Everyone says Tyson got lazy in prison, but he was more shredded when he got out

Isn't the story that he gained a bunch of weight in prison, and then trained hard when he got out to get back into shape? I don't think he looked like that immediately post-prison.

He has complete freak genetics. I assume he can put on muscle and lose fat much easier than most.

 

I think a lot of guys get into the best shapes of their lives while in Prison these days. Most go to the fully equipped gym on a regular basis. There is no reason to think Tyson didn't do the same. In addition, guys often exercise in their cells or rooms as well.

 

Tyson came out of prison absolutely tiny.
He went into prison a heavyweight and came out of prison looking like a super middleweight. His famous 19” neck had shrivelled.

he had to build back up to heavyweight. That’s why Tyson looked “shredded” it was probably body building “methods” he was using to build back up.

“The 5-foot-10 fighter appeared to weigh a bit less than his best boxing weight of 218 pounds, sharply reduced from the 275 pounds he weighed when he entered prison. He wore a dark suit coat without a collar, dark trousers and a white shirt without a tie, and has grown a light beard.”
By William Gildea
March 26, 1995. Washington Post

 

The reason the layoff made him worse isn't because he lacked discipline or stopped working out. Boxers need to maintain their muscle memory and stamina more than anything else. If you haven't thrown a 1-2 in years your timing and sharpness are going to be way off. Even if you shadow box, it just isn't the same without a mirror and a coach watching you to correct problems.

Simply staying strong will not get you back to your peak condition. He couldn't spar, and sparring is absolutely essential in making sure you don't get rusty or sloppy. Simply hitting the heavybag and lifting weights cannot replace that. Even more important is to fight at least twice a year. Tyson went from having a very active lifestyle with a strict healthy diet fighting several times a year, to eating slop and barely doing any real boxing training at all.

 

Boxing is the ultimate sport of the more one does it, the better they become.
Tyson may have looked the same physically once he left prison. But in no way shape or form he was as good before he went in.
TIMING!!!!!! One of the biggest advantages of boxing and sparring regularly would completely by off.
Looking for a hole in an opponents defense is totally different from instinctively finding it.
( The biggest difference in fighters today, their Looking instead of instinctive)
Tyson may have looked good when he exited prison, but he wasn't near the fighter he was before he went in.

 

Yeah tyson coming out of prison looking like a machine is a myth, he came out looking like a cruiserweight and then got on the gear, pretty obvious I thought

 

19 3/4, Holyfield had been listed at 19.5.
Given they were not big HWs nor overweight that was especially huge.
Guys think their neck is the size of the shirt collar they wear, but unless that collar is actively tight, it is likely 1/2-3/4" smaller.
And being heavyset adds size, but Tyson & Evander were fit.
The latter with the help of PEDs.

It is not obvious Tyson used gear; anyone may have, but he was barely heavier than at his peak with similar bodyfat.
He was muscular when a 13 year old & Riddick Bowe saw him waking around Brownsville with a bag of cookies.
Muscle has memory, especially if you have the genetics of Tyson, you work out & eat adequately, that bulk returning is not at all suspicious.

 

Teddy Atlas is notoriously biased against Tyson and even he admits Tyson was a huge naturally muscular freak as a young teen.

I know exactly what you mean by muscle memory for bulking up because that happens to me and my brother too. Granted we're nowhere near as impressive as Tyson at his peak, but we can go a whole year slacking off eating whatever, but once we start doing strength training the muscle builds up quickly and it doesn't take us long to be able to lift what we could previously.

 

Some guys thrive while incarcerated and others wither.

We had a guy we used for years on our club shows who was 1-19-1 when we first started working with him — he was a ‘meat wagon’ guy for a shady fellow who would gather up ‘boxers’ (some of whom they’d show how to throw a 1-2 on the trip to the fight) and take a load of them to fights to lose. We liked this guy after he fought one of our guys and struck up a friendship.

He was in the 140-150 range most of the time. But he had some drug and other problems (and a couple of bullet holes in him from being shot in street altercations) and ended up doing months here and there in jail or prison. He did one stint of I think nine months and came out asking for a fight and he weighed 190, haha, so we found him a cruiserweight to fight. We’d send him a bus ticket wherever he was living and he’d arrive about a week early, do some work in our gym and also make extra money (apart from his purse) by helping with ring set-up and doing some chores around the gym. Plus he got to stay in a hotel for a week, which to him was like going to Disneyworld.

He ended up 19-54-1, which ain’t much but that means he won 18 fights under us and got paid pretty decent for his record for the ones he lost. Even got him a club show main event in a nearby town where he made a few thousand for a 10-rounder. And he knocked off a few 3-0, 5-1 types along the way who thought they had easy wins lined up, because he had a pretty decent right and and by gawd he would fight you as long as he was standing.

One of my favorite people I ever dealt with in the business. Even after he retired we kept bringing him in for shows for a week to do chores and eventually he was running the ring set-up crew, organizing a handful of guys and telling them what to do. He would work concessions, set up chairs .. you name it.

But my point is whenever he spent any time in jail he always came out heavier and it was never bad weight. He’d work weights and he was actually getting three meals a day, which didn’t always happen when he was running the streets and doing drugs and such.

 

Don't quote me, I could easily be misremembering this - but I think the facility where Tyson was incarcerated didn't have a weight program, and anything boxing related wasn't allowed. When he was visited by either Pete Hamill or Jose Torres, I think he said he was only doing bodyweight stuff for conditioning. Per Tyson, a lot of his time behind bars was spent reading ...

That being said, the muscle-memory theory alluded to above makes the most sense, along the genetics that made him such a fireplug to being with ... and, post-prison, I think PEDs were a factor; while shredded, his bulk seemed somehow different. Maybe it was pumping iron vs the calisthenics he used for most of his youth, but he looked more bloated -

 

Kind of weird a guy with a good attitude and work ethic like that would keep landing in prison. You'd think he'd be able to make a comfortable, if modest, life for himself.

 

PEDs have no natural correlation with bloating.
Unless you are talking HGH, & that makes your literal stomach grow absent any more body fat.
Often bones too.
Others on this thread including the OP said the

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: that he looked more shredded.

Regardless, being almost exactly the same size & body fat as before is not in itself at all suspicious.
And when you have to add maybe it was lifting which he did not do before to account for a difference you perceive differently from others...
That is a very thin & unfair reed to assume or hang PED use on.

 

I just thought he took up lifting weights to get his muscle back, and in the process ended up leaner than usual. The before and after difference didn't seem anywhere near enough to accuse steroids. Looked like he added a few pounds of muscle, lost a few pounds of fat.

 

He was of and from the streets. He also, as noted, had a drug and drinking habit (but when he was in town with us he had a bit of structure, wanted to do good and never had a single issue with that). And though I don’t remember asking him I’m guessing he was a high school dropout and had no real skills other than that he could (crudely) fight a bit. Very unstable upbringing, very unstable relationships.

He bounced between three or four towns and I’m not sure he did much training besides shadow boxing and running (as in didn’t frequent a gym) between our fights. In being with us for a week just working bag and mitts you could see him improve pretty drastically over a few days as we’d work on maybe three things for a particular fight.

I think with a more supportive environment and had he walked into a gym at the right age and had someone who cared, he probably could have become a good journeyman. Worked his corner many times and the one thing about him was if you instructed him to do something by goodness he would go out and try to do it — if you said double jab and circle to your right, he’d do that like it was the most important thing in the world. Now he might not always do it well, but he’d certainly give his all to execute it.

He fought a kind of tough man guy who was bigger and stronger, probably like 4-0 with all knockouts who thought he was more than he was. Told him he was going to take some punishment but he had to keep walking this guy down and back him up. He took a pretty good pasting for two rounds but by the third the other guy lost a bit of steam and my guy kept chugging forward and he began landing his right hand and just battered him until he stopped him.

We also gave him a good gimmick — put a cowboy hat on him and a poncho and had him come out to Hank Williams Jr’s ‘Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound’ and people just ate his ‘black cowboy’ act up. He was very popular on the local club circuit, win or lose.