BoxRec

Mike Tyson: I just stopped caring. I just stopped feeling Cus inside me. All those headlines. I didn’t care about boxing. And when Douglas got up after I knocked him down and came back at me—I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have it in me when I knocked him down, either. It’s just…more power to him, he got up. Nobody else had.

Controversial wrote: I just stopped feeling Cus inside me.

Ugh...

Controversial wrote:Mike Tyson: I just stopped caring. I just stopped feeling Cus inside me. All those headlines. I didn’t care about boxing. And when Douglas got up after I knocked him down and came back at me—I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have it in me when I knocked him down, either. It’s just…more power to him, he got up. Nobody else had.

Tyson said: ''I just didn't train hard for the fight. And I was doing too much drinking and going out.''

''I lost respect for the championship,'' he said that day. ''I took advantage of my body.''

''I don't want to take anything away from Douglas, but I just had no will to fight at that particular time,'' Tyson said. ''I was going through crazy problems. My girlfriend was pregnant. I didn't want to be in Japan. Nothing against the Japanese people, but I just didn't want to be that far away from home.''

Controversial wrote:Tyson said: ''I just didn't train hard for the fight. And I was doing too much drinking and going out.''

''I lost respect for the championship,'' he said that day. ''I took advantage of my body.''

''I don't want to take anything away from Douglas, but I just had no will to fight at that particular time,'' Tyson said. ''I was going through crazy problems. My girlfriend was pregnant. I didn't want to be in Japan. Nothing against the Japanese people, but I just didn't want to be that far away from home.''

The humor is fading.

Tyson: "The fact is, I wasn't in any psychological shape. But Buster did an awesome job"

Tyson blamed himself for the loss to Douglas. ''Six weeks before the fight, I weighed 248,''

Trainer Aaron Snowell said Tyson has only one meal a day - soup and salad. The one meal a day I would say was to help him take off weight with a "crash-diet" which Rooney heard as well from insiders.

Il Duce wrote:Saad

I expected more than 'four words'.

Mike Tyson was beaten by a better man.........

No doubt about that. Douglas whipped his ass something fierce. That's one thing with Mike's low Ring IQ. When he knew he was beat, he took his beatings like a man. Whether he made excuses later about headbutts, women or training doesn't take that away from him.

Just goes to show how tough Tyson really was. Even fighting on a half tank he took some serious punches, even managing to floor Douglas late in the fight with one punch. Frightening to think how great he would've been if he trained hard and wasn't mentally unstable. On his best night he would be nightmare for any heavyweight thats ever lived.

There ya go, that's the stuff. Stick to your own comedy, don't try to copy.

Eh? You can think what you want, I think what I want. The fact is there is so much evidence to back up the fact that Tyson wasn't in shape. You only responses to these are smiley faces. Now thats funny.

I assumed you were telling jokes. My bad, yes, you go right ahead and think what you want. Nothing more to say, you can pull up quotes of excuses from just about every fighters defeats. Believe what you will, Mike got his ass whipped. That's the only fact being discussed.

Thanks I will

That really is shocking your last few posts weren't made in humor.

Buster on Tyson win: "He was prepared. He took a beating"

Buster on Holyfield loss: "Truth was, I didn't want to fight. Psychologically, I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I wish I had been, but I just didn't have it in me. I was Dynamite Douglas's boy, but I never had the desire he had. So I lost my title and missed a great opportunity"

Ha, nothing like double standards.

- Kevin Rooney, Tyson's former trainer

-- "A great fighter was brought down by Don King. Mike was totally unprepared for a man like Douglas. . . . All the reports I got from Mike's training said he was not prepared, that he wasn't training very well. Then, during the fight, they should have at least told him to do what they didn't train him to do - there he was, walking straight ahead into the jab instead of stepping to the side.''

Rooney ever since he got let go by Tyson has spent the rest of his born-days going on about how Tyson "lost it" and would become the "old Mike again" if he took him back, he'd move his head blahblahblah.

Every trainer Mike ever had has told him to move his head, slip in, throw the double jab to get inside, work the body, throw combinations etc.. With a fighter like Mike it's not rocket science in terms of what he has to do. Mike knew too. He just didn't always do it.

Summed up beautifully by Steward I think.

Emmanuel Steward: "Mike was going in the opposite direction, riding the crest of just the glory, and his abilities, and the aura about him, and fans going crazy over him. I know he didn’t train that serious and he had no real dedication to boxing the way he should have, so everything mixed up just right for a major upset where one guy underestimated his opponent and didn’t train and the other guy was totally on a mission and thought he was going to win that fight even if he never won another fight. It was a major upset. If you look Buster Douglas never did anything major after that. That was the highlight of his career that particular night, but that happens in sports."

Didn’t Tyson have the clap when he fought Berbick? Didn’t he punch Mitch Green in the face and bust his hand up?

My guess is that Mike was always a mess and all those early knockouts played up to the myth of his invincibility. He didn’t need to train too hard. Then he met a guy who didn’t fold at the staredown and he got beaten.

It’s a little like British power in the 1920s…it had already ebbed away…just nobody had faced them down yet…

Ezzard wrote:Didn’t Tyson have the clap when he fought Berbick? Didn’t he punch Mitch Green in the face and bust his hand up?

My guess is that Mike was always a mess and all those early knockouts played up to the myth of his invincibility. He didn’t need to train too hard. Then he met a guy who didn’t fold at the staredown and he got beaten.

It’s a little like British power in the 1920s…it had already ebbed away…just nobody had faced them down yet…

Yep he was always trouble. He was the first to admit he didn't like training, trouble was he was so good most of the time he got away with doing the bare minimum in training. He picked the wrong fighter to go in with under-prepared and paid the price. Unfortunately I think the loss took a lot more out of him and he was never really the same fighter ever again.

James Douglas was actually a pretty good fighter when he was prepared. He was beating Tony Tucker for most of their title fight, until Douglas ran out of gas and more or less quit. James was a big man 6'4", 230 lbs, with a lengthy reach, good jab and powerful right hand. An underrated fighter in all likelihood.

drunkenpiper36 wrote:James Douglas was actually a pretty good fighter when he was prepared. He was beating Tony Tucker for most of their title fight, until Douglas ran out of gas and more or less quit. James was a big man 6'4", 230 lbs, with a lengthy reach, good jab and powerful right hand. An underrated fighter in all likelihood.

Yes he was a good fighter, however like many heavyweights he often came in out of shape or un-motivated. He was at his very best against Tyson.

Punchers get high on their own supply, so to speak. Tyson was no different.

I think what made him so good so young…al that attention and the way he was hot-housed…sort of undid him in the end…

I think he was all he could ever be… Obviously he achieved so much…but he trained and prepared as much as was possible for him with his unique psychology and life experience.

drunkenpiper36 wrote:James Douglas was actually a pretty good fighter when he was prepared. He was beating Tony Tucker for most of their title fight, until Douglas ran out of gas and more or less quit. James was a big man 6'4", 230 lbs, with a lengthy reach, good jab and powerful right hand. An underrated fighter in all likelihood.

Some posters are happy to accept that Douglas was not at his best when he lost and Witherspoon was not at his best in the Smith rematch. It's a shame they are so blinkered about Tyson.

I think it's fair enough to say that this wasn't Tyson's best fight. I think what gets people "blinkered" is hearing the past his prime excuse, the he would have won with Rooney excuses etc. that we have heard through the years.

Douglas lost to Tucker and he has no one else to blame.
Witherspoon lost to Smith and he has no one else to blame.
Tyson lost to Douglas and he has no one else to blame.

Ambling Alp II wrote:I think it's fair enough to say that this wasn't Tyson's best fight. I think what gets people "blinkered" is hearing the past his prime excuse, the he would have won with Rooney excuses etc. that we have heard through the years.

Douglas lost to Tucker and he has no one else to blame.
Witherspoon lost to Smith and he has no one else to blame.
Tyson lost to Douglas and he has no one else to blame.

I agree, Tyson has no one else to blame for not being at his physical and mental peak when he stepped in the ring.