If Cus D'amato had lived.......

tyson was scared of cus and would have never gone off the rails like he did he would have ended up the greatest of all time in everybodies eyes tyson lost the desire very early on but cus would have kept that desire in him.

Bowe huge potential would have been an awesome fight tyson bowe

 

Its Hypothetical, but I'll give answer.

I maintan that Mike Tyson had the potential to be THE best Heavyweight ever, I mean Head & Shoulders above the rest. Think about it, he was so young, he was talented, he had the hunger, desire. He was groomed & molded to be Champion.

D'Amato had Tyson's respect, had his ear, had his number mentally. When Cus spoke, Tyson not only listened but went away remembering what he has been told, etc.

I predict two things in respect of Cus D'Amato having lived:

1. If he had stayed alive, Mike Tyson would probably now be recognised as the best Heavyweight ever & he would nearly be a Billionaire. He certainly would not be in the financial predicament he finds himself in today!

2. Don King would not have got anywhere near him! Cus would have put the block on that right from the off! And the key factor is, Tyson would have listened to Cus more than anyone else!

 

D'Amato is made out to be some kind of Saint. He was mainly interested in Tyson because of the boxing ability and the money making potential.

He let a lot of Tyson's behaviour slide when he was alive, he would of not got rid of Tyson because of what he did when Cus died.

If D'Amato really had been that concerned about Tyson, surely he would of known the pressures of being Heavyweight Champion of the World were the last thing Tyson needed, and would of steered Tyson away from a pro career.

 

Tyson probably eventually leaves D'Amato the way he did Rooney and the way Patterson left D'Amato. He was a father figure, and a great trainer for Tyson and Patterson, but too protective. Father-son relationships rarely work out in boxing, even if they are not actually father and son. Tyson would also be influenced by the likes of Don King and become interested in the "easy" life compared to hard, almost non-stop training that D'Amato demanded of his fighters.

 

I agree with this.
People make out Cus was a saint and some sort of all-knowing sage but he wasn't.
A living Cus D'amato is just another person in the soap opera along with Rooney, Jacobs, Cayton, Givens, King and Tyson.
And Cus was always controversial anyway. He was a difficult person to deal with and prone to mood swings and strange decisions.

I sometimes think people confuse Tyson and D'amato for Luke and Obi-wan (or Yoda even) !

 

Tysons reign may have been longer and more successful but he would have imploded eventually. It was in his very nature and would have been impossible to control.
The more he won, the more money that roled in, and the more his ego grew, he would of become unmanagablefor any trainer.

Cus was the master of boxing psychology. If anyone could of got the best out of Tyson it was him. But it would of gone tits up at some point. Depending on how long Cus could of kept his head in the right place would of been key to how better his career would have been.

 

I think that Tyson was always going to implode eventualy, but there might be scenarios where it gets delayed long enough for him to put some crucial finishing touches to his resume.

 

But not his character.
D'amato was allready compromising his principles on Tyson's behalf ,that's why Atlas walked.
Tyson would have flown the coop at some point.
I think enough excuses have been made for him ,and his actions ,and there were a few incidents where girls and their families were bought off ,early enough in his career to see which way he was heading.

 

Definitely Yoda. The resemblance is uncanny.

 

Yeah but D'amato was very leary of people like Don King. The freedoms that Don King gave Tyson are what took away his discipline and ultimately led to his demise. D'Amato was a boxing guy who understood that discipline and hard training were a big part of boxing. He would have certainly made a more positive influence on Tyson as a fighter.
Tyson was basically running wild at the age of 7 in the streets, so he was always going to be a street type guy, but D'amato made sure he was around "boxing people" for the most part. King's cast of characters werent even boxing people. Snowell was a personal friend of Tim Witherspoon's who used to hang around King's gym and really had zero experience as a boxing trainer, and all of sudden he became the lead trainer of the most popular fighter on the planet. Jay Bright and Rory Holloway were childhood friends of Tyson's, so all the discipline and structure went out the window for a group of friends who were now told they were working for Tyson and he was going to call all the shots.

 

IMO even with Cus, Rooney, 2Pac And the ghosts of Jackie Dempsey And Sonny Liston in his corner - PEAK Mikey Tyson would still of got KTFO in 10 Roundz or less by journeyman Bummy Douglas. :deal

 

Cus was a positive influence and Tyson trusted Cus as a father figure...Cus would have kept Don King at a distance and Don had a hand in the fall of Mike so I do think Tyson would have benefited, may have survived Douglas and if not Cus would have rematched and given that mental victory to Tyson

All and all I think Cus would only be a help to Mike with guidance, experience, a valued friend

 

Maybe. But Tyson would have had the freedom that goes with riches and celebrity anyway. Tyson was still capable of getting into trouble when he was with Cus, and did so. And Cus got a lot of stuff hushed up and bought off. Cus indulged Tyson, maybe not in the same way King did, but he still let Tyson do as he pleased outside of training. Really, if Tyson wanted to **** up and slack off, etc., he was going to anyway.
Actually most young fighters who make money, and champions too, have the battle of staying disciplined.

Ali and Louis spent years ****ing around, and sometimes they came to fights seriously undertrained. Tyson wasn't as great as them though.
Tyson's real mistake was making his life outside of boxing a media circus. It wasn't all his fault, he captured the imagination of the media and public so they looked more closely at him, and he couldn't handle the pressure. I don't see how Cus would have been so brilliant to stop that happening. Cus would have been another angle in the story, he wasn't exactly a master of media relations himself.

Also, if Cus would have been wary of Don King, it could have meant Tyson being frozen out of meaningful fights and fighting the Steve Zouskis of this world for years.

I don't know how it would have panned out but I just don't buy that things would have been better had Cus lived. The boxing business is full of stories of rapid rise and rapid fall, money ruining relationships, and young fighters becoming burned out quick. The Tyson phenomenon was full of risks and pitfalls all along.
Then again, I don't rate him as highly as you do as a fighter, and I think he would have lost soon anyway.