Tyson would have declined even with Cus or Rooney.

He was 22 and had taken virtually no damage up to that point. He had at minimum 6-8 years of absolute prime left.

 

I think most fighters decline once they win the title. More rare for them not to. Most are to busy with new found wealth and fame and new obligations to train as hard as they were. Style wise he would be fine if he trained as hard. Look at Floyd and his longevity as an example. Heck even Tyson himself remained a top level fighter for a long time.

 

He had fought a combined 14 rounds in his last 4 fights when Rooney left. He wasn't exactly expending a lot of energy.

Not that energy is a finite bodily resource, it does come back you know. However, damage to the body, to the joints and to the brain, that stuff doesn't come back.

 

Well yes, you right, Joe Frazier wrote in his autobiography that there reaches a point where your body just won’t let you train as you need to for the style he, Rocky Marciano and Mike Tyson used. Frazier reached that point probably right after the fight of the century 1971 with ali, and from here on, his body began to break down.
Same thing with Marciano,who due to his intense training, was suffering from constant back pain. His last camp, against Archie Moore, Rocky cut the sparring and resistance work back because he could not stand the pain without drugs - and Rocky refused to do drugs.
Mike Tyson would likely have the same fate had he continued to train this hard with rooney (in order to make his style, which was required for youth, effective).
Still, if he didn't get rid of his original team, he would have stayed at the top a lot longer (for about 6-7 years, before he starts to decline like Those Who were before him.)

 

It was his lifestyle and general craziness. How can that NOT wreak havoc on the body and mind?

 

With Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton, Mike Tyson had a solid management team. By all accounts, Kevin Rooney, Tyson's trainer, made his charge toe the mark in training. After Jacobs died, Tyson broke up with Cayton and ultimately with Rooney.

- Chuck Johnston

 

I think the OP has a point.
Even if Mike had stayed on the straight and narrow lifestyle wise his prime might have still been relatively short although longer than he actually achieved.
The same level of intensity he showed in his fights he would be working at in his training and that can take it’s toll.

 

I agree generally. I think Cus and esp Rooney is a rationalization Tyson fans make to explain his decline when its really that Mike is a narcissist and once he got famous he was always gonna let it consume him and lose focus regardless of what good influences. Let's not forget Mike showed red flags back when teddy atlas was still training him that the attention and power would go to his head.

Frankly I dont see damato as benevolent a guy as most boxing fans do.

 

Easy to say hindsight, like always.

 

Fixed it for you.

 

Once Holyfield or Bowe beat him he'd have declined psychologically quite quickly even with Rooney or Cus still around, Mike was always unstable mentally a bad loss would have begun the process of self destruction.

 

Tyson was always going to have a short prime, but even if you could have been kept on the straight and narrow for a few more years, that would have been a big gamechanger.

 

We can't discount the prison stint and the role that played either.
Unlike Ali who was exiled but otherwise a free man, Tyson was literally locked up.
His exercise consisted of running on the spot. He lost some muscle mass too, reportedly weighing around 205 in prison.
No fighter can be out the game that long, doing absolutely nothing, and expect to be the same afterwards.
I agree with the general narrative of the opening post.
He was always going to self-destruct, regardless of what.
Where I differ a little is that I don't think it was his style so much as it was him being the smaller man in most his fights. I can't think of a heavyweight that short who did have a very long prime. They generally don't.
Add that to his general madness and the prison sentence and all in all, he did pretty well to be a relevant heavyweight 10 years after winning the title. (Prison sentence noted)