Mike Tyson had so much potential

[Real King Kong]

His downfall came way before he went to jail, Cus dies and then King had him fire his entire team. He stopped doing everything that made him special and starting looking for one punch instead of going side to side and working his combo's..By the time he got out of prison he was done already..Only time he won was when he fought c class fighters or fixed fights(Seldon,Black Rhino)

Jim jacobs death was the real turning point. Cus died before he even won a title.

[Shrap]

His downfall came way before he went to jail, Cus dies and then King had him fire his entire team. He stopped doing everything that made him special and starting looking for one punch instead of going side to side and working his combo's..By the time he got out of prison he was done already..Only time he won was when he fought c class fighters or fixed fights(Seldon,Black Rhino)

Exactly.

Tyson had the potential to be the best ever IMO. It's a shame we never got to see him achieve everything he could and should have.

[Redd Foxx]

Tyson had problems with big, skilled men. Probably would have had in mid 80s too and he faded over 12 rounds with his workrate and endurance.

Indeed. Even my old coach, who is a big Tyson fan and has a life-sized statue in his gym, always insisted that no tall man with a jab should have lost to Mike.

[K-Nan]

After he died and lost the rest of cus's camp..it was over, his entire style changed,0 head movement and less combo's

Yup. The Mike Tyson that Cus was building was like some sort of ultra cyborg boxer-puncher. Then came the death of Cus. Then the death of Jacobs was like a shot in the heart. His motivation went elsewhere but he was still good enough to get past B level competition on sheer talent.

[soul_survivor]

People keep mentioning Cus's death but Tyson had 10 pro fights by the time Cus died and carried on improving and his head movement and ability to get in and out of range against taller guys only improved. What Cus' death did was push Tyson as a man, he started acting up and being involved with the wrong crowd, specifically King and the goons he worked with.

They pushed the image of being a real gangster and that's what Tyson became his greatest downfall, even though he stayed with Rooney and Cayton up until 88. They managed to keep the guy under control to a certain extent but in the years that followed, Rooney and Cayton were fired, he had a disastrous divorce and all the media attention that carried and by 1989, his boxing ability was starting to erode.

That never happened in 85, 86 or 87, heck not even 88.

[- Ram Raid -]

There's an overriding narrative in boxing concerning its disciplinary logic that's continually t****d out and perpetuated because it justifies the existence of the sport on a social level even though under closer scrutiny it doesn't quite match up to its claims.

There is a percentage of wayward youths that boxing keeps from the streets and instills discipline and work ethic into but its rarely ones like Tyson. He's more of an exception than the rule. Kids with his life history rarely have the emotional and mental makeup to subsume themselves to the routine and long term consistent dedication that boxing demands. Even on a logistical level they often lack the support network that makes an amateur career possible.

He was plucked from a correction centre into the boxing equivalent of a convent run by a man who made the Spartans look self indulgent. That in itself is an exceptional circumstance without which its extremely doubtful there would ever have been a Mike Tyson - Professional boxer. The quote attributed to Aristotle gets to the point of what I'm saying, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man". The seeds of Tyson's downfall were sown long before he reached the Catskills. The death of D'Amato ushered in the inevitable.

Remember Tyson was still landing in hot water when the old man was alive, enough to have his trainer put a gun to his head (though Tyson and Atlas' accounts differ). Cus used favours and payoffs to make the problems go away. And he isn't without fault himself. D'Amato wasn't interested in making a well rounded man, his mission was to mould the perfect fighter. A merciless megalomaniac. That Cus himself was a resentful paranoiac didn't help matters.

He rarely receives critism for his part and it's mostly to do with the Cus & The Kid story fitting into the (il)logic of white paternalism. That of the 'white saviour' or what one Black academic has termed the 'adopt a ***** narrative', this trope that America's 'race problem' can be solved if only enough whites would 'rescue' individual Blacks from the corrosive influence 'of their own kind' and teach them the mores of 'white civility'. Its deeply offensive but so pervasive that it often goes unnoticed. And its a story that the Western world is still anourmed by, think Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side, a tale white America loved so much she received an Oscar for. On this side of the pond think the entire career of Frank Bruno and the love lavished on him by whites but not so much Britain's Afro-Carribean community.

It's a little odd to speak of Tyson as an underachiever but he surely was. It's remarkable and testiment to the things that Cus and his team did right that Tyson achieved what he did. As Weltschmerz points out though it wasn't solely Tyson's mental makeup that hindered him. I recently heard one trainer refer to Tyson as "one of the best six round fighters that ever lived". It pains me to admit it but in retrospect that's probably not too wide of the mark.

[SthPaw]

Personally I believe Don King's influences and involvement played a bigger part in Tyson losing his potential than Cus dying. Mike actually continued to look very solid in the aftermath of Cus' death, it was a mixture of some events in his life a few years later - and then of course Don King moulding Tyson into a different image...Get rid of his original team/Make Tyson feel like he was all that mattered and surround him with a picked team of yes-men. Tyson was extremely impressionable and needed the right people around him, he says so himself...It was bound to fail once King set up the whole "Family Affair" gimmick.

But back to the point - While he is not in the extreme high on ATG lists, I do agree that Tyson had so much for those early years. If I had been around back then and somebody told me if he carried on the way he was and stayed focused, then I would not have found it hard to visualise at all. He had so much potential it was unreal.

[juggernaut666]

Tyson simply gets penalised for being to good and false claims of a weak era that had good big athletic boxers some taking Holyfield and Lewis the distance when way out of their primes in the 90's . His bouts averaged 3/4 rounds under Cus/Rooney so not sure where the logic is in Tyson was a 6 rnd fighter,he was never remotley close to losing fights that went the distance and even in the 90's he absolutely battered Ruddock for 12 rnds . Tyson slipped jabs like no one else and countered them easier than anything ,thats why no tall jabbers beat him

Waste of potential ? Yes ,but He is still number 2 for me head to head ,under Rooney he was just thst good and it would take a right, big giant , skilled awkward style to defeat that Tyson. I believe a certain 6'7 guy named Vitali could do it, Lewis /Wlad are reasonable but as of now wouldn't look past those 3 guys .He made his mark as the best finisher ever despite making the mistake of parting with Rooney , you are only as good as your trainer and theres no better example than this one!

[AlexKid]

Agreed. Interestingly I've seen interviews with both Steve Lott and Kevin Rooney where they swear black and blue that based on what Mike was doing in sparring that he was still only ever at about 50% of his potential. A scary thought. However when assessing a fighter's greatness you have to add in their mental game and Mike had major deficiencies in that area.

No matter how good he got he couldn't defend against the Botha Hug, and anyone that employed it would beat him or at least come close like Botha did.

Mikes not strong enough to fend off a big mans hug.

So he would get out pointed and tied up all night.

[Furn]

His very short "prime" also coincided with him fighting some pretty average or well past it fighters, so it's impossible to say whether he fell away or he just wasn't up to it against the absolute best.

Very similar story to Naseem Hamad.