Mike Tyson will always be regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time. His meteoric rise to fame was unprecedented, becoming the youngest boxer to win the world heavyweight championship. Even though Tyson was nearly flawless in the ring, his personal life was full of controversy. Looking back on his life, Tyson believes that things would’ve been different if his first trainer, Cus D’Amato had lived to train him throughout his entire career.
The Early Years and D'Amato's Influence
D’Amato was one of the only positive male influences in Tyson’s life during his early years. The two met after Tyson was required to go to a juvenile detention center, with D’Amato quickly realizing Tyson had natural skill as a boxer. Tyson managed to turn his life around and became one of the greatest boxers of all time, but D’Amato never got to see him reign; the legendary trainer died from pneumonia in 1985.
Constantine D'Amato was born into an Italian-American family in the New York City borough of the Bronx on January 17, 1908, to Damiano (1868-1938) and Elisabetta (née Rosato; 1875-1913). Both his parents were from Toritto, province of Bari, Southern Italy, Region Puglia. His father delivered ice and coal in the Bronx using a horse and cart. He had a brief career as an amateur boxer, fighting as a featherweight and lightweight, but was unable to get a professional license because of an eye injury he had suffered in a street fight. His childhood was scarred by physical abuse that Cus suffered at the hands of his violent father. At age 22, D'Amato opened the Empire Sporting Club with Jack Barrow at the Gramercy Gym. He lived in the gym for years. According to D'Amato, he spent his time at the gym waiting for a "champion", but his best fighters were routinely poached by "connected" managers.
After Patterson and Torres' careers ended, D'Amato worked in relative obscurity. He eventually moved to Catskill, New York, where he opened a gym, the Catskill Boxing Club. There he met and began to work with the future heavyweight champion, "Iron" Mike Tyson, who was in a nearby reform school. He adopted Tyson after Tyson's mother died. D'Amato trained him over the next few years, encouraging the use of peek-a-boo style boxing, with the hands in front of the face for more protection. It is unclear at exactly which age (11 or 12) Tyson first became seriously interested in becoming a professional boxer.
"Irish" Bobby Stewart, a former Golden Gloves Champion, was approached by Tyson while working as a counselor at the Tryon School For Boys. Tyson knew of Stewart's former boxing glory and specifically asked to speak with Stewart who immediately took on a gruff attitude of the subject after witnessing Tyson's terrible behavior in his first days at the school. Bobby Stewart introduced Mike Tyson to D'Amato when Tyson was around 12 or 13 years old, after Stewart stated he had taught Tyson all he could about boxing technique and skill.
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Tyson's Reflections on D'Amato's Lasting Impact
During a 2020 interview with VLAD TV, Tyson admits his life would’ve been drastically different if D’Amato had lived to train him longer.
“Totally different, because Cus was really … controlling,” Tyson said. “He’s just … he’d have been very happy though … I would’ve been really commercialized. … Cus always wanted somebody like that.”
Tyson went on to note that D’Amato’s values and morality would’ve been a stark contrast to the egotistical way he operated at the time, which likely would’ve been very beneficial.
“He always wanted somebody that had that clean look,” Tyson said. “Represent people, he was into all that stuff. … I got into my ego then, I just wanted to beat people and everybody [to] look at me beating people and stuff.”
Tyson claimed that he likely would’ve been more financially successful if D’Amato had been around, because D’Amato was great at exploiting capitalism.
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“I’d have been selling everything, sneakers, commercials … even though Cus had socialist tendencies, he was very capitalistic of the system, how to take advantage of [a] capitalistic system,” Tyson added. “Help other people. Use the money to help other people.”
Тайсон о смерти Каса Д`амато
Despite D’Amato’s natural savviness in business, Tyson assures that a lot of the money would’ve gone toward helping people in need, rather than buying the extravagant items Tyson became infamous for.
“He believed in charity, yeah we helped people … we started making money … he’s a strong believer in charity, but he’s a real believer in the Black church and stuff,” Tyson said. “Because when he had Floyd Patterson, his other champion, that was the main power structure of the 60s back then, the Black church.”
Obviously, there’s no way to know what Tyson’s life would’ve been like if D’Amato had lived for several more years, but it’s safe to assume that Tyson might’ve gotten into a bit less trouble if D’Amato had.
Tyson's Troubled Youth and Early Life
Mike Tyson is notorious for being one of the meanest, most intimidating boxers to ever step foot in the ring, but most people don’t think about how he got that way. The former heavyweight champion, known for his first-round knockouts and outrageous spending habits, was shaped by one of New York City’s roughest neighborhoods and never lost the edge that he developed while having to survive in the ruthless environment.
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Growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Tyson saw a lot of violence and crime. Drug use and poverty were rampant, and Tyson struggled to maintain his innocence in the underprivileged community. Before long, Tyson started committing petty crimes in order to secure money for food, as his single mother often wasn’t home.
According to Tyson, his neighborhood was so bad that he ended up dropping out of school because his classmates bullied him so much.
Tyson looked back on his tough upbringing in Brownsville during a 2020 interview with VLAD TV.
“It’s bad stuff, it’s really bad stuff,” Tyson said. “People tying people up and doing bad things to ‘em over drugs and stuff. To their family members, just real bad stuff that you don’t even want to mention … Anything you can think of someone did to abuse a human being, they did it there.”
Unfortunately, Tyson’s neighborhood school wasn’t a safe space for him to develop. He revealed during a resurfaced 2016 interview with Graham Bensinger that he eventually stopped going to school because he grew sick of getting picked on.
“School was over from the start …. Because I stopped going ‘cause everybody was kicking the sh*t out of me at school. So I had to stop going to the school. … So that stopped and … [I] started crime. That’s just what it is,” Tyson said.
Later in the interview with Bensinger, he noted that his criminal activities really began to pick up after he stopped going to class.
“Can’t go to school no more, can’t get an education, you go to crime,” Tyson added. “You hang around some guys that you figure may protect you, stop guys from bothering you, but they teach you crime. They teach you why the other guys don’t bother them and why they’re tough and all that stuff.”
Even after Tyson started learning boxing moves from a trainer, he struggled to let go of his ways. He only wanted to learn how to fight so he could be a better criminal.
“Being a boxer was the last thing on my mind,” Tyson said. “Being a heavyweight champion fighter, that must’ve been the last thing on my mind. Once I started learning how to do the fighting stuff, … I wanted to use that to be my mugging skills. Now I can do mugs.
Despite his tough exterior and criminal activities, Tyson assures that he was always a wimpy kid.
“I’m never gonna ever say-now that I evaluate my life and I always thought I was some tough guy, I was never tough,” Tyson admits. “I think I was a big wimp. But I just had guys backing me up and they gave me courage.”
Tyson's Professional Career and Achievements
Michael Gerard Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1985 and 2024. Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. Claiming his first belt at the age of 20, Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC), and International Boxing Federation (IBF) titles, as well as the only heavyweight to unify them in succession.
Tyson made his professional debut as an 18-year-old on March 6, 1985, in Albany, New York. He defeated Hector Mercedes via first-round TKO. He had 15 bouts in his first year as a professional. Fighting frequently, Tyson won 26 of his first 28 fights by KO or TKO; 16 of those came in the first round. The quality of his opponents gradually increased to journeyman fighters and borderline contenders, like James Tillis, David Jaco, Jesse Ferguson, Mitch Green, and Marvis Frazier. His win streak attracted media attention and Tyson was billed as the next great heavyweight champion.
On November 22, 1986, Tyson was given his first title fight against Trevor Berbick for the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight championship. Tyson won the title by TKO in the second round, and at the age of 20 years and 4 months became the youngest heavyweight champion in history. He added the WBA and IBF titles after defeating James Smith and Tony Tucker in 1987.
Tyson's dominant performances brought many accolades. Tyson intimidated fighters with his strength, combined with outstanding hand speed, accuracy, coordination and timing. Tyson also possessed notable defensive abilities, holding his hands high in the peek-a-boo style taught by his mentor Cus D'Amato to slip under and weave around his opponent's punches while timing his own. Tyson's explosive punching technique was due in large part to crouching immediately prior to throwing a hook or an uppercut: this allowed the "spring" of his legs to add power to the punch. Among his signature moves was a right hook to his opponent's body followed by a right uppercut to his opponent's chin.
Expectations for Tyson were extremely high, and he was the favorite to win the heavyweight unification series, a tournament designed to establish an undisputed heavyweight champion.
Personal Struggles and Controversies
Outside of the ring, Tyson dealt with a myriad of personal struggles. He was convicted of rape and sentenced to six years in prison in 1992, filed for bankruptcy in 2003, and has been open about his drug addiction for many years.
Tyson conviction of the rape charge on February 10, 1992, and was released in 1995. After being paroled from prison, Tyson easily won his comeback bouts against Peter McNeeley and Buster Mathis Jr. Tyson's first comeback fight was marketed as "He's back!" and grossed more than US$96 million worldwide, including a United States record $63 million for PPV television.
In 1992, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to six years in prison. He was released on parole after three years. After his release in 1995, he engaged in a series of comeback fights, regaining the WBA and WBC titles in 1996 to join Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Tim Witherspoon, Evander Holyfield and George Foreman as the only men in boxing history to have regained a heavyweight championship after losing it. After being stripped of the WBC title in the same year, Tyson lost the WBA title to Evander Holyfield by an eleventh round stoppage.
One notable instance of Tyson's struggles was when he had to use a fake penis in order to pass a drug test. Tyson explained the strange situation he found himself in during an interview with VLAD TV.
“I was arrested for a DWI and … I wasn’t on alcohol, I was on cocaine. They made it a DWI,” Tyson recalled. “And I didn’t stop smoking, I couldn’t stop, I was addicted to weed. I couldn’t stop smoking, so I had to get a Whizzinator, a fake d*ck with somebody else’s piss in it. Clean piss that was warm.”
In order to make it look more realistic, Tyson painted the fake penis so nobody would question him when it was time to take the test.
“It’s a fake penis … I painted it a little tan color, the color of my thing. … I was sick,” Tyson said, laughing hysterically.
Later in the interview, Tyson admitted that his biggest fear was someone eventually finding out that the clean urine wasn’t his.
“The piss would be clean, I just say, I hope the guy don’t say, ‘Mr. Tyson, you’re pregnant,” Tyson said, laughing.
The Complex Legacy of Mike Tyson
Tyson’s return also arrives against the backdrop of a complicated public legacy. After his meteoric rise in the late 1980s, Tyson’s career was derailed in 1992 when he was convicted of rape and served three years in prison. He returned to boxing in 1995 and reclaimed the heavyweight title, but the later years of his career were marked by volatility, including the infamous 1997 incident in which he bit Evander Holyfield’s ear during a title bout, resulting in a disqualification and loss of his boxing license.
For Catskill, the event is both tribute and homecoming. Tyson arrived in the village as a 13-year-old kid from Brownsville, Brooklyn, placed under the guardianship of D’Amato after a stint at Tryon School for Boys. In the Catskill gym, D’Amato-already a revered boxing mind who helped build champions Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres-developed Tyson’s power, discipline, and famously aggressive peek-a-boo fighting style. Under the trainer’s tutelage, Tyson transformed from a shy, volatile teenager into one of the most feared heavyweights in history.
D'Amato died a little over a year before Tyson became the youngest world heavyweight titleholder in history at the age of 20 years four months, thus supplanting Patterson's record. Rooney would guide Tyson to the heavyweight championship twelve months after D'Amato's death.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1979 | Troubled Brooklyn teen Mike Tyson is sent to the Tryon School for Boys in Fulton County. |
| 1980 | Stewart introduces Tyson to legendary trainer Cus D’Amato at his gym in Catskill. D’Amato, then in his early 70s, begins training Tyson and eventually becomes his legal guardian. |
| 1985 | Tyson turns professional at age 18. November 4, 1985 Cus D’Amato dies at age 77. |
| 1986 | Tyson becomes the youngest heavyweight champion in history at 20, defeating Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas. |