Tyson-Dempsey comparison

Oh, please to name the bitter ex-trainers and quote them.

 

It's easy to hold Dempsey to either too high or too low of a standard when it comes to the color line. The definition of "hero" includes the expectation that very few will rise to that level, meaning that most people are, of course, ordinary. Ordinary people more or less follow the trends of the times. That's what makes them ordinary. People are (or should be) deemed extraordinary or heroic in their context. In Dempsey's context, his behavior with regard to black fighters was ordinary for the times. Nothing blood-curdlingly KKK-style racist, but nothing heroic, either. And he certainly had opportunity to be heroic, and, IIRC, the NYSAC gave him cover by making Wills the mandatory.

 

I agree with all the above. Dempsey was not Jeffries, nowhere near. I am sure he was a rough hewn product of his times in the early going. And no one should judge harshly on that; it's an existence few, if any of us, has had to endure. For him and his brand, the Wills duck was convenient at worst. I'm sure he would have gamely fought Wills had his management said so or it was commercially expedient. And later in life as he became more worldly, he showed to be a sympathetic, ethical human.

 

I think Tyson is rarely evaluated fairly. If he's intractably fragile mentally, then we can't really explain every aspect of his ascent, i.e., his competition may have been less than stellar during his mythic 1985-88 run, but a lot of those guys were tough competitors who would have won or at least done better if Tyson's will were so easily crushed.

And besides just the fact of his victories, if you look at some of his performances from that period, you can't take your eyes off the technique and the execution -- or at least you shouldn't be able to. No one gets to that point with a mind delicate as a dandelion gone to seed.

But I also think there is no reasonable way that we can't admit that, even at his best, he was prone to becoming bored in the ring, doing just enough, and waiting for opportunities for the KO rather than working to create them. But I don't think a predilection for boredom and laziness is what people mean when they say he was mentally weak. Every (or virtually every) ATG has had moments or streaks like that.

I also don't think people mean that he was inclined to quit on his stool, which would obviously be false.

I think what people mean is that, even before Douglass, Tyson was on borrowed time until he ran out of psychological fuel and momentum.

Of course we can't talk about Tyson without talking about D'Amato, but I never realized just how utterly dependent Tyson was on D'Amato psychologically until I read Iron Ambition. We've all seen the YouTube videos where Tyson can't seem to mention Cus's name without crying, but I at least partially chalked that up to Tyson's present reflective state generally. The book makes clear, though, that Tyson was obsessed with pleasing D'Amato and making his prophecy come true. Once Cus was dead and the prophecy fulfilled, the wheels came off, and he was never able to quite get them back on and run true again.

In short, that degree of abject addiction to D'Amato and the inability to transcend it and find his own way is surely a sign of weakness that must be reckoned.

No matter what, though, he would always take his beatings with fortitude. I've often thought that the fight he appeared to enjoy the most was Ruddock 2. In Ruddock he faced a big, strong, hard-hitting guy who was willing to stand and trade with him, and it appeared to me that he was enjoying getting hit as much as he did hitting. It was as if his sado-masochistic nihilism (which may have been the only fire he still had left after Spinks) had found its best expression with Ruddock.

 

But I question Dempsey's heart. He made five defenses in 7 years. That needs to be weighed against the credit Dempsey gets for being a warrior. Three of those were against career light heavyweights. I don't get why this is overlooked.

And getting back in the ring in a fight you are winning is a lot easier than keeping going against Douglas when you're getting a pasting. I'm not saying Dempsey didn't have heart but those examples (Firpo, Sharkey) don't outweigh the ones I cited to demonstrate Tyson's heart. I look at the image of a semi-conscious Tyson grappling to put his mouthpiece back in Tokyo so he could continue in a fight in which he was getting battered and that speaks greater volumes for Tyson's heart than the testament of Teddy Atlas who has an axe to grind.

All I'm saying is that I think it's unfair to make such a dismissive appraisal of Tyson's fighting heart when crediting Dempsey's. It is either not giving Mike his due, being a bit over generous towards Jack without really supporting it or a bit of both.

 

Bloody brilliant. I wish I had read this before I made my most recent post. I wouldn't have bothered.

 

SSDD..."Same ****...different day!!!

 

Great refutation. Your lack of an argument is beyond telling.

 

Horrible post. You come across as a blatant, misinformed and shallow minded "fan".

Tyson wouldn't have been as successful if he had even 1/10 of the flaws you describe here.

 

Talk with Rooney and Atlas as I have. They worked with Tyson for many years. They knew his flaws. You do not.

 

I've had several talks with Rooney and Steve Lott over the years. I don't care what Atlas has to say.

 

To add to my last post, neither guy had a bad word to say about Mike while he was with the original team. They talked about his flaws after the original Team Tyson had disbanded.

 

So much miss information from Ezz.

It was common to take a title on the road when a fighter became hwt champion. They all did this. Corbett appeared in plays, others toured with exhibitions, vaudeville. Dempsey and his management worked in the new medium.... motion pictures. If you know the history you would be much less apt to make gross errors by looking st past events through 2017 eyes. HUGE MISTAKE.

 

They know his flaws and predominantly they were between his ears. Head case of unimaginable proportions.

 

Tysons mental issues are very well understood today. It's why he is not rated higher than he is.