Mike Tyson had so much potential

[Luilun]

Mike Tyson down fall was Don King and leaving Kevin Rooney who trained him with the style that made him the Peek a boo style with constant slipping and bobing and weaving

[Luilun]

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.

What do you think the slipping was for to take away the reach and the jab

[elina jhon]

yeah ! Make Tyson is a youngest heavyweight champion fighter in history.so he have more potential

[Redd Foxx]

What do you think the slipping was for to take away the reach and the jab

Of course he had strategies to cope, every boxer does. That's the sport. Doesn't mean the shorter man isn't at a disadvantage. Proper implementation, such as Douglas did, stifles the ability to get inside by controlling space and timing.

[Luilun]

Of course he had strategies to cope, every boxer does. That's the sport. Doesn't mean the shorter man isn't at a disadvantage. Proper implementation, such as Douglas did, stifles the ability to get inside by controlling space and timing.

By the Douglas fight Tyson was no longer slipping punches he was just a one punch haye make fighter

[Baltimore]

Yeah it's a shame when you think what could've been.

He's still the most recognizable boxer today

[Redd Foxx]

By the Douglas fight Tyson was no longer slipping punches he was just a one punch haye make fighter

You clearly don't know the man's history. Whatever point you thought you were making, you're done.

[TheCell8]

and he lived up to it...

[Luilun]

You clearly don't know the man's history. Whatever point you thought you were making, you're done.

Dude I watched all his fights You probably wasn't even born yet

[Weltschmerz]

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.

His was a unique story indeed and the perfect storm in a sense. You point out some important things I believe and we wouldn't have had the Tyson story we got if not for these circumstances. We will always be left with this feeling that he could have been much greater than he was, with his pugilistic potential alone. He was a remarkable case too in the way he cut a stereotypical (black street thug) yet invigorating figure and public persona.