how did tyson find sparring partners

Oliver Mccall was one of his sparring partners for awhile, I guess if anyone was going to be a sparring partner for Tyson it should be him.

 

if you watch one of his earlier fights (cant remember which one, maybe Jose Ribalta?) the pre fight is a little documentary about how he finds his sparring partners and what they go through. They kept a book of who he had sparred with and heaps of them left after the first day because they didnt wanna get beaten half to death

 

Didn't he go through a stage where he was trying to KO his sparring partners, and actually did KO a few?

 

Glenn McCrory was one of his sparring partners for a while, apparently he impressed Tyson with his gameness and never went down in the time they worked together. Tyson seems to like McCrory (despite McCrory being white ) McCrory does interviews for Sky now and he grabbed Tyson before he fought Neilsen in Denmark, Tyson seemed genuinely pleased to see him - must have taken his tablets that day.

 

I read that he paid them 2x the regular rate

 

Sparring partners make a lot less than 30 grand:nono they are there basically to be sacrificed, if they fight back to hard or take any cheap shot's they are shown the door.
Greg Page sparred with Tyson and put him on his ass prior to the Douglas fight, that was a prelude of what was to come when Douglas whipped his ass..:hat

 

Jose Torres, who was trained by Cus D'Amato, claims in his book, Fire and Fear, that before Tyson turned pro they had to pay sparring partners 1000 dollars a week. Nobody would spar with him for anything less!

 

I know exactly what the sparring partners were paid in team Tyson, It was more than your average would get paid for obvious reasons. The first Sparring partners that Mike had when i was assiciated with him were, a Texan named Mike Williams, Oliver McCall, Jessie Ferguson, Greg Page, Mike Jamieson, John Bray, Leroy Seales, Stanley Allen , Nino Ribalta, Glenn McCrory, James Broad, Nathaniel Tubbs, Mark Young, Dereck Williams, Liolnel Washington, Leroy Cauldwell, Calvin Jones, Friday Ahunanya, Larry Alexander, Ellijah Tillery, David Bey, Nate Fitch, Phil Brown, Rick Sekorski, Paul Bradshaw... plus a few more that i may have just escaped me.. I know that the most common injury was rib damage.. Mike waould very often send a lot of sparring partners reeling and sometimes knock a guy clean out even wearing those 20 oz gloves....

Page and McCall were frequent sparring for Mike around the late 80's going into the 90's.. Ferguson was in camp for the first Bruno fight... Ahunanya did a lot of work for the Ettienne fight.. Allen, Seales and Bray the Holyfield fights.. Glenn Mcrory the Biggs and Holmes fights along with James Broad ...For Carl Williams Mike brought in Derrick Williams from the Uk also.For the Mathis fight i remember they had Nate Tubbs and Calvin Jones but didn't like Tubbs being constantly out of shape.. Mike also sparred with Albert Williams for the Botha fight... They were all paid well mostly according to gameness and longevity in camp.. Hope the info is interesting...
God bless..

 

I have been around Mike , Lewis andmost of them cats since i was a kid and have been in camp with almost everyone since 1985.. i now work with a few select fighters . namingly Friday Ahunanya.. he is my friend and i often work his corner.. I am solid with Samuel Peter and was close to the man in my avatar too.. He is Al Williams , he passed away not long after working with Mike in preps for the Botha and Norris fights... I was close friend of old time trainer Johnny Tocco who used to treat me to old time stories of his time with Charlie Liston.. I miss them dearly ... These days i love spending time with Tyrone Boone , Kenny Adams and Thell Torrence.. I miss Eddie Futch.. IMO he was the man.. I spend my time teaching kids to box nowadays .. The next generation is important........ But i do know my stuff from the horses mouth..
God bless..

 

Hey bro , who was your trainer?