This is one of the reasons why I say that Mike was always going to fall off, whether Cus stayed alive or not. In hindsight, boxing saved him and destroyed him. With his background and mental and emotional makeup, this is a young boy in a man's body, tortured by what he's been exposed to, exploited for what he can do physically and neglected in terms of his emotional development. I propose that such a fighter would always unravel given enough time and exposure to true tests of character. That he is where he is now is a credit to the man - I never expected him to be alive at this stage of his life.
There's a solid likelihood you are right. Up to and through Berbick Tyson was saying all the right things and coming across as some sort of pure super respectful boxing savior. As he got bigger things took a turn for the worse. There's every chance at some point his ego would have overtaken a lot of the influence and hold Cus had on him.
Like Marv said, hard to go running when you sleep in silk pyjamas. Look at Tyson's alleged antics in Tokyo - money, women and drugs abuse are recipes for disaster for a fighter. Once Mike got money and was loved for saying violent things, the lines between entertainment and reality get blurred. The respectful him was ode to Cus - even in these times, if Teddy is to be believed and Mike says out of his own mouth that he got what he deserved, there was always a darker side bubbling underneath the surface. If anything, the team did well to hide it for so long but it's a bit like sticking tape over a crack in a water pipe - eventually, that is going to blow if you don't fix the root cause/weak point.
So wait a minute....you mean to tell me putting tape over the cracks in my pipes won't work??? Please tell me that putting tape over my check engine light will work!!
Hey ... Sorry to break it to you but if you pretend that it's not happening, the pretence doesn't actually stop it from happening. Like Forrest Gump said, sometimes, it happens.
I read Teddy's book he was also going to shoot Donny Lalonde he showed up at his house with a gun late at night.
Lots of "ifs" here, but Tucker likely wins that tournament IMO without Tyson in the way. Following that, if Tucker stayed busy and inherited Tysons schedule leading up to Spinks, which was vs. Biggs, Holmes, and Tubbs, I think those three would have been great preparation for the Spinks fight. Whether Tucker could have gotten by those three, who knows, but I believe he would have had a decent chance against each of them. I can't see the 1988 version of Spinks getting it done in that scenario vs. Tucker. Tucker was 34-0 (and only 28 years old) I believe entering the Tyson fight, but was really just starting to get his feet wet vs. live opposition. Aside from Broad and Douglas, there wasn't anything noteworthy on his resume. I thought he looked pretty **** good when he finally stepped up the opposition, and picked a terrible time to go on a two year layoff (1987 after the Tyson fight). He was 20-30 pounds heavier upon coming back, and the mobility was mostly gone. I definitely think that guy underachieved to some degree. 'Course, there were several fighters from that era who underachieved for one reason or another, but in my opinion anyway, the "what could have been" award goes to Tucker, at least from the 80s tourney onward, assuming Mike isn't in the picture.