When did Mike Tyson fall off?

When Cus died he slowly started to listen to those around him

 

Don King's influence.

 

The first fight he showed some form of decline was the Bruno in 89, so I’d agree Rooney getting the boot, but things in the background lead to that point.

 

After the Michael Spinks fight he fell off

That was his last fight where was operating at his peak. This was also his last fight under Kevin Rooney.

 

Beginning of the End: Cus' death. End of the End: Rooney put out.

 

that's fair. all fighters have ups & downs, depending on the matches they face, their health & fitness, & so on, rather than being on perfectly smooth upwards and downwards curves.

there were lots of little firsts that it'd be possible to suggest as warning signs, e.g..

(1) vs Smith was the first time, after becoming champion, that he didn't ever really look like knocking the other guy out [though you could argue that the Green fight the year before, similarly marred by constant holding, was a precursor to this];
(2) vs Bruno was the first time he was obviously hurt during a fight, also didn't seem to be putting combinations together as well [but then maybe that was partly because he'd been tagged so hard early on, also it's hard to criticise a fight in which Mike KO'ed a genuine contender relatively quickly, including knocking him down in the first round];
(3) vs Douglas was the first time he genuinely looked like losing a fight.

 

While you can make a case for a lot of fighters, that they lost to lesser fighters, because their prime was passed, due to a natural factor, as a aging for example, the thing with Mike is he was beaten by better boxer and when he first lost he was 23. Where you can make a case where he lost due to age factor is both Holy and the Lewis fight.
But Mike Tyson prime excuses threads are on another level.
You got no one to blame if you are d*** **** and do ***** outside of the ring, when you are young.
The only excuses we can make for boxers are when there really such, and when they are at advance age.

 

I agree.

For me I see it & remember it in reel-time. Since he started many wondered if he was a ticking time bomb, so in that essence some saw signs before others. Case in point: When he fought Larry Holmes- Larry said even if I lose this fight, I won't crash n burn like he will. Apparently he saw 'warning' signs too. For me I see it as -bad things will happen, tough fights...but with Rooney & Cus--they wont or cant make problems go away- rather they knew how to handle problems --when they came.

I 4get if it was Smith or Green fight- but a comment Mike made played to my point- he came back & said "He's holding me."

Rooney responds like a true cornerman- "What do U mean he's holding you? Don't give me that. Look Mikey, I want you bent at the knees backed by a strong snapping jab- and you make him stop holding."

So when I said Rooney was the end of end..that meant he no longer had no men in the corner...he now had 'yes' men. Now Giachetti tried. but it didn't work IMO., I remember him going off on Tyson against Ruddock II, but he couldn't penetrate mike's hard head, so he had so settle for points win -with a Tyson throwing low blow after the other losing point after point. That was a TELLING sign for me.

Yeah he hit Mike hard cause he's a hard puncher and Tyson as elusive as he was, couldn't evade every shot. I didn't see it as a slipping sign, saw it as he got hit. It happens!

Really? You could tell that from 1st round?

 

I agree with this, Tyson had a group of good people around him, people who Cus had put in place to train, handle and take care of Tyson.

Don King knew he had to strip those people from Mike Tyson in order to control and exploit him!

Unfortunately for Tyson Jim Jacobs & Cus both passed away while Bill Cayton (whom Tyson sued but remained trusted friends with) was removed from his position in the management team.

The final protection for Tyson was Kevin Rooney who left after King had poisoned Tyson’s mind against him.

From that point forward Tyson was vulnerable and people like Don King & Robin Givens moved in
The rest is history!

 

ha, no, I just meant that it started, at some point during the fight, to look as if losing might be a possibility, that'd never really happened to Mike before.

 

Tyson was a product of intensity. A known philosophy lived as well as reported by Jimmy Jacobs on television.
I´ll add to that: You´ll either shine bright or glim steady.

If you´d plot Tysons fights on a chronologic axis, it would be obvious to see that MT after Spinks did not work the intensity that once made him what he was.

And again, when Team Tyson was talking about "fighting more frequently" in order to prevent their young troublemaker from partying, banging hookers, lurking around in Brooklyn or ballooning to 260+, they should have known that there was a high chance of routine (and performance) collapse.

 

Do Rooney and Tyson talk ???? I know Tyson apologised to Atlas and hugged him, captured ringside on camera, but I always wondered about Rooney

 

good question.

 

There are a couple of other points you have to include when thinking about Mike Tyson over the years.

His style was very physically intense. When you watch the fights, rather than the highlight reels, theres a lot of holding. That is tiring in itself to wrestle but he had a lot of breaks and rounds off. There was no way he could move like he did at 21/22 when he was 30.

People figured him out. As age got hold of him, his reflexes weren't quite as good, his timing wasnt quite as good, people started to hit him on his way in and this took its toll by slowing reflexes down further.

He had no "plan b" - if getting inside and hooking didnt work, or wasnt going to work, he had nothing else to try.

His style changed, you can see it in his padwork videos. Theres not many pad work videos on youtube but there is a distinct difference in padwork between Kevin Rooney and the other guy (who i dont know the name off, sorry). He's very impressive in the later, short hooks to body followed by identical hooks to both sides of the head, but its different to before.