What if Mike Tyson never fired Kevin Rooney?

He'd still be undefeated and undisputed.

 

I don’t think it would have mattered.

Tyson was uncoachable by that point. He didn’t want to be pushed. He didn’t want to learn new things. Hubris had settled in and he thought these guys couldn’t challenge him with their primitive skills.

He was no longer a kid being raised in isolation in Cus D’Amato’s compound. He had money. He had a wife. He had a circle of sycophants telling him what he wanted to hear. And he liked it that way. He had to leave the nest and learn things on his own … and like most of us, he learned a lot of them the hard way.

 

spot on

 

I suppose Rooney was the best that he could have managed, but he would have to have been prepared to listen to him, and I don't think he was by the time they split.

I get the idea that Rooney was lurching from one crisis to another.

 

I think the real question is: "What if Mike Tyson kept Kevin Rooney as his trainer throughout his career and maintained his discipline and focus?" I think if that happened Tyson may rank in the top-5 of all-time greatest HW's. He had tremendous KO power in both hands, great head movement, and great strength. AND...for a power swarmer he was deceptively agile and quick. He had BIG-TIME talent--the kind you see once in a lifetime! His decline was really sad to witness!!

 

I think keeping Rooney MIGHT have helped him given that they had good chemistry. But Tyson had other issues which led to his decline

 

There are those on this forum who know his career better than I, who think that he had a very bad training camp for the Tony Tucker fight.

If they are right then the rot had well and truly set in.

 

Tyson didn't fire Rooney and change ... Tyson changed and as part of his change became the Don King manipulated man child that self destructed infant of the world and fired Rooney ( among many other dicey moves) .. for him to have kept Rooney would have meant he would have retained the D'Amato instilled focus and if he remained that Tyson he had years ahead of him as one of the best heavyweight title holders ever ...

 

Tyson minus the head movement & early willingness to break a fighter down gradually was just short guy with a decent punch. Given his height, he needed to really be on his game against better opposition. He needed to be able to pressure and not get hit. He needed to use his jab to set up his attack. If he didn’t knock a guy out, he needed to settle in and have a consistent assault. Post Spinks, he was a lot more upright & was looking for a quick night.

Rooney had a good connection with Tyson & knew the style that worked. Hell they sounded similar when they talked! It would’ve been interesting to see a prime Tyson against the better fighters that were on the horizon. Bowe, Holyfield, Lewis.

 

My prayers is that i don't turn this into a war.
I'm not saying he would definitely lose to them, but a peak evander holyfield and a peak riddick Bowe would be waiting for him.
I don't think he would lose to the pre steward Lewis.
By the time Lennox reaches his peak, Tyson would already have lost his edge. I know of no fighter in the history of boxing who can go through the kind of non-stop training (like Marciano or frazier) required to use the style mike did for a decade and still be in his prime.

 

I was a big fan of this man once but I was blinded to the fact that a lot of what he did was wasted movement. He cut out all of that after Rooney and it made him a FAR better fighter. A craftier guy who did more with less. Too bad he was never that good to begin with and he came upon some real killers when he hit his prime, and it erased the public memory of his green but funner days from before then.