Did Jesse Ventura Jinx Iron Mike Tyson??

so many factors in Tyson losing that fight..few of them were "in ring" matters.

ah this takes me back though......awesome times.

yup.

Tyson in his right mind/usual regime would have annihilated Douglas who was only a very "so so" Boxer.this showed in subsequent outings.

I remember one of my first sega Genesis games was Buster Douglas Boxing......I EFFIN loved it.I boxed all my life and was a devotee of the sweet science until a really bad beating on the way home from the nightclub ended any hopes of me doing anything there.

No, but since there seems to be a lot of strange info on Tyson, I'll share...

Tyson's first trainer, Cus D'Amato, who was also a father figure to him, died in on November 4th, 1985. Tyson was 11-0 as a professional at the time. His actual trainer, though, as a professional, was Kevin Rooney, who was like a brother to Mike, good and bad. D'Amato's friends Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton were Tyson's management team and Jacobs became very close to Mike. So after Cus died, the Rooney/Jacobs/Cayton team kept the Tyson machine running without a hitch.

Don King kept trying to get Tyson with him (and co-promoted some of the title fights with Jacobs/Cayton, much to their chagrin, they knew what kind of a person he was).

Tyson compiled a 34-0 record when tragedy hit again, this time Jacobs passed away due to Leukemia on March 23, 1988.

With Jacobs gone, Mike's heart wasn't in it like before. He wasn't close with Cayton, and Rooney worked him raw in camp (which made him great). Now Don King was able to become his manager/promoter and along with Tyson's manipulative wife, Robin Givens, and mother-in-law, Tyson was being pulled in 15 different directions and didn't know how to react.

His next fight (June 27, 1988) was with undefeated Michael Spinks and was perhaps his finest performance. A 91 second bout that showed a fire in his belly that we would never see again. Ferocious punching power with bad intentions behind every shot. This was the end of Mike Tyson's prime. 35-0.

After the Spinks fight, both Cayton and Rooney were fired, as Don King planted the idea that they didn't care for Mike because they were white, using Tyson only to line their pockets. He hired a staff of yes-men to surround Mike, many of which had no boxing knowledge. But, hey, Tyson was an unstoppable monster, right? He didn't need to train or study his opponents, he was undefeatable, no one could take his punch.

Without the D'Amato disciple Rooney in the corner, Tyson changed. Between the trainer change, King running him around like a puppet, and his high-profile divorce culminating on February 14 1989, he was a mess. He had his ego inflated so high by the yes men that he went away from being the devastating combination puncher to a one-punch head-hunter. This is instantly evident when you watch his first post-Rooney fight, versus Frank Bruno (Feb 25, 89). While Tyson won via 5th round TKO, the combinations and peek-a-boo defense Tyson was known for weren't there. Tyson was even momentarily stunned by a left hook in the first round by Bruno. He followed that up with a quick 1st round KO of Carl "the Truth" Williams before the fateful bout with Douglas.

So in preparation for the fight with Douglas, Tyson's training regimen consisted of working out/sparring when Mike felt like it, drinking, and having lots of fun with the Japanese ladies leading up to the fight. Pretty much the opposite of what needs to be done to prep for a fight.

Douglas, meanwhile, had lost his mother just 3 weeks before the title fight. He was intensely focused and worked himself into the best shape of his life.

The bumbling corner staff for Tyson had no idea what they were doing. Their brilliant between round coaching consisted of hit him harder and throw more punches. Towards the middle rounds, Mike was suffering from some light facial swelling, which had never happened before, and his staff was *surprise* unprepared for. They were filling condoms with cold water as a mock cold-compress. Had they actually have a compress, the swelling could have been controlled, Tyson wouldn't have lost sight in the eye and would have fared much better down the stretch. Again, incompetence of yes men brought in by King brought down Tyson.

Despite all the problems, Tyson floored Douglas in the 8th round with an uppercut, that Douglas took until the count of 9 to get up from (many believed he got a long count and should have been a KO, but it wasn't that bad). Tyson was knocked down for the first time in his career in round 10 and couldn't get up.

Anyway, Ventura didn't jinx Tyson. King and Co. destroyed him (and also stole millions from him, which he only got a fraction of back in court). A couple of years later, Tyson was sent to prison on a bogus rape charge. King gave him a tax lawyer to represent him...

Funny coinicidence, if anything.