BoxRec

sweetviolenturge wrote:

Rocky Balboa wrote:Back in the day, a diary was kept of all of Tyson's sparring partners. It was once made available to HBO & I remember one comment by one sparring partner who said "He does not want any piece of Mike Tyson!"

McCrory & McCall have already been mentioned, but Jesse Ferguson was a regular sparring partner aswell!

I remember that diary/log book well. I got to see it for myself when I visited the gym in Catskill in 1987 & my jaw dropped when I saw the who's who of ( then current ) heavyweights within those pages. I wish I'd been able to photocopy its pages.
The biggest surprise? Well, most of them have been mentioned here already, but I remember Jimmy Young being in there.

But maybe Jimmy Young had signed it thinking it was a "Guest Book".
because I sort of doubt that he laced up the gloves to spar with Mike Tyson at that point.
waht do you think? could he have sparred with him ?

Tuan_Jim wrote:

Controversial wrote:Whilst training to fight Tucker in 1987 Tyson used -

James Broad (claimed he was never dropped)
Warren Thompson (dropped)
Anthony Witherspoon (excused as ribs damaged)
Oscar Holman (floored several times and received a cracked rib from a Tyson hook)

Broad dropped Tyson at one point.

When Broad was in my hometown city of Buffalo to fight Tim Witherspoon as part of Don King's BLOCKBUSTER IN BUFFALO promotion back in April of 1985, I was a witness to one of the most hilarious, surreal moments that I've ever seen in the game. While in the locker room about an hour before he was set to take to the ring, Broad had a member of his entourage get him a dozen donuts & he proceeded to eat every last one of them. All the while bellowing about how Witherspoon wouldn't know how to deal with it " when 260-some odd pounds of Broadaxe Broad comes down on him".
Just the sight of him getting his hands taped up & him beginning to shadow box while still sporting powdered sugar & smears of jelly on his face was like something out of some bizarre comedy film.
Needless to say, those dozen donuts didn't help him against "Terrible" Tim who came out & jumped on Broad, battering him into a second round KO defeat. LOL.

Caractacus wrote:

sweetviolenturge wrote:

Rocky Balboa wrote:Back in the day, a diary was kept of all of Tyson's sparring partners. It was once made available to HBO & I remember one comment by one sparring partner who said "He does not want any piece of Mike Tyson!"

McCrory & McCall have already been mentioned, but Jesse Ferguson was a regular sparring partner aswell!

I remember that diary/log book well. I got to see it for myself when I visited the gym in Catskill in 1987 & my jaw dropped when I saw the who's who of ( then current ) heavyweights within those pages. I wish I'd been able to photocopy its pages.
The biggest surprise? Well, most of them have been mentioned here already, but I remember Jimmy Young being in there.

But maybe Jimmy Young had signed it thinking it was a "Guest Book".
because I sort of doubt that he laced up the gloves to spar with Mike Tyson at that point.
waht do you think? could he have sparred with him ?

Yes, I made a point of asking & he did indeed come into camp in Catskill & work with Tyson. Yeah, Jimmy was well past it by then, but he needed the $$$ I guess & at the time he still had enough left in the tank to be able to beat the likes of Rocky Sekorski, so I'm sure he probably showed Mike a trick or two. And, Tyson likely took it easy on him just like he did with Scott Ledoux when he was in a similar predicament.

Caractacus wrote:

sweetviolenturge wrote:

Rocky Balboa wrote:Back in the day, a diary was kept of all of Tyson's sparring partners. It was once made available to HBO & I remember one comment by one sparring partner who said "He does not want any piece of Mike Tyson!"

McCrory & McCall have already been mentioned, but Jesse Ferguson was a regular sparring partner aswell!

I remember that diary/log book well. I got to see it for myself when I visited the gym in Catskill in 1987 & my jaw dropped when I saw the who's who of ( then current ) heavyweights within those pages. I wish I'd been able to photocopy its pages.
The biggest surprise? Well, most of them have been mentioned here already, but I remember Jimmy Young being in there.

yeah,I had forgotten that Jimmy Young was still fighting in the late 1980's (up to 1988),so he probably did spar with Tyson.

sweetviolenturge wrote:

Tuan_Jim wrote:

Controversial wrote:Whilst training to fight Tucker in 1987 Tyson used -

James Broad (claimed he was never dropped)
Warren Thompson (dropped)
Anthony Witherspoon (excused as ribs damaged)
Oscar Holman (floored several times and received a cracked rib from a Tyson hook)

Broad dropped Tyson at one point.

When Broad was in my hometown city of Buffalo to fight Tim Witherspoon as part of Don King's BLOCKBUSTER IN BUFFALO promotion back in April of 1985, I was a witness to one of the most hilarious, surreal moments that I've ever seen in the game. While in the locker room about an hour before he was set to take to the ring, Broad had a member of his entourage get him a dozen donuts & he proceeded to eat every last one of them. All the while bellowing about how Witherspoon wouldn't know how to deal with it " when 260-some odd pounds of Broadaxe Broad comes down on him".
Just the sight of him getting his hands taped up & him beginning to shadow box while still sporting powdered sugar & smears of jelly on his face was like something out of some bizarre comedy film.
Needless to say, those dozen donuts didn't help him against "Terrible" Tim who came out & jumped on Broad, battering him into a second round KO defeat. LOL.

Eating a dozen donuts before any athletic event seems perilous

Cutman Scabbers wrote:

sweetviolenturge wrote:

Tuan_Jim wrote:
Broad dropped Tyson at one point.

When Broad was in my hometown city of Buffalo to fight Tim Witherspoon as part of Don King's BLOCKBUSTER IN BUFFALO promotion back in April of 1985, I was a witness to one of the most hilarious, surreal moments that I've ever seen in the game. While in the locker room about an hour before he was set to take to the ring, Broad had a member of his entourage get him a dozen donuts & he proceeded to eat every last one of them. All the while bellowing about how Witherspoon wouldn't know how to deal with it " when 260-some odd pounds of Broadaxe Broad comes down on him".
Just the sight of him getting his hands taped up & him beginning to shadow box while still sporting powdered sugar & smears of jelly on his face was like something out of some bizarre comedy film.
Needless to say, those dozen donuts didn't help him against "Terrible" Tim who came out & jumped on Broad, battering him into a second round KO defeat. LOL.

Eating a dozen donuts before any athletic event seems perilous

There aren't many people on Boxrec who could top that anecdote. I've heard a few tales of Broad over the years. Most of them involve him being drunk and acting bizarrely. A skilful operator until the bad diet made big punches unavoidable, no wonder he ended up the way he did.

Nate Robinson
Jimmy Young
Melvin Epps
Dion Burgess
Donnie Long
Kenny Davis
James Dixon
Anthony Davis
Larry Alexander
Carlos deleon

IRISH MIKE JAMESON

After fighting Tyson he was hired as a sparring partner
and helped get Iron Mike ready for Bonecrusher Smith.

The footage is on YouTube.

Jose Ribalta was a $2,000 a week sparring partner for Tyson and also for Cooney

John Bray was another although I’d never heard of him before

EriqS wrote: ↑20 Sep 2009, 09:11 Perhaps not a regular sparring partner (in fact I'm pretty sure he wasn't), but during '86/'87 he did have a few sessions with a young heavyweight from Texas by the name of Mike Williams. Supposedly, Williams did rather well against him, and this boosted his rep a little for a short time. Not long after, however, he dropped a rather one-sided decision to Tim Witherspon and ended up being stopped a couple of times. End of the road for him.

Tyson sparred with Greg Page and got dropped by him. You can see it with your own eyes on Youtube.

Unless I'm mistaken, he also sparred with Mike "The Bounty" Hunter, whom I saw defeat an aging Pinklon Thomas at Ft. Bragg, NC in 1990.

Not sure if this has been addressed in this thread (too lazy to look, lol).
Williams sole objective was to pound Mike's midsection. Bill Clayton said that Williams had floored Mike in sparring more than once and it was body shots that did it.
But that was his purpose and Mike knew it and sort of let it happen to toughen his abs and increase his ability to take a shot to the gut.

Page floored Mike in Japan was Tyson prepared for Douglas.
But there's some back story here.
Page was a top rated HW in his day and some felt he was going to be the next great HW once Holmes got older.
He ran into some hard times and his career sputtered.
This is when he started working as a sparring partner of Tyson.
Tyson used to embarass him routinely.
In fact, Tyson apparently humbled him greatly during the last fight camp he worked for Tyson prior to Douglas. This was when Mike was still with Rooney.
So when he was hired to help during the Douglas camp, he had a mini training camp of his own to just prepare for this job.
He was determined to not be embarassed again.
He came in tip-top shape and the rest as we know, is history.

Oliver McCall ' allegedly" floored Tyson in a sparring session too.

-1986-

Former world cruiserweight challenger Patrick Lumumba used to spar Tyson at some point.

Joe Egan. He's never mentioned it though.

I remember when Mike first started he was handled by an also amateur heavyweight from Philadelphia name Tyrone Hicks who ironically used to spar Jesse Furgeson and Marvis Frazier
I often wondered what happened to Hicks he had fantastic reflexes decent power and great speed about 6'3 or 6'4 .. I saw hicks box a undefeated professional fighter from England and ripped him apart..the next day that guy refused to box him again... anyone know anything about Tyrone Hicks

620360 wrote: ↑24 Feb 2022, 03:07 I remember when Mike first started he was handled by an also amateur heavyweight from Philadelphia name Tyrone Hicks who ironically used to spar Jesse Furgeson and Marvis Frazier
I often wondered what happened to Hicks he had fantastic reflexes decent power and great speed about 6'3 or 6'4 .. I saw hicks box a undefeated professional fighter from England and ripped him apart..the next day that guy refused to box him again... anyone know anything about Tyrone Hicks

How do you know this and what year roughly was he allegedly sparring Tyson, when Tyson was a pro? Also are you 100% sure these details are accurate, Hicks was an amateur heavyweight from Philly and was definitely named Tyrone Hicks? Or did he box under another name? Did he win anything as an amateur and how old would he be now? There isn't anyone in the boxrec database called Tyrone Hicks. I can't say I've heard of him, or able to find any mention of Hicks online or on this forum, but if all this information is correct, or you have more information, then someone else might know more.

also can he prove that it was Davarryl "Touch of Sleep" Williamson
who had handed Tyson his behind ( according to Tyson's own autobiography)n a sparring session not too long after Tyson
was re-leased from prision

how many of the sparring partners listed here so far had still been an amateur in 1995 ?
( or perhaps turned pro that year)

Might interest some of you

Someone ought to track down all of the sparring partners that Mike Tyson
had used over the years and let them tell their stories.
and other freaky sh*t that may have been happening around them while doing it at the time.
I would buy that book would you ?
some people may call that "trivia", I like to call it "Boxing history".

Caractacus wrote: ↑19 Apr 2023, 15:26 Someone ought to track down all of the sparring partners that Mike Tyson
had used over the years and let them tell their stories.

You seem to have plenty of time, so go ahead

Derek Williams was used for the Carl “the truth” Williams fight. He wrote a article about it for Boxing News Online. Mike “the bounty” Hunter, Phil Brown and Warren Thompson were also used for that camp.

wouter wrote: ↑20 Apr 2023, 11:05

Caractacus wrote: ↑19 Apr 2023, 15:26 Someone ought to track down all of the sparring partners that Mike Tyson
had used over the years and let them tell their stories.

You seem to have plenty of time, so go ahead