Was Mike Tyson well known before he became World Champion

He had already taken the boxing world by storm before he fought for his first world title. The way in which he was destroying his early opponents, and at such a young age, was making headline sports news.

Plus he was on Saint and Greavsie so he must have been special.

 

yeah I'd say he was well known. His fight against Trevor Berbick was huge. He had taken out many lesser guys in the lower ranks, but noone quite expected him to obliterate the entire heavyweight division in the same way.

 

Definitely, he had network tv coverage prior to Berbick. will never forget his annihilation of Marvis Frazier on ABC.

 

In Brownsville he was well known!!

 

I was a big Bruno fan around the time of his comeback from the Witherspoon defeat in '86. I remember people telling me that there was this young lad in America with a name like a dog, who was 'killing' everyone and was a bigger, harder puncher. Of course I laughed it off until his meeting with Berbick. Video footage was hard to come by in those days.

 

fighting on ABC against Ferguson, Frazier, Tillis and on HBO on undercards of Michael Spinks, also headlining against Mitch Blood Green and Jose Ribalta on HBO...he was all over TV and everyone knew him and couldnt wait to watch him....all those fights above when he was 19 and 20 years old

 

That's right - he was a legend in New York before he made his television debut.

 

like before age 20 ? i was really young but i can remember my older brother talking about how he was the baddest fighter every to lace up a pair .

 

Hell yeah Brooklyn stand up!

 

Yeah, during early 1986 HBO and Don King were building up a series of heavyweight title fights that would result in a unification and an undisputed champion.

Meanwhile, out of nowhere came Tyson who was fighting every 2 or 3 weeks and making headlines with his style and televised KOs. I remember seeing him on TV in the UK when he was still a 19-year-old (around April or May, maybe early June). By the mid-summer of '86 it was looking like he needed to be included in the unification series.

By the time he fought Berbick in November 1986 he was all over the newspapers as a sensation, getting more attention than any other heavyweight.

So, people hadn't really been talking about him for a long time, but it was a lot of attention very quickly.
He was definitely managed well and marketed very effectively. He was hyped to the max. And when he crushed Berbick he did a lot of justify that hype.

 

The dog names came AFTER tyson with the amount of f***wits naming their devil dogs after him. FFS i know people who named their KIDS after him, poor kids.
Tysons name was well known by boxing people before he beat Berbick, it was only after it that everyone knew who he was because of the press saturation

 

I know but I just remember thinking it sounded like a dog name at the time - spooky.

 

he was getting his name in the boxing magazines at quite an early stage in his career. he was managed very well. his team sent footage of tyson to the media, and they eat it up. the boxing world needed a great heavyweight and popped along tyson, the saviour of heavyweight boxing.

 

YES. Boxing insiders already were talking about him, and he was already in front pages of several magazines even before he was a world champion.