes 45 years old, he looks back at that stuff and cries his eyes out because he knows hes been a twat majority of his life and Cus was right all along