Welcome back fight fans to another video here on The Fight Game. This video is about Mike
Tyson, and I really want to give this man justice with a great video. You can
get a list of Tyson's greatest knockouts with a simple YouTube search, we know
this. But that's not what this video is about, this video is going to highlight many aspects
of Tyson's career. Sure Tyson is world renowned for his punching
power, but he's also a man with a story to tell. His life was not just of glory
and fame, but sometimes a very accurate depiction of harsh reality. Boxer's have careers with
glistening gold belts and comfortable rewards, while others have utter
heartbreak and misfortune. Rarely will you see a fighter who's had all of these
in abundance like the man who's on your screen right now. If you're here to see a quick highlight
reel you might as well skip the video now, but if you're looking to know
the incredible life led by Mike Tyson, sit back and enjoy the show because we're
looking closely into the past to see how one man transformed the sport of boxing from beginning
to end.
When you saw Mike Tyson enter the ring you saw his opponents subdue to pure annihilation,
each and every aspect of Tyson's demeanor epitomizes an undeniable force of
nature. If you had to describe Mike Tyson's career, it would be one of ultimate
destruction. When you're talking knockout you're talking Mike Tyson. His intimidating
mannerisms were not bound to just the ring either, his mere presence has had his
opponents on edge in press conferences and dressing rooms. While many people have
said they'd enter the ring with anyone for multiples of millions of dollars, if it's
against Mike Tyson you can forget about it. If you were fighting Mike Tyson your job was
not to beat him, it was to survive him. He holds the record as the youngest heavyweight
champion ever, if it wasn't for Cus, this would never happen. The idea that I'm the
youngest champ of the world. The idea that will
live forever. The idea that I think will never be broken. this he won 19 of his first professional
bouts by knockout, 12 of those coming in the first round. His illustrious
career is one of faults and achievements, devastating blows inside and outside the ring,
welcome to this video here on The Fight Game where we dissect the incredible life story
of Iron Mike Tyson.
If you haven't realized already Tyson's freakish ability to put people to sleep didn't come
without hours of specialized training far away from the spotlight in the sanctuary
of the gym. At the age of 13 Tyson was discovered and uncovered by the philosophical
Cus D'Amato. Tyson at the time was surely a delinquent, the gym for him would end up
being his savior from the streets of Brooklyn New York. A day in the life of Mike Tyson's
intense training regime began with road work at 4am, moving on to 12pm he would
begin 10 rounds of sparring, after a short break he would enter back into the ring for
45 minutes to an hour for esoteric lessons on the sweet science perfecting his
skillset, an hour on the exercise bike followed. Moving on to 5pm he would begin his
strength workout with 2000 squats, 2500 sit-ups, 500 to 800 dips, 500 pushups, 500 shrugs and
then a 10 minute neck workout to top it all off. After dinner he would close out the
day with a short 45-minute session on the exercise bike again. You're probably shocked
at the insane training routine, but do remember extraordinary results require extraordinary
methods.
Tyson's training consisted of drills in the ring to simulate real life situations, notice
Tyson slipping both sides of the jab. This is contrary to traditional methods of slipping
seen by today's fighters who slip exclusively on the outside. Tyson's slipping doesn't come
without perfect simultanous harmony in the feet. Also take notice of how Tyson slips
after his punches, every time without fault. In boxing
this is called defensive responsability, not only does he anticipate a counter punch, but
he does it even if it isn't there. By doing this he
creates new additional angles, setting up a new combination to unleash. For a man of
Tyson's stature to move so fluidly with such technical
prowess is something that can only be achieved through years upon years of working on his
craft. Tyson's style is one that's not really taught any more in the modern era
of boxing. His trainer and mentor Cus D'Amato taught Mike the peek-a-boo style. This
style emphasizes head movement along with positioning for maximum destruction. This
style typically entails the hands to be placed close in front of the face, the elbows tucked
in tight and the boxer moving forward. Hearing this you might think it's an offensive
style, but it's actually a counter punching style. While most counter punchers back up
and stay at a safe distance, the peek-a-boo style's entire basis is to provoke
an opponent to attack, then you would slip this attack and return a counter attack,
preferably in a dominant angle. This style, when done correctly is most likely to be the
most effective style of boxing one can have. This style is also typically only for shorter
boxers where the majority of opponents are taller. The style is just as much about the
feet as it is about the upper body, to truly appreciate how Tyson got the knockout punch
you really have to look at his feet, his fast footwork negates his opponents reach
advantage and when he got on the inside his opponents tend to panic, it's almost as if
it was a bulldog in the ring running at you,
except this bulldog weighed 240 pounds and threw bombs with every punch. Tyson was not
just orthodox either, he was ambidextrous, allowing
him to create angles from both stances. Tyson was taught that the knockout punch was
a punch thrown from an invisible angle, a position in which the opponent cannot anticipate
an attack.
The diminishment of Tyson's opponents has more depth than what may first appear, each
and every move is calculated and is a mere repetition of what was practiced long before
the sound of the opening bell. This is Tyson's style, no one has been able to replicate it,
not one single person in the last few decades.
Tyson now had the recipe for success in the form of the peek-a-boo style, along with the
ultimate guidance of two very important men. These
two men were Cus D'Amato and Kevin Rooney. Cus was like a father to Tyson, he took him
into the gym at the age of 13, and along with his apprentice Kevin Rooney they worked
with a young Tyson to mold him into the monster that everyone knows and loves. Kevin Rooney
isn't given as much credit as he deserves, Rooney was one of the most important people
in Tyson's career. Cus and Rooney are the two men behind
the making of Mike Tyson. Not only did they make him a fighter, but they made him a man.
Keep the head down when you come up, keep your head
down. When it's coming up? It's not coming up but starting to come up. Can make it perfect.
It's good, but it's not perfect. Cus D'Amato was one of the very few people, perhaps even
the only person in Mike Tyson's life that he trusted. Cus believed that boxing was very
little physical and everything spiritual. Cus's boxing
lessons were almost life lessons, he believed in building character. He instilled confidence
into Tyson and gave him direction as he had lost his
compass like many other kids where he grew up.
I don't trust anybody in general. I don't like people to know me at all - and I just
recently trust him because the same way I trust him he
trusts me, and he trusts me a lot.
In 1981 Mike Tyson competed in the national junior olympics, and if you feel the cornerman
is familiar, well that's no other than Teddy Atlas. This
was Tyson's 6th fight in the amateurs, and it only took him a record breaking 8 seconds
to knock out his opponent. Tyson was only 15 years
old here. Tyson was sure to show great sportsmanship after the fight, a testament to the great
character Cus was building. Rooney would work tirelessly
on improving Mike's conditioning and skills under the watchful eye of Cus. At the age
of 18 Mike Tyson would make his professional debut. He would
win via body shots, he displayed the great angles he learned from Cus and Rooney. Tyson
would score many more fights via knockout, however on the 4th
of November, 8 months after Mike's first professional fight, Cus sadly passed away. Tyson was 19
years old, and when he needed Cus the most, he was there
no more. Tyson described himself in the aftermath as vulnerable. Cus was Tyson's protector,
the man who brought him so far, and to have him go just
when his career was beginning was a big hit to Tyson. Tyson described his disappointment
and sadness in the fact that Cus would never get the chance to
watch him prosper as a heavyweight champion. A goal both of them worked towards for so
long. Tyson had the proud honor of being a pallbearer at his funeral.
Cus would in turn hand the reigns over to his apprentice Kevin Rooney. Rooney and Tyson
would continue working together, and although they had lost
Cus, Rooney had all the boxing knowledge that Cus had passed down to continue building the
legacy of Iron Mike Tyson.
Tyson and Rooney continued working towards the goal of becoming heavyweight champion.
They faced many opponents and Tyson gained incredible
experience by fighting boxers of all different styles. However it was typical for the opponents
to meet the common faith of a knockout. Tyson became increasingly popular for his
ferocious style, boxing 27 times in less than 2 years. In his 28th bout Tyson took on Trevor
Berbick for the heavyweight championship of the world.
Tyson aimed to become the youngest heavyweight champion ever at the young age of just 20.
Berbick decided to stand right in front of Tyson and go to war, and it was a pretty good
war for as long as it lasted. While Berbick attempted to calm the fire with his lead hand,
Tyson's head movement proved to be the perfect counter to this strategy. We see this
throughout Mike Tyson's career. He truly has mastered the art of slipping, and pure destructive
bombs followed. Soon later Tyson's ripping hooks began to take their toll on
Berbick, and with that came fatigue, and with fatigue came a barrage of punches from Tyson
just before the end of the first round. Tyson was surely in command going into the second
round, and it only took massive overhand right to get going again, and Tyson would
drop his opponent to the ground. Having his opponent very clearly hurt, Tyson decided
to close the show. Tyson had just become the
youngest heavyweight champion in history in a fashion of the most spectacular of standards.
A goal that Cus instilled in him 7 years prior when he took him in at 13 years old.
What can I say? He's probably up there right now saying 'you did a lot of mistakes, you
did a lot of mistakes.'
When Tyson defeated James Smith and Tony Tucker in 1987 he added the WBA and IBF world titles
to his collection. This would make him the first boxer to unify these belts successfully.
We saw Tyson's head movement, power and skills improve ever since his pro debut.
Tyson and Rooney wanted to become the longest reigning heavyweight champion. They had cleared
everyone in their path to get to this point, and even bigger fights were on the horizon.
Tyson would knock out Larry Holmes in the fourth round, then he would knock out Michael
Spinks in the first round. I consider the Tyson in
the Spinks fight to best version we saw of Tyson. At this point I believe Tyson was one
of if not the best heavyweight fighter the division
had ever seen. This version of Tyson was unbeatable. This was prime Tyson. Even looking back
from this point, he scored an incredible amount of knockouts, turning the unexpected into
the expected. Even by just looking at how Tyson
fights you get the idea of how his mentality of being an absolute destroyer comes into
play.
However things would go not so well from here, as shortly after the Spinks fight promoter
Don King would get his way in influencing the champ
to fire Kevin Rooney. Tyson was always naive, and even still this many years later the absence
of Cus made Tyson vulnerable to being brainwashed. When Tyson fired Rooney it was
only downhill from there. Tyson would score another knockout against Frank Bruno, but
as time went by Tyson's skills and dedication began to deteriorate. Tyson would very soon
suffer the first defeat of his professional career in a shock upset against James Buster
Douglas. It's quite sad to see how firing Kevin Rooney had effected his focus. Tyson
was not the same, and he never became the same
ever again. Although Tyson's most memorable fights came later in his career, it was not
prime Mike Tyson. Which is quite unfortunate because
it does make you wonder what would have Tyson's career looked like if he had kept Rooney,
what would have Tyson achieved if Cus had lived longer. Although Cus and Rooney were
absent in a lot Tyson's career, the skills he learned
from them would still get him many more victories. That shows you how valuable the lessons from
Cus and Rooney were, that the lessons would still prove beneficial to Tyson even
decades after. We still see the peek-a-boo style in every Mike Tyson fight, we see the
elastic snap in the shoulders to score the knockout
punch, we still see his evasive head movement. Mike Tyson's career was extraordinary to say
the least, there's more to it than what meets the surface. He's without a doubt one of the
most destructive fighters in boxing history. I
highly doubt we will ever see someone similar to the caliber of Iron Mike Tyson again for
a very long time. Tyson went off the rails a few
times in his career, from drugs to drink to buying a pet tiger. But that's what makes
Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson. You have to be a little crazy
in this boxing world to survive. There's still quite a lot to talk about when it comes to
Mike Tyson, if you guys would like us to make more
videos going into even deeper detail on certain aspects of Mike Tyson's career let us know
in the comment section below. Thanks for watching, if you enjoyed this video on Iron Mike Tyson
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here on The Fight Game.