Can you imagine Mike Tyson, a former heavyweight champion, who is built of pure muscle, being scared of anyone? Neither can we! But there is someone who absolutely petrifies this world champion and it's none other than his former coach Cus D’Amato. A former mentor to the American athlete, the trainer was the one who took him to the top of the Noble Art, but he was also capable of knocking him down with a few words.
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Cus d'Amato and Mike Tyson
In his book Iron Ambition: My Life with Cus d'Amato published in 2017, Mike Tyson went back over his relationship with the legendary coach. And while the two men got along famously, they didn't hesitate to say things to each other to get ahead. This terrified Tyson:
I was petrified when I found myself alone with him. If he called me and said, 'Mike, I need to talk to you,' I knew it wasn't going to go well. It was in those moments that he would give me detailed criticism about my fights.
He added:
People saw the celebratory moments during my big knockout wins, but they didn't see how Cus talked to me in the locker room. He would make me feel like crap, play with my emotions. He could put bad things in my head every day.
The only one who could channel Tyson
Cus D'Amato, who died in 1985 from pneumonia when Tyson had just begun his professional career, never saw his protégé, and his ‘Peek-a-Boo’ style, become world champion. In his book, he mentions that his coach was the only one who could reign in his fiery temper. His death is one of the things that put Tyson on the edge. In an interview with E60 in 2017, confided that he still hadn't recovered:
Every time I do an interview about him, I start crying [...] How could he know I was the guy?
The boxer who is also known as Iron Mike came under fire recently when he physically assaulted a man on an aeroplane. Even though the man sustained visible injuries, Tyson was let go without any criminal charges, reported BBC News.
This article is translated from Gentside FR.
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