Mike Tyson breakthrough in U.K. ???

[Wales]

Tyson was before my time. Does anyone remember when the hype arrived in the U.K. Obviously it was before Internet and huge access to global fights.

Was there an early fight, or U.K. Audience breakthrough fight that brought him to the attention of UK fight fans? Or was it boxing news covering his early (?) outings?? I

I'm guessing due to media of the day he wasn't widely known / hyped / professed as being a great in the UK when he turned over?

[Wales]

A compilation of his fights 10-20 are on ESPN now, hence the random question

[Counter-puncher]

Tyson was before my time. Does anyone remember when the hype arrived in the U.K. Obviously it was before Internet and huge access to global fights.

Was there an early fight, or U.K. Audience breakthrough fight that brought him to the attention of UK fight fans? Or was it boxing news covering his early (?) outings?? I

I'm guessing due to media of the day he wasn't widely known / hyped / professed as being a great in the UK when he turned over?

I remember seeing a feature on him maybe 3 fights before he won the world title in the features section of a British Sunday paper, I guess that was 86?

[Taansend]

Tyson was before my time. Does anyone remember when the hype arrived in the U.K. Obviously it was before Internet and huge access to global fights.

Was there an early fight, or U.K. Audience breakthrough fight that brought him to the attention of UK fight fans? Or was it boxing news covering his early (?) outings?? I

I'm guessing due to media of the day he wasn't widely known / hyped / professed as being a great in the UK when he turned over?

I remember seeing a feature on him maybe 3 fights before he won the world title in the features section of a British Sunday paper, I guess that was 86?

I remember that too. I think it was the magazine that came with the News of the World or something.

It was the same old story. He was a shy kid with a lisp who was bullied as a child until someone broke his pigeons neck & then he turned into a killer

But his managers, Clayton & Jeffries (it's late so I could be wrong) made up a tape of his early KO's which was shown on telly here & there.

If I remember rightly Sky Sports didn't start until the first Bruno fight so we saw his early title bouts on normal tv. I watched one or two of them on big screens in Covent Garden, pissed off my nuts, in light rain with a thousand or so other people.

I was bang into boxing but most people knew about him before he beat Berbeck. After Ali the heavyweight scene had been a bit flat. Even though Holmes was very good, he wasn't really liked.

Back in those days boxing was covered daily in the main newspapers - well the ones I read anyway. There was also these shows at the weekend which would show sports from around the world over the previous week or two & they always had highlights of fights, especially Chavez.

I remember watching Thomas Hearns v Dennis Andries at the pub. I think it was the Saturday AFTER they actually fought although it was over thirty years ago (f*cking hell I am old). If I remember rightly it was snowing when I left the pub on a Saturday afternoon. But I could be wrong

[watsupdoc87]

I was only thinking today imagine if his career was today with all the camera phone and Twitter stuff . Like a 24 hour mental drug case reality show. I'm high as fuk so might not make sense

[Bleak]

did he box or spar over her before he turned pro

[Bricks]

There were only 4 tv channels back than....

Itv used to have a magnificent 4-5 hour saturday afternoon sports show called "world of sports" presented by dickie davis.they very regularly had live british boxing bills and all the american world title fights...they also put together some great compilations of fighters and their fights...it was in this way u were introduced to guys like don curry,mike mccallum and Tyson...

It helped that tyson was fighting every month during 1986....i would say by the time of bruno-Witherspoon there was a real buzz surrounding tyson..but it had started in early 86.due to these afternoon fights....tyson was mentioned after witherspoon had won in a promo for don kings hw tournament...

By the time tyson won the title all his fights were shown live in the wee hours on a saturday night.my dad would record it all.

Than on a sunday morning at around 11am the tyson fight would be replayed in a one hour package.all i can say is as a young kid everyone(boys at least) at school would be talking about the fight....tyson was the deginition of a household name by 1986...the buzz and interest in him thereon never died.....all the way thru to the lewis fight in 2002.....in my lifetime there have been few fighters who u got to see so regularly who were unbeaten and just had an aura of invincibility about them...back in 86-89 i used to imagine tyson being defeated and just couldnt it just seemed so unreal a concept of mike ever being beaten...roy jones jnr was another one ...from 93 up to 2003 he didnt show a single chink in his armour seemed utterly unbeatable....

[orbtastic]

I remember the buzz around '86 or so, I clearly remember watching the Green fight on TV on Saturday afternoon. Around that time he was fighting pretty regularly but had a couple of points wins instead of quick KOs.

Then six months later he's pasting Berbick. People definitely knew who he was before then but that fight is what made him a household name, the brutality and highlight reel KO also helped.

[Tuan_Jim]

He was big news by the time he was challenging Berbick. ITV made a big deal out of broadcasting that one live!

[Flump]

I remember seeing his fight with Ribalta when I was on holiday in Jersey, the Green fight I think before that. There was also a highlight reel around the time that played on ITV where he was demolishing everyone that I showed some school mates. He looked like a beast.

Even before then you'd get the reports in Boxing News where guys like Jim Brady would be describing his fights. Because in part Bruno was such a national figure here all of the other champions and contenders were getting air time as potential opponents but Tyson was by far the most interesting. By the time of Berbick as others have said he was a major star here.

[JWP]

I remember hype was very much around could he become the youngest ever heavyweight champ, and that started pretty much straight out of the blocks as a pro. His connections made no secret of the plan and after 28 fights in just 22 months and he was champ at the age of 20 years and 4 months.

Jesse Ferguson was the step up, he had beaten Buster Douglas among others to win that ESPN Tournament and looked fairly decent.

[tobyh5]

I well remember that News of the World supplement story. Tyson was on the front cover and the picture they used was the one with him wearing trunks and gloves and leaning against a wall, looking sweaty and shaven smooth on the back and side of his head.

He fascinated me as a 12 year old as I was then. Then ITV showed the big fights and then all the newspapers were covered in stories - back page and averaging 4-6 pages inside. I was at a boarding school at the time and they used to buy all the national papers for the kids to read. I would race back on the Monday after a Tyson fight and devour all of them before cutting the pages out and keeping them in a folder - this was the Telegraph, Times, Independent etc. I only threw them out about ten years ago when getting divorced and needing to de-clutter.

[mickey1975]

I knew all about him, but I was a freaky kid when it came to boxing. Everybody who watched the sport knew all about him before Berbick.

[bigjack]

He was big before the Berbick fight,i remember the hype surrounding him and someone i worked with said 'yeh but lets see how he deals with Marvis Frazier before we get carried away'

[Wales]

I was only thinking today imagine if his career was today with all the camera phone and Twitter stuff . Like a 24 hour mental drug case reality show. I'm high as fuk so might not make sense

You'd love to think the sports moved on and he would've been steered / advised away from all that and fulfilled his potential instead of arguably being the biggest "WHAT IF" in boxing history.

But who knows !

[Counter-puncher]

Tyson was before my time. Does anyone remember when the hype arrived in the U.K. Obviously it was before Internet and huge access to global fights.

Was there an early fight, or U.K. Audience breakthrough fight that brought him to the attention of UK fight fans? Or was it boxing news covering his early (?) outings?? I

I'm guessing due to media of the day he wasn't widely known / hyped / professed as being a great in the UK when he turned over?

I remember seeing a feature on him maybe 3 fights before he won the world title in the features section of a British Sunday paper, I guess that was 86?

I remember that too. I think it was the magazine that came with the News of the World or something.

It was the same old story. He was a shy kid with a lisp who was bullied as a child until someone broke his pigeons neck & then he turned into a killer

But his managers, Clayton & Jeffries (it's late so I could be wrong) made up a tape of his early KO's which was shown on telly here & there.

If I remember rightly Sky Sports didn't start until the first Bruno fight so we saw his early title bouts on normal tv. I watched one or two of them on big screens in Covent Garden, pissed off my nuts, in light rain with a thousand or so other people.

I was bang into boxing but most people knew about him before he beat Berbeck. After Ali the heavyweight scene had been a bit flat. Even though Holmes was very good, he wasn't really liked.

Back in those days boxing was covered daily in the main newspapers - well the ones I read anyway. There was also these shows at the weekend which would show sports from around the world over the previous week or two & they always had highlights of fights, especially Chavez.

I remember watching Thomas Hearns v Dennis Andries at the pub. I think it was the Saturday AFTER they actually fought although it was over thirty years ago (f*cking hell I am old). If I remember rightly it was snowing when I left the pub on a Saturday afternoon. But I could be wrong

Yeah I guess that (NOTW supplement) was it.

I was only 10 but I was really taken by the Tyson/Cus back story, also the way Tyson talked about boxing, how scientific he was about it, I remember him saying 'I'm not just a wild puncher, I know the parts of the anatomy to target, the liver, the floating rib...' and I remember feeing for my bottom rib and how loose it was and thinking 'fvck it must hurt getting hit there'

The other thing I remember, you're totally right, how desperate the whole scene was for a new heavyweight to come through

[ILikeBeer]

He was big before the Berbick fight,i remember the hype surrounding him and someone i worked with said 'yeh but lets see how he deals with Marvis Frazier before we get carried away'

Truly, the test of any great heavyweight.

[Dirk Kelly]

I saw a few of his fights as a kid but the 'break through for me was the Bonecrusher Smith fight as that was the first time I heard my cousins, uncles, neighbours talking about Tyson and how he was going to smash Smith. We had a house full watching it.

Live on ITV I think or shown the next day and it was a bore fest. Smith hugged him for 12 rounds. Me and my Dad must have annoyed the hell out of everyone saying he's been in much better fights and listing the examples we'd seen. In those days you couldn't just tap into google and see it!

[Dirk Kelly]

Tyson was before my time.

Before your time Sam? You must have had a hard paper round! Did you Dad send you down the mines as a kid?

[Manchester Massive]

I can remember reading about him in Boxing News when he went 4-0 as a pro and keeping an eye out for him from then on, saw a compilation of his KO's on some sports show on terrestrial TV and the fuss around him was building up by the time he fought Mike Jameson, highlights of that were def shown on UK TV and also the Ferguson fight straight after

[bigjack]

I saw a few of his fights as a kid but the 'break through for me was the Bonecrusher Smith fight as that was the first time I heard my cousins, uncles, neighbours talking about Tyson and how he was going to smash Smith. We had a house full watching it.

Live on ITV I think or shown the next day and it was a bore fest. Smith hugged him for 12 rounds. Me and my Dad must have annoyed the hell out of everyone saying he's been in much better fights and listing the examples we'd seen. In those days you couldn't just tap into google and see it!

Yes it was live,also Tommy Hearns fought Dennis Andries live on ITV on Saturday evening at a reasonable time too (uk time that is)

[Noxy]

The first I heard of him was after his - nose into the brain - quote. I wondered what sort of character would say something like that. I think the first time I saw him was against Mitch Green, one of the few where he didn't stop his opponent

[Bricks]

I knew all about him, but I was a freaky kid when it came to boxing. Everybody who watched the sport knew all about him before Berbick.

U would have been about 25 right micky back in 1986.That gives u a unique perspective U would have been best placed to judge him against the 1970s behemoths.

[Bricks]

I saw a few of his fights as a kid but the 'break through for me was the Bonecrusher Smith fight as that was the first time I heard my cousins, uncles, neighbours talking about Tyson and how he was going to smash Smith. We had a house full watching it.

Live on ITV I think or shown the next day and it was a bore fest. Smith hugged him for 12 rounds. Me and my Dad must have annoyed the hell out of everyone saying he's been in much better fights and listing the examples we'd seen. In those days you couldn't just tap into google and see it!

Yes it was live,also Tommy Hearns fought Dennis Andries live on ITV on Saturday evening at a reasonable time too (uk time that is)

I still remember that wonderful little 4-5 week period in early 1987 where week after week world championship fighting........marsh-kameda, SRL-Hagler, Hearns-Andries, Tyson-Smith I believe were amongst the fights.

The big fight music of the 1980s was very evocative it was like they hired John barry and asked him to come up with a theme that would make even a grandpa want to put down his tea and get out of his armchair and start punching into air and baying for blood

[mickey1975]

I knew all about him, but I was a freaky kid when it came to boxing. Everybody who watched the sport knew all about him before Berbick.

U would have been about 25 right micky back in 1986.That gives u a unique perspective U would have been best placed to judge him against the 1970s behemoths.

The clue is in the user name... 10, I think.