MIKE TYSON was 12 years old when he first met Teddy Atlas. The pair’s explosive relationship was short-lived, but within it lies the making of a heavyweight legend.
In two fascinating articles, straight from the mouth of Atlas himself, we bring you insight into how Tyson was taught to punch, to defend, to counter, and to create those astonishing combinations.
I first met Tyson when he was 12 and I worked with him for the first five years, every day. I could tell you how I made Tyson a great puncher and make myself sound so good but the truth is obviously you can improve in areas ? you can improve technique, to make guys more accurate, teach guys timing so they can catch guys cleaner and be as effective as possible ? but to be a great puncher, you?re born to be that, you?re not made a great puncher and if any trainers out there want to say they made their guy a great puncher I would dare to say they?re bullshit artists and their ego should be checked a little bit. Good trainers improve fighters, they even make fighters, but they don?t create punchers and Tyson was born to punch; quite often he did things wrong which is what happens when you get these prodigies in those kind of areas ? they can do things wrong and they still do them well, do them at an exceptional level. He was off the wrong foot, squared up when he would punch sometimes, be out of position but he was always able to generate power. We then taught him how to best use that power, in the following ways:
Bad Intentions The one thing he was taught, we worked very hard on teaching him shoulder snap, we put a lot of emphasis on snapping that shoulder in a ferocious, explosive way, exploding it forward. And the mindset, the intent, was also developed from teaching and us lecturing him about the need to throw punches with bad intentions, wanting to do damage when you punch. The intention from the beginning has to be to generate as ferocious an explosion as possible. We would do different drills where technique would make it more possible to make the punch effective.
Defence We worked very hard at developing the technique to give him opportunities to detonate his punches, to be in position to make a guy miss and be as effective as possible. We worked very hard on working his defence where it could set up his offence and put him in as many positions as possible to exploit his power. We would teach him to slip punches, just enough, no excess ? by half an inch ? where the second he made the punch miss, bang, he?s in position to throw the punch back so the guy would have very little time to react, very little time to recover; you would have that window of opportunity to have a jump on the guy and catch him in some cases where he didn?t see the punch.
Timing If he noticed the guy was throwing a slow jab, we would work on him timing the right hand as the guy was throwing the jab. What it took to do that was not just good physical abilities and reflexes but mental control, mental discipline, emotional discipline, where you couldn?t be worried about getting hit with the punch. As the jab?s coming, if you?re worried about the jab hitting you, you hesitate and you don?t get it off. So you have to be able to control that fear and be completely committed to the exercise, to the opportunity, to that moment. As the jab was coming, you noticed it was coming a little slower than it should, you were able to put yourself close enough so at the same exact time that jab started you would throw the right hand. As he was jabbing, he wouldn?t see the right hand crossing over his jab and it would land on the chin clean. A lot of times, if you did it perfectly, there was a blindspot. Kind of like when [Muhammad] Ali knocked out [Sonny] Liston the second time. A lot of people said it was a phantom punch, but if you watch it you?ll see that Ali timed that punch, that right hand, perfectly over the jab of Liston, that was coming a little slowly. And at a certain perfect arc, the right hand was actually blinded from the view of Liston by his own arm. It?s kind of like a blindspot when you?re driving a car and you look in the mirrors and you don?t see a car and you?re about to switch lanes; your instinct tells you and your good habits tell you that you should turn your head and look just to make sure, and sure enough there?s a car right there and you would have hit that car because there was a blindspot. So, yes, it was about timing, but it was also about being calm; being in complete, utter control of yourself, where you weren?t concerned about the punch hitting you but were only focused on what you had to do and what the mechanics of it had to be. Then we did things like if the guy threw a wide punch, he had options: you could block the punch, you see it coming; you could weave the punch ? which Tyson did pretty well; but also you could just step in, if you had control over yourself, you could step in with the right hand as you saw that wide left hook coming instead of blocking it, you could hit him in between the punch. You step inside and make an instantaneous decision to throw that right hand inside his hook, and he never sees it coming. The understanding of these options and teaching of these techniques was almost as important as having the power. The power comes first because you have to have the power but then we were setting up in positions to unleash and exploit this power the best way it could be done, and the package altogether made this guy who was obviously a dangerous puncher.
Ambidexterity Another thing that made him dangerous and effective was? a lot of guys, like Earnie Shavers, he could knock a wall down with the right hand but he couldn?t knock a wall down with the left hand. Tyson was like a Mickey Mantle, a great switch-hitter, he could bat from either side of the plate. He could bang with the right and the left, equally as well, and that?s what allowed us to put him in more and more positions because then you can teach him techniques on both sides and that made him much more difficult to deal with.
The Drill We took a heavy bag, wrapped a mattress from a cot around it, then taped that up and put some canvas around it before taping it to the wall. This bag, we called it ?the Willie?. Cus first came up with the idea of it when Jose Torres was getting ready to fight Willie Pastrano for the light-heavyweight title, back in the ?50s. So we had this bag up against the wall and one of the benefits is that when you?rehitting something that?s stationary you develop more power than if you hit something that?s moving. You can tee off on it, set yourself and you can punch at it in repetition without having to wait for it to get back into position. And when it?s not giving ? it?s not swinging ? you can really build the muscles that are necessary to generate power, for obvious reasons. It?s cushioned so you don?t hurt your hand but you can punch through all the way to the centre of that cushion, but when the bag is swinging you never get the opportunity to generate that kind of effort, because the bag is fleeting away from you. Another characteristic of this device was we would put numbers on it from one to seven and every number designated an area in the body and a certain punch. So we would call out the numbers ? we actually had tape recordings ? and therefore you could also develop combination punching, specific combinations that we felt were most effective. And that?s one of the things that made Tyson so effective: his combinations. They were hard, they were fast and he got in position to create openings so there were real clean shots available to him, but they were educated combinations, smart combinations that would create opportunities. You know, one downstairs, one up the middle, one around the side, different areas and that made sense. The combinations would be called out in sequence on the recording and after you throw the combinations ? with power, speed and accuracy ? you would be memorising these sequences, the direction and the area where these punches had to go. It was a very good exercise. It allowed him to develop his power, develop his confidence and an automatic recall of these combinations, a reflexive action where these combinations would become automatic ? the direction and placement of them ? by doing it over and over again. Along with the responsibility of throwing the combination there would have to be a defensive response after the combination. So you would call out a combination ? ?7, 3, 2, 1? bang ? so he would throw the punches then he would have to make the appropriate defensive move after that. When you did that, you would avoid what the guy was throwing back at you and now you would have another opportunity for more clean offence.
To read Mike Tyson’s own words on how to fight don’t miss this week’s issue of Boxing News
