{"id":11503,"date":"2017-05-30T08:32:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T08:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/05\/30\/mike-tysons-new-book-is-a-memorial-to-the-man-who-made-him-a-champion\/"},"modified":"2017-05-30T08:32:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T08:32:00","slug":"mike-tysons-new-book-is-a-memorial-to-the-man-who-made-him-a-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/mike-tysons-new-book-is-a-memorial-to-the-man-who-made-him-a-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Tyson's New Book Is A Memorial To The Man Who Made Him A Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Greene<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Mike Tyson and Cus D’Amato in training. “I’m not a creator,” D’Amato once said. “What I do is discover and uncover.”<\/p>\n

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Ken Regan\/Camera 5 \/Courtesy of Blue Rider Press & Plume<\/p>\n

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Ken Regan\/Camera 5 \/Courtesy of Blue Rider Press & Plume<\/p>\n

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On a November night in 1986, a crowd gathered in Las Vegas for an event that was hyped as “Judgement Day.” Muhammad Ali was there, along with celebrities Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy and Rob Lowe. (Hey, it was the ’80s.) At the center of it all was a boxing ring with a referee and two fighters: Mike Tyson and Trevor Berbick.<\/p>\n

Tyson was 20 years old and hoping to become the youngest ever heavyweight champion. Today he says he never would have been in that ring if it weren’t for trainer Constantine “Cus” D’Amato, a man Muhammad Ali once called “the bible of boxing.” Tyson says D’Amato is the reason he had such a legendary career. He’s also the reason NPR visited Tyson’s home in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

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We went through a couple of gates to get there, then his wife, Kiki, welcomed us and showed us to a casita near the pool. Mike Tyson came in slowly and stiffly \u2014 maybe a sign of all those years in the ring \u2014 wearing tight (read: hipster) jeans. He’s smaller than you’d think, and trim, with delicate hands.<\/p>\n

We’re here to talk about Iron Ambition<\/em>, Tyson’s new book about his former trainer. Tyson writes that when he and D’Amato first met, D’Amato was considered washed up and Tyson hadn’t even begun. He calls himself “a bad kid,” in and out of reform schools, stealing, fighting. Then, in 1980, a reform school guard took Tyson to D’Amato’s gym in Catskill, N.Y. After a few minutes in the ring, D’Amato proclaimed the kid would be a champ. So what did he see in Tyson?<\/p>\n