Why didn't the question Mike Tyson's potential steroid usage when he was a teenager knocking out grown men
It seems very weird ( wink wink , we all know what it's about ) that everybody is fixated on Barry Bonds. What about Mcguire and Sosa ( he was much bigger then Bonds ) having asteriks next to their names in the record books. Why was Tyson never tested with all his anger issues and musclarity during his rise to the top. I hope him having white trainers and handlers( getting paid big )back then didn't play a role in people turning a blind eye ( wink wink ).
Answers:
Because they don't test for steroids in professional boxing. They do in Olympic Boxing - but not in the Don King Ring!
James in San Diego
Ok without your heart leading your brain who's gonna win the fight?
Who in boxing has ever been accused of steroids?They don't make it an issue in Boxing.It is so big in baseball because it's not fair to the old timers who's records are being broken.The reason, is because people like Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron were great without the use of steroids.They are the true greats no matter what the record books say , because they relied on true talent and not steroids.How can i delete my questions.My stupid friends ask stupid question under my account?
Would you have tried to test him back then? Good point though, have you seen lately a picture of Mcquire his rookie year. He looked like me, barely 190 pounds. He was a beast when he retired. So was Bonds, but Mcquire was tiny when he came in.Honeslty, why test in boxing. I could make that same arguement for all sports, but I don't have that kind of time. Boxing is about power, but if you get too strong and lose speed, your done. Besides, some people you can just tell are freaks of nature. Tyson was a physical specimen. I'm sure there were no before and after pictures at any age for Tyson, like Mcquire or Bonds
What is it with boxers turning into fat hamsters like naseem and hatton?
Boxing is a "blood sport" and if anyone gave a s$#t about the health of the athlete involved it wouldn't even be sanctioned in this country. Anyone seen what happened to Joe Frazier or Ali?Tony Zale vs Carmen Basillio. Who wins?
Tyson was a phenom. And, just because we haven't heard if they tested him or not, doesn't mean they hadn't.Remember, they caught Fernando Vargas with banned substances in his system after he'd lost to De La Hoya.
I think they'd even caught some boxers with cocaine in their systems before & after fights.
So, the boxing commision does plenty of testing, and boxers get caught. It just doesn't make the headlines as much because boxing is not as popular as some other sports.
p.s. In high school, I saw a friend of mine squeeze open an unopened can of beans when he got mad at something. His adrenaline flow was something else. And, no, he wasn't taking steroids.
What time will tonight's main event between de la hoya and merriweather start?
Nothing to do with race but for the same reason OJ Simpson isn't in jail and Monica Lewinski is worth zillions - he's American and as long as there is money to be made by unscrupulous types he can do what he likes.Ricky Hatton Vs Junior Witter?
Tyson was a prodigy, he wasn't the only one who was talented and young. Boxing has a history of producing such talented men, Sam Mc Vie, Wilfredo Benitez spring to mind.Don't compare those sports with boxing. Boxing has always been the distance poor relation when it comes to sports in general.
Those dispersions are crap. Tyson may be the whipping boy for everything that is wrong with the sport but it doesn't mean that your ignorance should actually be taken serious. He was talented, end of story. Take it your bull * somewhere else.
Ali vs holyfield- heavywt title- who wins & how?
CHULA 5 - Your question was making me think until it deterioated into an irrational chorus of racial whining and self - pity.If they were trying to persecute black men in sport, someone would have asked this now idiotic question a long time ago.
Trying to get black athletes banned from sport makes no sense. If blacks disappeared from sport, sport as we know it would cease to exist. Then no one makes any money.
As for the issue on Tyson, he has always been a physical anomaly - that's why he was groomed for boxing.
I'm sorry, but he wasn't the victim of a paranoid Farrakhan fantasy - fed steroids by the white man. Hope reality doesn't ruin your day.
You know what the irony to all this? If Tyson had stayed with his original trainers - you know, the white guys - he'd probably be the legend he seemed destined to become.
Instead, he listened to men who's skin happened to be black, and who used that advantage to squeeze every dime out of him, allowing him to destroy himself in the process.
Then, when they saw there was nothing more to be gained from him, they disappeared into the arms of people like yourself, who live in a fantasy world where you are always the victim, and nothing's ever your fault.
What's the best fight you've seen in which the fighters were close friends?
First of all, I would suggest that you don't ask questions when you haven't a clue what you're talking about. When Mike Tyson was young he wasn't "knocking out grown men". He didn't do that until he turned pro, and since he was 18 (almost 19) when he turned pro he was a GROWN MAN HIMSELF. You boxing noobs have *seriously* got to quit mythologizing Tyson--he was a raw talent that Cus D'amato with help from great boxing people like Teddy Atlas and later Kevin Rooney turned into a knockout machine. He had an impressive string of knockouts to start his career (18 or 19 straight, if I remember correctly. I know that James "Quick" Tillis was the first guy to go the distance with him) but that's not uncommon in boxing as most trainers/managers go out of their way to match up promising prospects against guys they can beat--and in some cases beat easily--early in their career. That's what we mean when we talk about "stepping up in class". Look at Tyson's career history--yep, do some more research--and check out the records of his opponents. It's not a huge surprise that he could run off a big streak of KO's, particularly since that's very common for a young fighter that's being "brought along slowly". Even guys without good power frequently have an impressive early career knockout streak.And also contrary to your assertions, boxing *does* test for steroids. The specific test depends on the individual state athletic commission, but by and large boxing is as good--or better--than most of the other professional sports. Here's an article from the Las Vegas Review Journal about what a good job the sport has done testing for boxing:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2...
Of specific interest is that of the hundreds of tests the commision has performed, only a few have returned positive. That postive test rate is as good as, or likely better, than other sports. On the rare occasions that a high profile figher does fail a steroid test--James Toney and Fernando Vargas come to mind--the Nevada Commission in particular comes down hard on them.
Your question also exhibits a good deal of ignorance about the effects of steroids, and about the specific requirements to be a good boxer. Steroid use increases muscle mass, but it doesn't increase the strength of the tendons that essentially hold the muscles to the bone. That's a big deal because the more bulk you get in your muscles, the more at risk you are for tears and similar injuries. If you followed pro wrestling at all during the 1990's--when many of the big names of the sport were taking steroids while they were going out of style--you see the effect of this. A week wouldn't go by when some big name wrestler wouldn't suffer a bicep tear or similar injury. Basically, they got real big but the physical demands of their profession (and even though the outcomes of pro wrestling matches are predetermined, it is a phyiscally grueling activity) caused all sorts of injuries due to the strain on their tendons. Back in the day Rick Rude and Scott Steiner among others suffered this injury, even more recently Batista and The Boogeyman. Vince McMahon gave (and continues to give) lip service to steroid testing, but that was one of the reasons he started to refer to his product as "sports entertainment"--so that he would no longer be governed by the athletic commissions of various states. There were financial advantages to doing so, but a large part of doing this was so that his performers could take steroids with impunity.
Boxing, on the other hand, isn't a "work" like pro wrestling. The promoters don't care how muscular a boxer "looks" as long as he wins. Muscle mass in particular, or even enhanced strength from it, can only take you so far in the sport. Strength is a part of it, of course, but of equal or greater importance or other factors that steroid use has no effect on--or even a deleterous effect. In particular, cardio conditioning, the ability to take a punch, and technical expertise in offense and defense are of equal if not greater importance. Otherwise you'd see championship level powerlifters and bodybuilders become boxers and run roughshod over the sport. That isn't the case, however, and were they to make the unfortunate decision to do so they would get destroyed. In fact, with the obvious increase in muscle fragility seen in pro wrestlers that use steroids heavily, any boxer that over relied on them would suffer similar injuries and would probably "feel" punches more than the non-user. There's been speculation in the past that really "cut" heavyweights like Evander Holyfield were at greater risk of damage from body punches for that very reason.
Now, for the second part of your question--was Tyson on the juice. Here's an idea--before you ask a question why don't you do a little research so you know what you're talking about. Throw on ESPN Classic next time they do a Tyson retrospective or just do a little searching around the Internet for some old pictures of Tyson when he first started fighting. He was "cut" and in good shape to be sure, but he was much leaner than he was later in his career. He did bulk up considerably, but you'll notice (again, if you did a little research) that his body mass (eg: his weight) stayed relatively consistant. He weighed 214 in his pro debut, and at the time of his KO loss in Tokyo to Buster Douglas weighed a career high 220.5. Hmm...maybe you're right.an increase of 6.5 pounds over the course of 5 years to a professional athlete who has the best in training and nutrition available to him can *only* be attributed to steroids!
Tyson, in addition to training hours a day also had something else happen--what if often called "growing into his body". You see this all the time in every sport--Karl Malone was a muscular, but almost lanky guy when the Utah Jazz drafted him. He became one of the best conditioned guys on the planet, and the size of a moose, from training 8 hours a day in the off season. I used to see the guy running up and down mountainsides in Salt Lake City during the summer. You see this in every sport, particularly in the NFL and NBA. Now I can't catagorically say that steroids weren't involved in *every* instance, but for men--and particularly professional athletes--to bulk up significantly during their 20's is extremely common. As men age, their metabolism slows down and it becomes harder to keep the weight off--that likely explains Tyson's rise in weight to the mid 220's or even 230's late in his career--along with the fact that he was now fighting mostly larger, legitimate heavyweights (as opposed to the blown up light heavyweights he fought a lot of during the early part of his career).
The primary reason that no one questioned Tyson's steroid usage was that there was not a shred of evidence to even suggest that. He was a naturally big, powerful guy who got bigger and more powerful through training and natural forces of human development. HIs "trainers and handlers" that you so blithlely impune were, at the beginning of his career at least, some of the most respected men in the sport--Cus D'Amato, Teddy Atlas and Kevin Rooney. Even Don King--who is the living imbodiment of sleaze--knows enough about boxing to not want Tyson on the juice. Tyson had anger issues, to be sure, but there's never been any suggestion whatsoever that they were a result of steroids--more than likely it was due to his rough upbringing, having too much money, fame and power when he didn't know how to deal with it and a confluence of psychological factors (which is why he's been on Prozac and other similar mediactions at various points in his life and career).
Most importantly, perhaps, Tyson *was* tested for steroids--as are all boxers--at various points in his career and certainly in his later fights. And guess what--he came up clean. The only drug test he ever failed was a postfight test that revealed that he was smoking pot after his fight with Andrew Golota.
Just as a postscript, let me say that I'm typically happy to answer questions for neophyte boxing fans or even non-fans who just have questions about the sport. I sometimes lose patience with their bizzare fixation on Tyson, but that's more of a fault of the mainstream sports media than anything else. Your question, however, has a very offensive tenor. You clearly haven't done any research, nor have much background in the sport but you come into a boxing forum and impune not only the sport but some of the most respected men in it (like D'Amato and Rooney).
Boxers are a different breed. To even be the lowest level club fighter takes amazing dedication and sacrifice, not to mention training that the average man couldn't handle. To become a champion takes a unique sort of mental and pysical toughness. Championship level fighters undertake a training regimen that most pro athletes couldn't fathom. It doesn't have anything to do with steriods--boxers, great and not-so-great, are forged through hard work, toughness, discipline and heart. Your question is an insult to them and to the great sport of boxing.
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