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**SpecialOne** · 06-12-2010, 04:39 AM

good read thanks. didnt no berbick sparred with him

**GymRat** · 06-12-2010, 04:58 AM

As a Mike Tyson historian, I pretty much knew all this (and more) already, but this refreshes my memory. A lot of people say that the Spinks fight was the last night of the prime Tyson because that's when he fired Rooney. They're partially right, however Mike's downfall stems more from the loss of Jim Jacobs more than anything (even more than the loss of Cus D'Amato) and keeping Rooney wouldn't have made much of a difference as Kevin rarely had any control over Mike in his later association with him. The same with Cus D'Amato. In Tyson's later years with Cus, Cus was losing control of him. Tyson would frequently disappear from Catskill for weeks at a time and he'd slack off like never before. It was to the point where Cus kicked Mike out and actually offered to fight him in the lawn of their house.

In the end, what did Mike in was:
1.) Himself and his own immaturity
2.) The death of Jim Jacobs
3.) The death of Cus D'Amato
4.) Leaches, bad influences, and distractions such as Robin Givens, Ruth Roper, Rory Holloway, and John Horne (none of them would have entered Mike's life had Jimmy remained alive).
5.) His loss of interest with boxing.
6.) Don King

Etc., etc., etc. I could go on and on.

It's sad that most can't look at a Tyson fight after the Spinks fight and not see that Mike was not even a 1/4 of his prime self, especially during the Douglas fight. The best and most skilled heavyweight (in my opinion) doesn't lose horribly to a D fighter like Buster Douglas overnight without there being a story behind it.

Thanks for the read, it really refreshed my memory.

**Benny Leonard** · 06-12-2010, 06:29 AM

Originally posted by Brickfists3 View Post

As a Mike Tyson historian, I pretty much knew all this (and more) already, but this refreshes my memory. A lot of people say that the Spinks fight was the last night of the prime Tyson because that's when he fired Rooney. They're partially right, however Mike's downfall stems more from the loss of Jim Jacobs more than anything (even more than the loss of Cus D'Amato) and keeping Rooney wouldn't have made much of a difference as Kevin rarely had any control over Mike in his later association with him. The same with Cus D'Amato. In Tyson's later years with Cus, Cus was losing control of him. Tyson would frequently disappear from Catskill for weeks at a time and he'd slack off like never before. It was to the point where Cus kicked Mike out and actually offered to fight him in the lawn of their house.

In the end, what did Mike in was:
1.) Himself and his own immaturity
2.) The death of Jim Jacobs
3.) The death of Cus D'Amato
4.) Leaches, bad influences, and distractions such as Robin Givens, Ruth Roper, Rory Holloway, and John Horne (none of them would have entered Mike's life had Jimmy remained alive).
5.) His loss of interest with boxing.
6.) Don King

Etc., etc., etc. I could go on and on.

It's sad that most can't look at a Tyson fight after the Spinks fight and not see that Mike was not even a 1/4 of his prime self, especially during the Douglas fight. The best and most skilled heavyweight (in my opinion) doesn't lose horribly to a D fighter like Buster Douglas overnight without there being a story behind it.

Thanks for the read, it really refreshed my memory.

Jimmy Jacobs:
Jacobs would ask him if there was anything wrong and if there was, would ask him how he could help him. Cayton, couldn't do this. Don King however, could. Info from an S.I. article.

Tyson taking off:
In an S.I. article, it basically said, along with Tyson's words, that Tyson kept going back to his old neighborhood to keep that edge. To remember where he came from.

There was a story about how he and his friend put on a ski masks and begged for change. Tyson wanted to feel what it was like to be poor again.

Also, on the other side of the extreme; Even as Champ, despite friends telling him to not wear his jewelery when he goes back, Tyson went fully loaded.

It also suggested that when Tyson left the house and came back late, Cus yelled at him, then calmed things down by giving a crying Tyson a hug. Tyson, then would do this again and again to get that same affection from Cus.

Hope I have that write. Been a while.

Funny thing is, Tyson was asked what his favorite moment in his career was and he said.....Buster Douglas.

http://web.yesnetwork.com/media/vide...ent_id=8366351

Now if he is telling the truth, I don't know. I'll have to take his word for it.

Given his actions after the Spinks fight, which was to tell everybody that he was fed up and thinking about retirement, could Douglas have been his way out?
Fire his original team. Disconnect to what was helping him stay at the top.
Don't train hard, stay distracted from what you have to do and eventually, you'll meet someone that will resist you and you will get knocked out.

Now, there isn't high expectations of him any more. And, he'll get to see how people treat him after no longer being Champ.
As well as possibly testing himself to see if he can regain the titles like some past Greats have if he indeed what to continue.

Mike on the death of Cus : 'When I'd get up in the morning, he'd make me breakfast. Now he's not around anymore. God. I'm doing to do well, but when I come down to it, who really cares? I like doing my job, but I'm not happy being victorious. I fight my heart out and give it my best, but when it's over, there's no Cus to tell me how I did, no mother to show my clippings to.' http://www.tysontalk.com/quotes.html

Don't know. Tyson's a bit confusing to understand. I'm no psychologist and even them, Tyson didn't seem to think to highly of people trying to think they knew what he was doing and/or about, so...

This is also a good read...

Where's The Fire?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...9899/index.htm

In addition:

D'Amato; The "Willie"

Before losing weight, Mathis had been a retreating counterpuncher. As he trimmed down, he became more aggressive. D'Amato found Mathis had a savage left hook and, with schooling, a right hand that could do damage. He started teaching Mathis how to throw combination punches, which D'Amato defines as "a series of blows to predetermined areas," and had him throwing punches at a contraption called "Willie," so named because D'Amato devised it to help train Torres before he took the light-heavyweight title away from Willie Pastrano.

Willie is five mattresses strapped onto a frame. The front mattress has an outline sketch of a man on it, and various parts of the outline are numbered as targets. No. 1 is a left hook to the jaw, 2 a right hook to the jaw, 3 a left uppercut, 4 a right uppercut, 5 a left hook to the body and 6 a right hook to the left kidney. Mathis punches each target as D'Amato's voice, on a tape recorder, calls out numbers. D'Amato himself stands to the side, arms folded, carefully watching and occasionally admonishing Mathis to get down lower, move back faster or growl more fiercely. When Mathis began punching Willie, D'Amato had him throw only one punch every five seconds. Then he gradually speeded up the process, and Mathis can now deliver a five-punch combination in as little as three-fifths of a second. " Frazier couldn't do this," D'Amato says. "He wouldn't have the power, speed, coordination or stamina. Clay couldn't do it either. You have to have done this over a period of months and months."

Every day Mathis goes at least five rounds against Willie. Once, when he complained, D'Amato kept him at it extra hard, and when Mathis was through he had thrown, by D'Amato's count, 12,000 punches. D'Amato says, "I told him Clay had thrown only 1,760 punches in the Chuvalo fight and not to complain again." To which Mathis adds, "When I walk into the ring, I figure I gotta win. No one trains as hard as me, runs as hard as me or has had Cus on his back."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...55/2/index.htm

**Toney616** · 06-12-2010, 06:56 AM

Thanks for this thread, good read

**Benny Leonard** · 06-12-2010, 07:34 AM

**Benny Leonard** · 06-12-2010, 08:06 AM

Though the basic narrative of the Tokyo fight is familiar, Layden fills it in with fascinating and little-known detail, the product of interviews with fighters, trainers, the HBO commentators, and other boxing insiders. We learn that Tyson�s deservedly maligned cornermen�who lacked even rudimentary equipment to help their fighter on what became his most desperate night�were at least competent enough to worry about the champion�s lack of interest in the Douglas bout. Tyson�s lead trainer, Aaron Snowell, presciently told him that he was in real trouble if he didn�t start getting serious in training. Tyson shrugged and responded with an odd sentiment for an unbeaten and seemingly indestructible fighter: �If I get my butt whipped, I�ll take the blame.� Once in Tokyo, Snowell and others in the Tyson camp went out for some early morning roadwork�without Tyson himself!�and came upon a solitary runner up ahead: Douglas. �Let�s see what he�s got,� Snowell thought to himself, and he and his group picked up their pace, moving in on the challenger. Hearing their footsteps, and never once looking back, Douglas shifted into another gear and left the Tyson camp far behind. It was then that Snowell knew that Douglas was in superb condition, and his worries deepened.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/bc0321pb.html

**The Iron Man** · 06-12-2010, 10:29 AM

Benny Leonard: Do you have the whole of CenterStage: Mike Tyson or know where i could watch it all? looks great but being in the UK i couldn't watch it on TV!

**Benny Leonard** · 06-12-2010, 11:02 AM

Originally posted by The Iron Man View Post

Benny Leonard: Do you have the whole of CenterStage: Mike Tyson or know where i could watch it all? looks great but being in the UK i couldn't watch it on TV!

The link didn't work for you?

U.K. access not allowed?

http://web.yesnetwork.com/media/vide...ent_id=8366351

and just click on that link and find the second part. "Hit and Run Challenge"

and I'll copy and past the article/interview

http://www.yesnetwork.com/news/artic...0391970&vkey=1

On Muhammad Ali telling Tyson to take care of Trevor Berbick in their 1986 bout, after Berbick defeated Ali earlier:
It was so ironic because I saw the fight with him [Berbick] and Muhammad Ali. I just thought that he unmercifully beat the crap out of Ali, I just thought that he didn't have to do that. This guy, Ali was absolutely helpless, Ali couldn't do nothing. And Ali came to the ring [before Tyson's fight] and said, "Kick his ass for me." And so I said, "Oh, you got that. You got that."

On why he feels that his Buster Douglas fight in 1990 was his best fight ever:
The fact is, I wasn't in any psychological shape. But Buster did an awesome job. You can't take that way from him. And I will always tell people, I think that was my best fight I ever had, I always rank that my best fight. It's just weird because Cus [D'Amato] used to always tell me, "You have to beat up everybody, you could do this, and this was what's going to happen when somebody starts beating you up, can you take it?" Wow, and that fight proved that I can take it.

On the Evander Holyfield ear-biting incident in their 1997 fight:
I got away with that [accidental head butts], I got the sympathy from that, but I was butting him too. He got the better of the butt game. But I was just pissed off and I was an undisciplined soldier. I bit him. He's a splendid guy and that's why I despised him so much, because I admire him so much, I wanna kill him. I'm a spoiled brat and it wasn't going my way and I wanted to hurt him. I got emotional and just bit him.

On D'Amato's quirks:
Cus [D'Amato] had a couple of great champions, and back in the 50's and 60's you had to deal with the Mob. And Cus is [an] arrogant, mean, Italian guy. I don't know if anybody knows what kind of guy that is, a guy that [will] have a grudge with his brother to the day he die[s] over 10 bucks, because he did something that he shouldn't have: with [a] family member. He charged the family member the money for some stuff. He wouldn't talk to him till the day he die[d] over that, something just so minute. He didn't believe in doctors and hospitals, that's probably [why] he died, he never went to the hospital, doctors. He said "They kill more people than anything." He was born in 1908, so that's just the mentality back then. He lost his mother when he was two, he lost his brother in 1927. The cop [that] killed his brother, that just haunted him for his life. He kept following the cop till the day he died. Cus would say, "I know where he's at. He's at Florida." This happened in 1927.

On Tyson's first impression of Cus D'Amato:
I was afraid of him, I thought he was a weirdo.

On what inspired him to be so mean and take on a certain persona in the ring:
Cus D'Amato [trainer], who I look at, [my] guardian, he's my image of who men were and how it should be. And he said, "I wish you were bigger." He said, "I wish you had a body like Ken Norton, so you can intimidate people." And he never said I wasn't going to make it, but he said something I didn't possess. I felt like, wow, so I tried to be mean, and evil, and intimidating, reading books, Art of War, and then psychological, emotional warfare. It's all that stuff, and that's why I'm that particular mentality of a fighter.

On what made him angry as a child and his first fight:
Just people picking on me, taking my money, and I come from this really macho area, so they take my money, take my pigeons, and one day a friend of mine said, "fight back." And I fought. I had a high-pitched voice, I was really obesely overweight, and so I would never go to school. But, this guy: took one of my pigeons, and my friend said "fight him." I fought him, and I don't know, I guess I beat him up and stuff. It was two guys whaling each other.

On first getting his inspiration to learn boxing while being locked up:
Everybody from Brownsville are in these places [juvenile detention centers], so it's like I'm at a family reunion: I got in trouble, and so I got sent to the college where they lock you up, you can't come out. Was this Irish guy in there named Bobby Stewart, and on weekends, this guy would take all the guys over there, and he wasn't a big guy, 170 pounds, he was a kid, but he's big. These [students] were some big, strong, ghetto kids, 15 [years old], 6'6", 250 lbs, big kids. You know what we got in the 'hood here, it's big kids, so imagine that in the seventies, that was unusual. So I'm watching these guys go over there, and they're coming back from the other side with broken noses, and cracked ribs, and they're punching, but they're happy. They're coming back, they're happy, their eyes, they're beat up bad, but they're happy, they're smiling. They're talking about it, but I can't participate with them, because I'm on a low level. I'm locked up because I came in from doing some really bad stuff to somebody.

So I'm looking, I say, "What's up with these guys? What's that?" "We're boxing Mr. Stewart over there today," [the kids responded]. And these guys are coming over, big eyes, and they're running back, and then they're happy: So, I go in there, and he's [Stewart] arrogant. I'm just whaling away, I'm whaling, whaling, whaling, whaling, I don't know anything about fighting, but I'm strong. And he [Stewart] hit me in the stomach, and anything I must have ate for two weeks came up. After he did that, I say, "Sir, can you teach me how to do that?" I never thought I wanted to knock out some people in the street so I could steal their money. He said, "You don't want to learn how to do this. Everybody say they want to come in, oh you're a black guy, come and say you want to be fighters and stuff." I really wanted to check this out, because I wanted to be a tough guy in my neighborhood really more than anything. So, I go there and he start[ed] teaching, and I do it. I'm "Yes sir, no sir." And he starts teaching me this stuff for like a year and a half... He told me that "We're going to take you. I don't want you to go back to Brooklyn, because you're going to get killed or you'll go to prison." And I'm saying, "Yeah, most likely, yeah." He took me to meet Cus [D'Amato], and he [Stewart] said, "Don't tell him, when he asks you what you want to do, don't say money, say you want to be the greatest. Don't say money, because then you're going to ruin everything. Don't be no schmuck, all right?"

**The Iron Man** · 06-12-2010, 11:06 AM

Originally posted by Benny Leonard View Post

The link didn't work for you?

U.K. access not allowed?

http://web.yesnetwork.com/media/vide...ent_id=8366351

I got a clip of 6mins and not the whole interview. No worries if you don't have the whole interview.

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