Mike Tyson's relationship with Jim Jacobs turned bitter

[billeau2]

nvsemen, please stop speculating your wrong on every point you've made.

Cus needing fame is a joke, he trained world champions prior to Tyson. Jimmy Jacobs massed the best boxing library on film in the world and Jimmy exposed Tyson to it.
Cayton was a mentor to many people for finances and was the trust and guidance for monitorial gains and savings. None of the above "needed money"!!!

Have you ever sat down and talked with any of the people your talking about?
No so shut up because theres a person on this site who knew all of the above and your just a BS'er!!!

Tyson was the problem, as a youngster with Cus Tyson would go back to Browns and his "so-called friends" would drill him on stsying with "white people" in the mountains and why doesn't he have a brother handling him. This is where many young fighters are lost to the streets. They go back to fools they used to be a fool with!! That's what the problem was and it festered once the team began to pass away! Hense brother Don King and Cayton out.

Cus was a friend of mine and I watched out for Teddy & mike when they entered the J.O. program right up until he was on the Open Class USA team.

STOP BSing about my friend!
Ray Corso

But But Ray....Don King said he was lookin out for MIke! And quite certainly he would sell Mike the Brooklyn Bridge for a song....even after he sold it to Carl!

Its a sad reality that many who were castigated did not deserve it and so many that did deserve it were perhaps castigated but never stopped. I mean Billy Martin decked a few marshmellow salesmen (true story actually) and Kig George was ready to renaissance him.....again. King murders cheats and lies and is called an icon.

Meanwhile Tyson....Who actually has some brain power, sees empirical evidence of progress and is still sucked in. I bet after King got through with him he changed his mind about your friend...and may your friend rest in peace.

[Drugs]

Sorry to take the spot light away from Jacobs and Cus. But I never really heard anyone speak badly about Rooney. Can anyone link articles of how Rooney was a drunk or ****ed over Tyson? I don't know much about the guy, but I always assumed he was a good trainer/guy.

[Scott9945]

Sorry to take the spot light away from Jacobs and Cus. But I never really heard anyone speak badly about Rooney. Can anyone link articles of how Rooney was a drunk or ****ed over Tyson? I don't know much about the guy, but I always assumed he was a good trainer/guy.

I've never heard of Rooney cheating Tyson. But it was no secret that he had drinking and gambling problems. And Teddy Atlas doesn't like him, which may be a plus to some people.

[ShoulderRoll]

Rooney and Atlas are a goldmine when it comes to knowing the drills and training methods of Cus D'Amato. I wish someone would make an effort to talk to them and get them to put this material into an instructional video.

Or at least have them just record it for historical reasons so that the knowledge isn't lost.

[Drugs]

Believe me there are tons of instructional videos out on youtube, and footage to Rooney teaching the proper hip rotation and slip bag techniques.
But I never knew Teddy hated Kevin? I always thought they where kinda friends? They both learnt from Cus I just assumed they both liked each other. It's a pity that Atlas didn't move on to teach the proper Peek a Boo technique and instead taught other stuff, hard to find a good Peek a Boo fighter now a days.

[djt117]

A long time ago I had heard of this before, but I didn't start reading about it untill I saw Tyson's documentary a few years ago where he would actually insult not just Bill Cayton but even Jacobs too, calling them slavemasters.

This old article talked about it, but I've read a book by mr. Mcrae years ago that went into more details than this one.
http://articles.philly.com/1988-06-2...orraine-jacobs

In short, apparently Jacobs had never told Mike about his terminal illness, unknowingly made him sign a contract that would enable his wife to take a large percentage of Tyson's earnings, after Jim's death. Considering how close Tyson was to Jacobs, you can imagine how hurt he felt after knowing this. Part of me refuses to believe Jacobs had evil intentions behind their relationship but it's hard to ignore these sources.

It also brings a different perspective on how boxing and it's history looks at Tyson's team pre-Don King. Cayton and Jacobs backstabbed him, and Rooney was a drunk who was causing Tyson and his camp problems. It wasn't the most perfect team by any means as most people believe.

You ever notice how Tyson never really talks highly of Jacobs, Rooney etc? I'm sure he would if you asked him, but he never goes out of his way to praise them like he always does Cus. I personally think that he was hurt by them and it was never the same again afterwards. I would love to hear more info on this if you guys can share some.

I'm a huge Tyson fan, but we all know Mike was always his own worst enemy. Jacobs probably thought it best not to tell Mike he was going to die because he probably didn't want to **** Mike up mentally and send the train off the rails going into a fight.

And Mike was always going into a fight, because Cus's dying request was that Jimmy and Bill "fight him often so that he doesn't have too much time between fights to get in trouble". That's why they kept that pace going even after he became champ -- he won the title at 20 and freaking unified all the belts in less than 11 months!!! (no time to go get sucked in by the trappings of his newfound celebrity)

Keeping Mike focused on boxing and shielding him from distractions was the way they did things because that's the way Cus wanted it. That's why D'Amato himself (and the whole Catskill team) kept the extent of Cus's failing health from Tyson as well. He was still a kid (and a mentally volatile one at that) and they didn't think he could handle it.

There's little doubt that Tyson performed very well under the direction of the team Cus assembled for him. Joyce Carol Oates basically observed the same in her great 1986 piece on Tyson:

"Cus laid the groundwork for Mike's career," Jim Jacobs tells me. "And when I say Cus laid the groundwork, I mean he laid the groundwork—for Mike's entire future career.") The young boxer's relationship to his handlers and to his "family"—an intimate though not blood-related constellation of men and women linked by way of D'Amato—allows him the freedom-within-discipline of the child prodigy in music whose teacher and parents zealously protect him from the outside world

The fact that Tyson said negative things about Jacobs & Cayton in the documentary, in my mind anyways, is because I still think he feels like Don King played him for a fool (and that the whole world knows it) and he's embarrassed by that ...

... so he has to somehow justify (either to himself or the public, or both) the monumentally foolish decision to let Don King take control of his career. As if to say, "yeah at the time King looked like the lesser of two evils -- I chose King because at the time, it made sense -- I mean it's not like he suckered me or anything"

[Thread Stealer]

"Mike is a con artist, a thief, a pick-pocket"- Jose Torres (paraphrased)

"Yes, but a boxer in the ring is supposed to be a thief and a pickpocket"- Cus

Tyson is a con artist and user. He has also been conned and used as well, probably many times.

Nothing exactly new in boxing. Such a great sport and such a disgusting business. Sometimes I just stop reading certain things when they talk about the business side.

[Anthony342]

Tyson didn't seem to have a problem saying he made a mistake by signing with King in his Undisputed one man show.

[BKM-2010]

In the book written by Tyson's bodyguard it says Mike couldn't read or write untill he learned in prison. Probably the main reason he got screwed so much by signing contracts that he didn't know anything about. He was very insecure about this so instead of saying he couldn't read the contract, he just put his signature on it and done.

[ShoulderRoll]

And Rooney is a long time alcoholic and wasn't the perfect trainer you and most people were lead to believe. He later on sued Tyson for 49 million dollars(he only got 4 million).

Do you have any articles showing that Rooney wasn't a great trainer?