Why hasn't there been another Mike Tyson?

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

Still missing the point . Every single US human with tysons size and athleticism is playing football today, period

 

[PUO3]

Yes, but it used to be that guys would look to boxing as their way out of poverty, and nowadays other sports are the ones that have programs geared to young kids and pay their stars obscene amounts of money. Besides football is a rough sport. Their great players have championship heart.

Athleticism means just that. Teach those guys to fight from a young age and they will excel. The cream rises to the top no matter what sport they prefer.

You ever poke inside any boxing gyms? There are kids everywhere. Combat sport gyms in general are more popular now than ever before. The NFL isnt new.

You cant teach someone to be a fighter, and damn sure cant teach someone to be a ruthless killer like Tyson. Some have it, some dont.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

You ever poke inside any boxing gyms? There are kids everywhere. Combat sport gyms in general are more popular now than ever before. The NFL isnt new.

You cant teach someone to be a fighter, and damn sure cant teach someone to be a ruthless killer like Tyson. Some have it, some dont.

Yes, I have been in boxing gyms before. You are born with power and how you're raised determines your character. Some guys are killers and some more cerebral. Some guys are great finishers and some great boxers. I don't dispute that Tyson had a rare combination that made him "The Baddest Man on the Planet".

There's no doubt though that there are great athletes in the NFL that could have become great boxers or mma competitors. It's not generally thought to be a "pussy" sport so I would think most guys would be tough enough to fight.

 

[Phr3121]

Yeah, Tyson had a horrible upbringing. He was fat, bullied, beaten, and sexually abused. Hunger and no safety for a small boy. I guess that’s where all that aggression came from in the ring. Poor neighborhood with all the shit that goes along with it: Crime, violence, drugs, and prostitution. The pigeons were his escape until boxing came along.

 

[D 1 Wrestler]

Now you are getting crazy. The NFL and the NBA were just as big in the 80s.

• --Michael Jordan was a shit baseball player
• 
  
• --What position in the NFL does a 5'10 220-225lb player play? Fullbacks are rarely used in the NFL. Maybe you put Tyson at middle linebacker. There were stories of NFL players saying that they could take Tyson b/c he wasn't that big
• 
  
• -Years ago, the Ultimate Fighter finale was between a football player that was a 1st rounder and a guy that barely made an NFL roster. Well, the first rounder lost. Some guys playing other sports may have been good at boxing or mma but we'll never know.
• 
  
• --Lyle Alzado, Mark Gastineau(sp?), Ed "Too Tall" Jones, etc
• 
  
• -Hell, I have fast hands but my time in the 40 sucks

Bro compare salary from NBA and NFL now to then, use inflation if you want . Add to that the craziness of youth sports like AAU for basketball which are pretty much youth pro sports that recruit and pay parents under the table to play for their team. Unless the kid is a complete retard if he's athletic he's getting coddled into football or basketball at a young age . In the 80s kids played 3 sports and took summers off, now days kids play one or 2 sports from a young age and if they are elite they play year round.

Also MJ did remarkably well all things considered . Show me any athlete who can actually do OK in another sport they haven't played in over 10 years in the minor pro level

5'10-6' 220 is a running back some smaller some bigger , a la marshawn lynch, Ezekiel Elliot , etc

 

[Mr Mojo Lane]

Bro compare salary from NBA and NFL now to then, use inflation if you want . Add to that the craziness of youth sports like AAU for basketball which are pretty much youth pro sports that recruit and pay parents under the table to play for their team. Unless the kid is a complete retard if he's athletic he's getting coddled into football or basketball at a young age . In the 80s kids played 3 sports and took summers off, now days kids play one or 2 sports from a young age and if they are elite they play year round.

Also MJ did remarkably well all things considered . Show me any athlete who can actually do OK in another sport they haven't played in over 10 years in the minor pro level

5'10-6' 220 is a running back some smaller some bigger , a la marshawn lynch, Ezekiel Elliot , etc

Tailback is a position that a guy Tyson's size would be placed, you are right about that, but can he run? A lot of shifty guys can't run in a straight line. One of the things Ezekiel Elliot is good at is that he is a powerful, shifty runner, but when he wants to, he can turn into a straight line sprinter in no time. It's pretty rare. Also, you have guys that look like an NFL RB, but have zero vision (Trent Richardson).

The number of guys trying out for high school has been cut in half since the 90's b/c of the concussion issues being brought to light, but yeah, elite athletes are extremely coddled.

NYC is still not know for producing a lot of football players. Curtis Samuel would be one exception, but it is pretty rare. Tyson did benefit as a boxer growing up in NYC when he did. He had a good boxing coach from the beginning and then that coach sent him to D'Amato. I have seen some huge dudes in NYC who I thought played for the Jets or the Giants, but they didn't. There are some guys in NYC that would probably make good football but the organized football in NYC is not that good. If Tyson grew up in a football state, maybe he would have been a good tailback, but it's not a guarantee.

 

[D 1 Wrestler]

Tailback is a position that a guy Tyson's size would be placed, you are right about that, but can he run? A lot of shifty guys can't run in a straight line. One of the things Ezekiel Elliot is good at is that he is a powerful, shifty runner, but when he wants to, he can turn into a straight line sprinter in no time. It's pretty rare. Also, you have guys that look like an NFL RB, but have zero vision (Trent Richardson).

The number of guys trying out for high school has been cut in half since the 90's b/c of the concussion issues being brought to light, but yeah, elite athletes are extremely coddled.

NYC is still not know for producing a lot of football players. Curtis Samuel would be one exception, but it is pretty rare. Tyson did benefit as a boxer growing up in NYC when he did. He had a good boxing coach from the beginning and then that coach sent him to D'Amato. I have seen some huge dudes in NYC who I thought played for the Jets or the Giants, but they didn't. There are some guys in NYC that would probably make good football but the organized football in NYC is not that good. If Tyson grew up in a football state, maybe he would have been a good tailback, but it's not a guarantee.

Lack of football playing is mainly from casuals who would have never made a college roster. The few elite athletes that aren't playing football due to concussion fears are playing basketball instead

 

[Mr Mojo Lane]

Lack of football playing is mainly from casuals who would have never made a college roster. The few elite athletes that aren't playing football due to concussion fears are playing basketball instead

You make some okay points, but New York was not a football state in the 80s and is still not a football state.

--Guys in juvey aren't playing games they are learning to fight and/or carry a gun. You have a guy like George Foreman who grew up in a football state but was in juvey and had a rough childhood so ball games weren't in the cards. A guy that doesn't play well with others tends to be a pretty good fighter.

--Most of these football players look like Mark Gastineua(sp?). Watch Alonzo Highsmith vs Gastineau. Highsmith took boxing seriously and become a decent boxer but most football players would wind up looking like Gastineau.

--I think most football player would be better at grappling, if they took their muscular endurance and cardio seriously, than striking. You could probably find some good strikers in baseball

 

[MysticNinjaJay]

I thought Tyson did a lot of training.

He never graduated from school (did he go to school?)

He lived in a boxing training center.

He tried out for the Olympics at 16.

His coach raised him.

He lived, breathed, ate the sport.

Then he went pro...and did quite well.

Mike Tyson was a high school drop out. I heard in a documentary that he used to get terrible grades and then when he trained with Cus D'Amato he and the other trainers motivated him to care about his life more and his grades improved. He's smarter than people think but he grew up in a bad area in a broken home and he tries to compensate for his poor upbringing and lack of higher education by using big words to sound smarter which combined with his lisp and bizarre behavior gave him the reputation of a dumb brute. Before training for Boxing he was a juvenile delinquent who had been arrested many times for petty crimes. He was discovered and groomed from a young age to be a champion by one of the best Boxing trainers. Tyson always had the genetic potential to be a great champion but the reason he got there is because of preparation and instruction by a legendary trainer. You can't have one without the other. Maybe if he was interested in Boxing and trained at a regular gym he would have still been champion if he developed the drive but living with a world class Boxing trainer who taught him the fundamentals and made it his primary focus is why he became the youngest Heavyweight Boxing champion of all time. Few people get that opportunity. Having the genetics and specialized training is rare.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

You make some okay points, but New York was not a football state in the 80s and is still not a football state.

--Guys in juvey aren't playing games they are learning to fight and/or carry a gun. You have a guy like George Foreman who grew up in a football state but was in juvey and had a rough childhood so ball games weren't in the cards. A guy that doesn't play well with others tends to be a pretty good fighter.

--Most of these football players look like Mark Gastineua(sp?). Watch Alonzo Highsmith vs Gastineau. Highsmith took boxing seriously and become a decent boxer but most football players would wind up looking like Gastineau.

--I think most football player would be better at grappling, if they took their muscular endurance and cardio seriously, than striking. You could probably find some good strikers in baseball

I don't think any football players would do well becoming boxers. It would be that guy getting involved in boxing, as a kid, instead of football.

 

[Mr Mojo Lane]

I don't think any football players would do well becoming boxers. It would be that guy getting involved in boxing, as a kid, instead of football.

I thought it was understood that we were talking about if some of these guys chose boxing over other sports as a kid.

 

[PUO3]

Lack of football playing is mainly from casuals who would have never made a college roster. The few elite athletes that aren't playing football due to concussion fears are playing basketball instead

This is such a stupid fucking narrative its hilarious. Stop pretending that there are a lot of top level athletes crossing between basketball and football lol.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

I thought it was understood that we were talking about if some of these guys chose boxing over other sports as a kid.

My bad, you threw me off a bit with your example, my apologies.

 

[RizinSon88]

The late Julian Letterlough tried to... RIP. So did Cliff Couser. It is a hard style to emulate, even if you look the part.

 

[SaiWa]

Not every athlete can be good at every kind of sport, especially not a combat sport. You won't get a Mike Tyson anyway without having someone brought up in the same circumstances and training environment as him. Even if you got his clone today he might grow up in a different place and setting, and emotionally not be able to connect with the demands of boxing, or even if he does, simply not get paired with the right coaches or people and thus fail to live up to his potential and just be another boxer who never achieves anything significant.

hell even Mike Tyson now hates boxing so much he won't coach it. He had stated that boxing made him an animal and deep down inside he was never one. Dude has so much boxing knowledge. Who right now knows more about Peekaboo fighting besides Kevin Rooney and Teddy Atlas? You can even arguably say Tyson probably knows way more about Peekaboo than both of those two. Whether he is a good coach or not remains to be seen but I hope to see it one of these days...

 

[Oscaraps]

Lmao this

 

[D 1 Wrestler]

This is such a stupid fucking narrative its hilarious. Stop pretending that there are a lot of top level athletes crossing between basketball and football lol.

Are you serious or just fucking dumb? There are tons of 2-sport elite athletes who play both football and basketball with some even converting from one to the other to go pro. There are a bunch of college basketball players turned NFL players. Look at LeBron James, he was a beast football talent in high school and could have played D1 football wherever he wanted and likely NFL but obviously chose basketball. Antonio Gates, Jimmy Graham, etc all played basketball in college then converted to NFL, with tons more playing both in high school. I would even wager that the majority of elite football players either play basketball or wrestle in the winter.

Maybe you are not american or just fucking stupid but football and basketball are 2 different seasons in US high school

 

[Homervanderjaz]

A 5'10" wrecking ball isn't what most people aspire to be. They will cut and fight at a smaller weight.

I believe he is 5"11

 

[Maroli]

Because Tyson was a generational athletic specimen with fucking absurd abilities.

exactly. wherever you think he stands in the GOAT HW rankings, one can't deny that a prime Tyson was perhaps the most physically talented HW boxer to ever strap a pair of gloves on. And the reason that not many people can emulate his style is because it takes a certain kind of fighter to properly execute peek a boo and Tyson was literally created for that style.

 

[rolly czar]

I think it would be very interesting if there is someone new as good as him.