Great insightful interview about cus Mike and teddy from teddy atlas' pov

Teddy was more important for Mike Tyson than Kevin Rooney.

 

I listened to most of it — skipped through some of the early parts about his father mostly to get to the boxing stuff.

Teddy’s an interesting character and has a fascinating outlook on life. He’s one of those guys with ‘a code’ and he measures everything against that without a lot of thought to practical considerations (which he considers weakness or betrayal or something in those neighborhoods) even if the practical consideration is actually doing what’s right.

He measures not just himself by that code, but other people too. it makes for a hard life, because who ever measures up to unbending devotion, loyalty and fealty to any ideal … much less to any person (no matter how flawed).

I’m glad he and Mike have reached some sort of detente, if not complete peace. It’s better for both and for all: Mike f’d up, Teddy f’d up, Cus f’d up … everybody f’s up at some point or another. Mostly it’s not worth holding onto for a lifetime. Resentments do terrible things to you — someone once told me it’s like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies from it, haha. Probably worse for the person holding the resentment than the person who is resented.

In this interview, he concedes, or asserts, that in his mind by his definition of greatness, the Mike Tyson he saw on the night he fought Michael Spinks might have been great. Otherwise, he falls short. He wasn’t tested that night, but believes from what he saw in 91 seconds that he would have passed any test.

But he parses how he sees greatness in ways most don’t (and I think he’s consistent in this and not using it as a cudgel to beat Tyson because of past ill will). To Teddy (and he got this from Cus, don’t forget), greatness is what we learn when a person faces adversity and overcomes it. He maintains Tyson never did this in 60 or so fights, and that the five times he did … he folded each time.

He says Tyson was a great athlete, perhaps the greatest blend of speed and power ever assembled in boxing. So he was great physically. He hit as hard with both hands as probably anyone ever (he mentions Joe Louis being on that level) — saying fighters like Shavers and Wilder hit super hard with one hand but Tyson could do it with both. So if that’s your definition of greatness, I feel pretty sure Teddy would see why you think he’s great. But he says (in his opinion) in Tyson’s wins, and I’m paraphrasing, he already had his fights won — either he was a monster truck facing a Volkswagen (his physical superiority was too great for them to overcome) or he had them intimidated (the old Cus mental game, fear vs fire) or both. But when he faced situations against Buster and Holyfield where he didn’t have those edges (neither feared him that night, neither caved to his physical advantages) … Tyson didn’t pass the test.

Because Teddy says true greatness is demonstrated when a fighter overcomes when he’s not superior and his opponent isn’t afraid and still prevails. He summons the will to overcome the opponent and his shortcomings and his own fears (‘this guy is kicking my ass’) and rises above everything.

By this measure, I think Teddy is quite right. Yes, Tyson could beat a lot of the best heavyweights who ever lived. But there’s zero in his career that tells us he could beat a superior fighter or win when the chips are down.

I personally am not a big fan of Teddy. I think he buys too much into his ‘I’m a real tough guy’ — the kind of guy if you called him a liar he’d pull out a cigarette lighter and hold his hand over the flame until his flesh burned to a crisp or you took it back haha, like that would prove something. But he is interesting to listen to and his story is pretty remarkable … not a lot of guys were at ground zero of what is probably the most fascinating boxing career of most of our lifetimes.

 

Atlas has an axe to grind against Tyson and always will. He's a wannabe tough guy (according to his book he was going to shoot Donnie Lalonde literally) and the scar on his face is supposedly from a "street fight" sure ok. He talks about Cus downplaying his role with Tyson and this is easy to do since Cus is no longer here. He never had a superstar fighter and the one he got kind of close with lost to a 45 year old George Foreman. Atlas is bitter, period.

 

My thanks to you for posting this and your summary that piqued my interest.

I’d have lost my life savings making what I’d have figured would have been the safest bet I’d ever make if you’d have asked me if I’d ever spend two hours listening to Teddy Atlas, haha — I’d have bet everything that would never happen.

But I’m glad I did. I’m not familiar with the interviewer but he did a great job zeroing in on interesting points without jumping to low-hanging fruit, baiting or trying to make it about himself.