What made Mike Tyson so popular ?

Exciting style, invincible aura, american, charismatic and heavyweight in his prime

Then controversy, crazy personality, and the stuff above for after he got out of prison

 

1) Cus D'Amato and Jim Jacobs were masterful promoters who knew exactly how to build a brand and sell that brand to the public.

2) Mike Tyson was extraordinarily talented and came equipped with a fighting style that any casual fan could appreciate.

3) Many working class people felt a deep connection to Tyson because of his story and because he came along when Hip Hop culture was gaining visibility and momentum. He was therefore seen by many as an ambassador for working class people everywhere...

 

i feel privaledged to have grown up in the invincible tyson era, tyson cememented my interest in boxing, he was known by everybody, even the girls at school new all about tyson.

he was fascinating because he was so young, because of his power, head movement and athleticism (checkout his round 6 knockout of pinklon thomas). tyson was a throw back to the old days, he was a boxer that wasn't interested in boxing 12 rounds, he just wanted to knock his opponent out as fast as he could. there were was a huge aura of fear about tyson for his opponents, many were more interested in surviving than trying to beat him.

tyson built up an unbelievable aura of invincibility, he was so much better than everyone else that you just couldn't see how he could be hurt, let alone beaten by anybody. when buster douglas beat tyson, it was one of the most shocking things i've ever seen in my life, douglas was something like a 33/1 underdog and he fought the most unbelievable fight that night, i was up watching that fight at 4am in the morning with a room full of people and nobody could believe what they had seen.

there were a few things that brought about tysons decline, namely cus damato's death, robin givens, and prison, but for me the biggest mistake tyson ever made was getting rid of kevin rooney. rooney and tyson were brilliant together, the head movement rooney instilled in tyson was frightenning and when fighters missed tyson, he fired upwards with great leverage from his low centre of gravity.

tyson was never the same after rooney went for me, after prison, tyson went on to become a pale shadow of his former self, he was still good but he was no longer the complete package. i reckon peak tyson would have obliterated the likes of holyfied but tyson was no longer the same fighter then, the 19-23 year old tyson was head to head one of the greatest p4p fighters of all time imo.

 

Don't discount D'Amato's impact. Remember that he also managed Floyd Patterson...the first fighter in history to get a 7 figure purse.

 

The biggest things that helped make Tyson big early were a very fan friendly fighting style, (with the skills to back it up too) excellent marketing, and constant exposure. Then once he got big, he was SO big and so impressive that the Tyson aura was never going away. More detail:

1. Most casual boxing fans, including those in the US, primarily love fighting toe to toe and big, sensational knockouts. HArdcore guys with the right temperament can talk about the beauty of a perfect jab or the technical soundness in the way a fighter's footwork or feints all day long, but the casual fans and even most big fans come to see two guy hit each other other as hard as they can until a KO. Tyson supplied that in a big way. Then when you add in his other skills, the speed, the combinations,the occasional displays like this:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g30sm3OBUN4&t=3m45s"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g30sm3OBUN4[/ame]
(3:45)

and you had a phenom both the hardcore and casual fan could get behind. What's more, the US loves a winner, a guy who completely blows out the competition, kicks everyone's ass, and does it with a perfect record. What's not to love about a prospect with great moves and power who's 19-0 with 19 KOs, many of them spectacular? Even if you didn't see them yourself, you heard people talk about them, and the legend spread. Which leads into...

2. The people connected to Cus who took care of Tyson's management knew what they were doing. They made sure that every single fight of Tyson's career was televised, and that the footage was cirulated all the time. They bundled it, got the word out, got people talking about it. Before every Tyson fight people were seeing other big KOs by Tyson, and it created a buzz.

Image wise, while Tyson came off like an intimidating badass inside the ring, when it came to things like interviews, endorsements, talking about classic fights, they tried to keep him very controlled and coming off very positively. Tyson didn't always stick to the script on this, but for a long time Tyson would knock out guys like a madman, then give amazing calm interviews where he praised his opponents. Meanwhile his management team played up nice guy Tyson by making a big deal out of the times he would go and try to help a fallen opponent up, all that kind of stuff.

As hard as it is to believe now, for a long time Tyson was one of America's sweethearts, the way Ray Leonard was. He was the athlete getting all the endorsements, starring in commercials, etc. That didn't really sour until after Don King was pretty much totally in charge of Tyson. Until then, Tyson was like the 80s action star, except in real life.

3. The other really smart thing that was done with Tyson early in his career was constant exposure to the public, and constant fights. His management understood that getting famous is a matter of momentum, that you have to get your name out there to create a buzz and then keeping making it stronger and bigger until everyone is talking about you. Instead of Tyson scoring 1 incredible KO then taking a break for awhile before his next fight, he was out into another one right away. Seriously, look at Tyson's schedule early in his career, he fought every couple of weeks.

Because of that, people kept seeing his name and these fantastic results, and it got embedded in people's mind. If, say, Tyson was averaging a fight every 2 or 3 months, it gives the casual fans just long enough to start forgetting or to not recognize his name when someone talks about him. Instead, he became all people could talk about.

Plus, that was a better time for boxers. We're talking about just a couple of years after Muhammad Ali finally retired for good, you still have Leonard, Hearns, and Hagler around, etc. so it was easier for a fighter to be mainstream.

There are probably other factors you can throw in too, including the connections that Cus & company had in the sport, (trust me, there was probably a lot of times that favors were called in to make writers do features on Tyson, to write good things about him, etc) but those are the main ones that made him famous first with the fans, then with the general public.

 

his string of 1st round KO's for one. That alone gave him more publicity than other fighters coming up in the ranks with similar records. I remember watching his 12th or 11th fight on TV and he already had the entire crowd cheering for him before the fight at some skeevy boxing shithole of a venue. His brutal KO's caught a buzz in the boxing world real early and I remember him being on the cover of Sports Illustrated before he won his title. Once he broke the record and became the youngest champion ever, his stock rose from there. Sponsorships came, video games, before you knew it he became a household name.

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apparently tyson was also popular because he is reported to have a 14 inch ****.

 

is that how you became a fan?

 

no it was a point discussed in the lounge yesterday, think it was something desiree washington claimed :huh

try being a clever **** again and i will track you down, grab your scrawny neck and uppercutt you 84 times in succession with ferocious power and breathtaking accuracy :deal

 

In the ring Tyson created the illusion that he was an unstoppable wrecking machine. His TV friendly style along with good marketing and smart matchmaking allowed him to do what Larry Holmes was never able to do: He got out of Ali's shadow.

Most fans give Holmes a ton of respect now, but when Holmes was champ he was not well liked. Tyson was a very different fighter from Holmes and Ali. Larry was a great technician. Casual fans don't really care about great technical boxing. They want excitement, and Tyson created tons of excitement.

 

come at me bro! :d

 

HeadGiver :rofl

 

sleep with one eye open tonight mother****er :roflnutatsch

 

I concur.

Iron Mike
Joe Montana
Lawrence Taylor
Wayne Gretzky
Larry Bird
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan

Transcendent Mega-Icons

From a fight perspective asides from Mike, you have none other than the Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran.

THE MOTHERFUKkIN 1980s: :good

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oh look, one of esb's resident nobodys is trying to catipult himself into esb superstardom with a desperate attempt to engage in conversation with team elite lynchpin HEADBANGER atsch

comeback when your balls have dropped you little cum swilling ******, i'll **** you till you love me :deal