Does Anyone Agree With Teddy Atlas' Latest Take on Mike Tyson?

[QueensburyRules]

The prime version was tested and knocked out by Douglas.

- - Need a mental acuity test ASAP so they don't lock U up in the funny farm...

[billeau2]

I don't think Teddy has a "grudge." The culture of New York City is brash, you see it with paulie Malinagie as well... In the actual article Teddy qualifies his POV. Teddy made his peace with Tyson, it is on record.

[BKM-]

Tyson's prime version - according to any credible boxing observer - ends with the departure of Kevin Rooney, after the Michael Spinks fight.

Already from the Frank Bruno fight in 1989, with Jay Bright and Aaron Snowell working his corner, Tyson's skills were deteriorating quite a bit. In fact, Bruno was the first one ever to put him in danger of getting knocked down, in the first round.

Lest we forget, Bright and Snowell are the ones who used a condom in lieu of the endswell in the Douglas fight. Before which - as reported in the aforementioned book, Undisputed Truth - Tyson was spending his pre-fight time having sex with the waitresses of his hotel rather than training.

No matter how much you try to convince yourself after all these years, non-Tyson marks don't buy it.

We've seen him in his prime getting schooled and then knocked out. We've seen him past his prime getting schooled and knocked out as well.

Written in the history books, no way to change it.

[Ivich]

The prime version was tested and knocked out by Douglas.

He wasnt prime for that fight and the first evidence of his decline began to appear in the Ruddock fights and was very apparent when he fought Bruno.

[Tatabanya]

He wasnt prime for that fight and the first evidence of his decline began to appear in the Ruddock s fights and was very apparent when he fought Bruno.

You're wasting your time. BKM- is a revisionist history specialist (commonly known as "hater") when it comes to Tyson.

[Tatabanya]

No matter how much you try to convince yourself after all these years, non-Tyson marks don't buy it.

We've seen him in his prime getting schooled and then knocked out. We've seen him past his prime getting schooled and knocked out as well.

Written in the history books, no way to change it.

I saw all those fights as they were happening, and the surrounding circumstances as well. You were born in 1990 or so, and when you grew up you decided to believe in the anti-Tyson propaganda for reasons that I don't want to know.

No hard feelings.

[BKM-]

He wasnt prime for that fight and the first evidence of his decline began to appear in the Ruddock s fights and was very apparent when he fought Bruno.

He didn't look so great getting outgrappled by mediocre Smith and getting his offense shut down. He just about barely won the Tillis fight, a fight where his limitations were as apparant as in his losses and the result being dependant on winning the last round. The Bruno fight(The fight where he landed some of the best combinations of his career) was no different than when he nearly got his head sent to the rafters by Tony Tucker's right uppercut, which broke the latter's hand and caused him to lose a very competitive fight.

All of the fights I just mentioned were during the special magical times when he had Rooney in his corner. He had off nights before AND after Rooney. An off night can happen to an athlete, it doesn't mean they're over the hill. Some of his performances post Douglas were better than many of his performances he had with Rooney in his corner. He was in his prime untill he went to prison.

Douglas simply showed one of the blueprints to beat prime Tyson. Disrupt his rhythm, hold him at bay with the jab and counter him with your reach. Tie him up on the inside, give him hell with uppercuts there and back him up since he's so weak in the clinch and can only fight coming forward from mid range. And most of all, don't be afraid.

Tyson was very limited and flawed, in and out of the ring. Playing around with version-theories isn't gonna hide a very simple observable issue.

[Tatabanya]

Teddy made his peace with Tyson, it is on record.

He did, but after that he continued to diminish him every time he spoke about him in interviews.

[BKM-]

I saw all those fights as they were happening, and the surrounding circumstances as well. You were born in 1990 or so, and when you grew up you decided to believe in the anti-Tyson propaganda for reasons that I don't want to know.

No hard feelings.

As wonderful as that may be, when it comes to judging skills there is no difference in you watching the fights on your television screen in the 80s and 90s and me watching those fights on my laptop.

It's just two guys analyzing a boxer's skills. You don't need a time machine for that.

[Tatabanya]

As wonderful as that may be, when it comes to judging skills there is no difference in you watching the fights on your television screen in the 80s and 90s and me watching those fights on my laptop.

It's just two guys analyzing a boxer's skills. You don't need a time machine for that.

I do agree with you on this.

But it's not about just watching the fights. When you're living through the context of a given period, things are different. There are subtleties in the absorption of events as they happen which cannot be caught while simply analyzing the fights years or decades later. Living the context means absorbing the articles, the news, the books, the interviews.

This means, in my case, that I can speak about Tyson in depth because I have lived throughout his career. The same would apply to, say, Azumah Nelson, or Roy Jones Jr. But I can't do the same about Muhammad Ali, for example, because I only started watching his fights since 1971 or so. Even if I know a lot about him, I haven't lived through his prime, therefore I can't really express a truly valuable opinion about him.