Futch and Dundee talk Tyson
'He [Tyson] throws combinations I never saw before. I was stunned. Nothing is supposed to bother me. I've worked with Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, but I'm seeing [from Tyson] a three-punch combination second to none. When have you seen a guy throw a right hand to the kidney, come up the middle with an uppercut, then throw a left hook?'
-Angelo Dundee
The Tyson-Berbick Fight[/CENTER]
The flighty Berbick made one strategic move not to his advantage. When he had defeated Pinklon Thomas and won the title eight months earlier, he had had the great trainer Eddie Futch, considered a master, working wiuth him and making him toe the line. Berbick needed this, since he had proved to be an in-and-out fighter, depending on where his mind was. He had shown well in losing to Holmes, he had beaten Tate, Ali, Greg Page and Thomas in an upset for the title, but he had lost decisions to Renaldo Snipes, a good and unorthodox heavyweight, and to S.T Gordon, a cruiserweight, and had been knocked out by hard-punching but mediocre Bernardo Mercado. Now, in the most imortant fight of his life, his biggest payday (he was getting $2.1 million to fight Tyson and would be a star with more million dollar purses on the horizon if he could beat him), he stubbornly refused to come to a financial agreement with Futch and so did not have the venerable trainer with him as he prepared for Tyson. Although he brought in another top trainer, Angelo Dundee, he did so only two and a half weeks before the fight, and so Dundee's contribution was severely limited by time.
Futch, now a partial outside observer, told Sports Illustrated: 'Tyson has wonderful attacking abilities. His hands are tremendously fast for a man with that kind of upper body and he can really punch with either hand. God, he can punch. His right uppercut especially will take your head off. But so far he has had a psychological edge. He has intimidated his opponents, made them freeze and wait to be slaughtered. I think you have to go to him, back him up, never let him take you into the corners or onto the ropes, keep him in the middle of the ring where you can use mobility against him. I believe Berbick has the nerve and the equipment to make a good attempt at all that, to have a real chance of pulling it off. But Trevor is never sure to be the same fighter twice in a row. You never know how he will be.'
Futch, now a partial outside observer, told Sports Illustrated: 'Tyson has wonderful attacking abilities. His hands are tremendously fast for a man with that kind of upper body and he can really punch with either hand. God, he can punch. His right uppercut especially will take your head off. But so far he has had a psychological edge. He has intimidated his opponents, made them freeze and wait to be slaughtered. I think you have to go to him, back him up, never let him take you into the corners or onto the ropes, keep him in the middle of the ring where you can use mobility against him. I believe Berbick has the nerve and the equipment to make a good attempt at all that, to have a real chance of pulling it off. But Trevor is never sure to be the same fighter twice in a row. You never know how he will be.'
The comments and observations from the opposing side wee more restrained. Berbick acknowledged he'd made a silly mistike by trying to punch with Tyson. 'I tried to prove my manhood,' he said. However, Angelo Dundee expressed awe: 'He [Tyson] throws combinations I never saw before. I was stunned. Nothing is supposed to bother me. I've worked with Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, but I'm seeing [from Tyson] a three-punch combination second to none. When have you seen a guy throw a right hand to the kidney, come up the middle with an uppercut, then throw a left hook?'
The Tyson-Spinks Fight
Futch felt that Tyson was beatable. He had seen weaknesses in him when Tyson fought 'Bonecrusher' Smith and Tony Tucker. His plan was to have Spinks exploit those weaknesses, but he also acknowledged that if Spinks made 'just one mistake, you can put all of that in the ashcan.'
Afterward, in a packed press room, there were the ususal post mortems. 'He was charging in,' Spinks said of Tyson, 'and I was trying to catch him in the process. I tried to take a shot at him, and I came up short. That's when he hit me.' Eddie Futch would later say that Spink's failure came when he abandoned his game plan, which had been to jab and move, counterpunch, and make Tyson work, miss punches, and slow down. Futch also said Spinks wasn't scared, no matter what everyone said. But Richie Giachetti, who had been in the corner with Holmes the night Tyson stopped him, said Soinks had the same look on his face that Larry just before the bell, alook he had never seen on Larry's face in any of his fights. It was the look of fear.
Post Rooney
There was much speculation as to who would get the plum assignment to replace Kevin Rooney as Mike Tyson's trainer. Angelo Dundee, an excellent in-the-ring motivator, and Joey Fariello, a disciple of Cus D'amato who handled Mark Breland, were talked about, but they were white, and it was widely believed that King was persuading Tyson to replace his all-white corner of Rooney, Lott and Branski with black cornerman. Among the black trainers whose names were mentioned were such men as George Benton and the master, Eddie Futch, who had handled Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes and Spinks. Futch had once been secretly approached by Jim Jacobs early in Tyson's career, not necessarily about replacing Rooney, since a promise had been made to D'amato that Rooney would always be with Tyson, but certainly about joining with Rooney. When word of the approach leaked out, Jacobs vehemently denied ever talking to the great traiiner, but Futch and Tyson both eventually confirmed that such a meeting had indeed taken place. One drawback to anyone on a level with Futch was money. King and Tyson were certainly not going to pay a new trainer anything approaching 10 percent Rooney recieved as the standrards trainers fee.
Source
Bad Intentions: The Mike Tyson Story
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