what about the reports by the press back in 86 that tyson was getting beat up in sparring by heavyweight prospect mike williams. Anybody hear these?.
I read "The Last Great Fight" that featured the behind the scenes look at Tyson-Douglas.
It had some great insight into Tyson's sparring sessions while in Tokyo and before his 'decline' began.
First, as many might remember, Tyson was floored by Greg Page while in Japan preparing for Douglas. A lot of press was made of this and still does to this day.
A lot of people (including myself) were shocked when I first read this.
But Bill Cayton pointed out that while a Prime Tyson was never knocked down during his best years in a real fight, he was floored on 4 separate occassions during sparring sessions. Once was by Mike Williams and I believe Oliver McCall and Page (body shot of all things) were the others (can't remember the 4th name).
Regarding Page, several people like to write about how great Page was while he was in his prime and how he could have beaten a prime Mike - most of this talk was due to what happened in Japan.
But several people within the Tyson camp said that Tyson used to beat up on Page all the time. In fact, Tyson humiliated him so bad while preparing for Spinks that Page started training harder on the side to make sure that never happened again.
So Page thinking he could beat a prime Tyson based on his Tokyo performance is, in my mind, all bunk. A prime Tyson was having his way with him years prior.
For anyone interested in that historic night in 1990, I highly suggest reading this book: "The Last Great Fight" by Joe Layden.
It gives some great insight into how Mike was thinking leading into the bout, as well as how Douglas had never trained harder or was more sure of himself.
They do a great job to point out that Douglas was a tremendous athlete and boxer when he put his mind to it.
do you know any sparring partners giving tyson trouble when he was with rooney or did he just knock them over like bowling pins?.
While with Rooney Mcall and Mike Williams would give Tyson trouble.
But you have to remember, when preparing for a fight, most sparring partners only have to do 3 rounds at a time while the main fighter has to put in a full 8 or even 12.
Rooney had Tyson spar 12 rounds, Monday-through-Friday for four weeks before a bout. That's why he was razor sharp by the time of the fight.
McCall loves to talk about how he roughed up Mike all the time in sparring. I don't doubt he gave Tyson some problems. But usually fighters put their toughest guys in for the last few rounds of sparring. So there's a chance McCall walked in fresh as a daisy after Mike had already put in 9 hard rounds.
Sugar Ray Leonard has talked about doing that same thing and pointed out that his sparring partners were having their way with him as he prepared for Haglar.
I think it says a lot that even today, people are fascinated to hear about Tyson losing rounds during sparring.
That speaks volumes as to how good he was while focused and properly trained.
I know that tyson used to let mike williams hit him to the liver 3 times per round to make sure he never got hurt to the body during a real fight. Theres a youtube video of tyson talking about those rounds where he says him and his camp called mike williams the tenderiser due to his job as liver puncher. I also know that tyson used to change the string in his headgear to his "lucky string" and refused to spar mike williams in headgear with the factory string still in.
I've read the same thing.
Mike Williams was brought in specifically just to work Mike's body. I believe Rooney had spoken about this often.
Tyson revealed in his book "Undisputed Truth" that he when he fought James "Quick" Tillis he wanted to go down from his relentless body shots.
Mike admitted that this was a fight he didn't prepare for properly - and it showed in the fact he was unable to stop him. He claims he didn't spar or train as hard and spent more time partying and drinking.
Anyway, the work he did with Williams prepared him for the body punishment he took from Tillis.
I'd love to provide some clear facts about his sparring with Williams but all I can do is paraphrase the information I've read over the years from the internets, books and magazines and radio shows.
To that end, I've heard countless times that Williams did a great job tearing up Tyson's midsection to get him prepped for war.