"Cus had the greatest mind in boxing. He always predicted things that would happen and they all came true, everything came true what he predicted.. I mean, come on man.. it's scarey s*** right? Just a little example is when he had Cassius Clay spar Floyd in 1959, he said there and then that they would one day fight eachother in a heavyweight title fight. When we had Lennox Lewis over in 1984 way before the LA Olympics sparring Mike, he said there and then that those two would one day fight eachother for the heavyweight title. You know, guys would go to him for advise all the time. He was more of an advise man. Ray Robinson went to him and Cus' particular advise for him worked, Rocky Marciano went to him and Cus' particular advise for him worked, Joe Frazier went to him and Cus' particular advise for him worked, to name just a few. Every bit of advise he gave to those who came to him - worked! Ali came to him and actually admitted privately to Cus that he was worried about the Foreman fight, but Cus soon sorted him out mentally. Also, Cus told Ali: 'George doesn't respect your punch, so go out there and nail him!', if you watch the fight, you see in the first two rounds that Ali plants himself and nails Foreman hard with a straight hand - right on the button! Now that was due to some work Cus had done with him for a quick half hour. And you can see the suprise in Foreman's eyes! With 30 seconds left in the rounds, Ali would open up on Foreman. So, after every f***in' round, George is going back to his corner and they'd be telling him that Ali can't punch! That was the psychology and Cus saw that. After the rope-a-dope, Foreman was tired and he more or less gave up. I don't know if Cus gave Ali the rope-a-dope tactics though, I think he may of though."
does anybody else get sick of the cus ****? you'd think if he was this big wizard of boxing that he'd A. had more titles B. not played politics and held floyd out of some fights with big time competition
What i wanna know is 1)What did Cus think when he saw Lennox/Tyson spar, as to who would win etc. 2) What did Cus think of Holyfield, who had sparred Tyson just before the olympics.... Even if Rooney could answer these, id love to know.
Cus helped Marciano, Frazier, and Robinson? I didn't know this and never heard of this. I know the Ali story. It was more or less Cus saying that you got to nail Foreman early to show him who's boss. Kind of similar to Dundee's advice to Ali for the second Liston fight.
Being as how Cus' advice always worked, you have to wonder why Kevin didn't ask Cus before he died how he could stay Tyson's trainer for the long term, and then followed that advice. Kind of going overboard to try to claim the success for Ali, Robinson and Marciano all due to Cus in some way -- yep, Ali probably would have never beaten Foreman if Cus hadn't told him to hit the guy hard. Bet Cus also said, 'Lay on the ropes and cover up and let him punch himself out,' too.
Some of you are selling Cus short. He was a very important figure in boxing both in front and behind the scenes. And as for him playing politics: How could you not play politics in the 1950s, the most corrupt and monopolized era in the history of boxing? Cus was doing what he felt he had to do to protect his fighter and his interest. You can criticise how he went about it but until you walk in his shoes in that era dont sit on a high horse and pretend you would have done things differently. It was as simple as putting Patterson in with fighter A. or fighter B. when fighter A and B were controlled by Frankie Carbo, Jim Norris, or both. The way Cus saw it he had the hottest commodity in the sport and he wasnt about to sell out his interest or even a portion of his interest for a mere percentage of what he stood to make. Those guys operated in at least as sleezy a manner as Don King and how many of you would let Don King near your HW Champion? Thats what I thought.
Rooney is exaggerating, as Cus did a lot. Also Rooney is not sharpest knife in the drawer. He is a straight talker, he probably heard these stories from Cus and believes them .
