What if Rooney had stayed as Tyson`s trainer after the Spinks fight?

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Great precise post. Nailed it. @Saad54 should get his horse to read this to him and learn something except hero worship.

 

Tyson was more hurt by Jacobs and felt betrayed. I think it had to do with a percentage of Tyson's earnings going to Jim's wife after he died. Not sure if that's the extent.

Had Tyson not fired Rooney I'm sure he doesn't lose to Douglas. He probably doesn't even face Douglas and goes along with Cayton's plan for a world tour. Maybe Mike stays undefeated another 3-4 years, maybe more, who really knows. And once the 90's guys come into play I'm sure Mike would recognize the threat and train even harder.

 

so far as development went Tyson was already a brilliant student of boxing though. Technically he really understood just about everything and was so advanced it was almost scary. For example, The way he out jabbed the much longer armed Tyrell Biggs “just to prove a point” was unbelievable. Ridiculous almost. I think Tyson just lacked a bit of maturity which effected his concentration under fire. I don’t know what could have been done for that. He had probably come too far too fast to fix that. I don’t know what Rooney could have done about that.

** I have just read your point on a later post, about infighting, which I admit is an excellent point where Tyson could have improved.

Tyson had been in consistent incredible physical shape throughout his boxing career. Even if he was “going through the motions” on that particular camp, his weight was spot on and physically he stood up to many more rounds of punishment than a poorly prepared fighter ever could have. I am convinced that Tyson was no less prepared for Douglas than he had been for Tony Tucker, a well documented bad camp that produced a win over somebody who beat Douglas. Tyson went awol for two whole weeks during his training for Tucker with Rooney in charge.

The authority Rooney had over Tyson was only ever conditional. The pair had moved more toward being equals rather than coach and protege. In my opinion Rooney knew how to drill Tyson in the gym and that was it.

 

Lmao

 

You have great imagination

 

I have always thought that Tyson had skill but he lacked the mental maturity to become great. Sure a fighter needs a quality trainer but not someone who is constantly holding his hand so to speak. I think that in all fairness to him, his outside distractions had some influence on him in the ring, such as preparation. When I was employed, I always left whatever issues at the door step of my place of residence, when I punched into the time clock at my place of employment, I only thought of the job at hand. That is the way that a mature man operates, for Tyson, the ring was his place of employment. His marriage to Robyn Givens was a total disaster, Kevin Rooney, his trainer thought so as many people did. It was puppy love, lust. Givens knew Tyson lacked the maturity to handle that kind of commitment. But if he had still kept Rooney, i think that it would have been worse for him, he would have displayed a Passive Aggressive Behavior towards Rooney, derailing his career in retaliation.

 

Tyson was already self destructing and the peek a boo style wasn't going to age well, especially with a less than disciplined fighter. Rooney was a great fit but back injuries, drug abuse and sex addiction meant Tyson’s trainer was always going to be irrelevant in the end.

 

Interesting, I didn't know that the Tucker camp was that bad!

 

Harsh. I am a white male so you can get away with such a disgusting statement.

Btw lets see your mug old man

 

All Tyson had to do to cleanout the division by the end of 89 was beat a couple more guys. If he keeps Cayton and Rooney and stays as active as he had been through the Spinks fight I think he could have done it. Holyfield hardly looked unbeatable at the time and he probably would have gotten to Buster before Douglas's mother died - which we know motivated Buster in their actual fight. Im not saying he wouldnt have gone off the rails eventually or remained unbeaten indefinately.

 

If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas.

Almost every discussion of Tyson always comes down to some excuse or another. He went to jail (for ****, by the way), he didn’t train as hard as he could have, he changed trainers ... cry me a river.

Do we get to put asterisks by the Buster Douglas and Evander Holyfield results and say *has a ‘good’ excuse?

Do we also get to do that for every opponent Tyson defeated? Tony Tucker says his hand was broken. Pinklon Thomas only had one good arm when they fought. Tyrell Biggs had drug problems. Larry Holmes had little time to prepare after a retirement layoff. Does that mean we mythically reverse the results of all those fights and assume they’d win? Why is it only Tyson’s excuses matter?

How about Mike Tyson wasn’t good enough to beat Douglas on the night they fought? How about Holyfield KTFO Tyson in the first fight and made him quit in the second?

(Oh, and don’t mind my buddy @The Morlocks — he thinks flippant is the name of a dolphin.)

 

Great post!!!!!!!

Once more the gold standard of posting!!!!!!!!!!

 

I don't see it making much difference tbh Mark.
Even if Kevin had been around for Tokyo, by then Tyson had stopped listening and wanted a young man's carefree life. He was sick of fighting and being controlled. Rooney wouldn't have saved him. Imo everything came to young for Tyson, he wasn't mature enough then to get his act together.

 

here’s a couple of pieces I found about it:

“He was on the verge of quitting before the Tony Tucker 'Ultimate' fight

A month before one of the most famous fights in his career, in 1987, he almost quit altogether. Tyson says he disappeared from training camp and partied in Albany for two weeks straight.

In a nightclub, he told friends he was going to retire. But his manager, Jimmy Jacobs, called him and said that they would be sued if he backed out of the fight, talking him out of it. He says: "I should have retired then but I didn't have control of my own life." He went on to beat Tucker to become undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.”


“With only a couple of months between both men’s last fights and this unification decider, it would be understandably presumed that both men were single-minded in their approach. However Tyson, disappeared from his training camp and partied for two weeks in Albany. During this extended blow-out, he told friends in a nightclub that he was going to retire from boxing. Jim Jacobs, a renowned handball player in his day and a boxing historian, was also Tyson’s co-manager. Fighting lymphocytic leukemia for several years, he would be dead within seven months of the fight. When Jacobs did eventually get in touch with Tyson, he explained that if he backed out of the fight, they would have been sued. He talked him out of it. But in his 2013 memoir “Undisputed Truth”, Tyson said “I should have retired then but I didn’t have control of my own life.”