Joe Rogan - Teddy Atlas on Mike Tyson

Who was your great- because I had Tyson too, he became one of them. And I remember it was funny because when I would put it down, like I said, everyone lied about their experience, but you know, they lied about everything. But I would put down the age and everything else, all this stuff for what it was worth. You had to have something to try to believe in, right, and then figure it out from there. So Tyson, when I first had him, he was 190 pounds, nothing but muscle, 12 years old. Okay, that's what he was. But that's what he was. I mean, that's what God made him. That's crazy. So I go down there and I put the first fight. Nobody's seen Tyson. Nobody's ever seen Tyson. But 12 years old, zero fights, blah blah blah. Okay. Teddy! Now you go too far. You lie more than us. You learn a lot from us. You lie better than us. I said, thanks. That's a compliment. I said, I think that Nelson, that's a compliment. I mean, I take it. I guess it is, right? Right. I'm not lying. 12 years old, 190 pounds. Teddy, please, please, please. Nelson, I'm not lying. Okay. He's 12 years old. It's going to be 13 soon, but technically he's 12 years old. Okay. Oh, come on. I said, all right. I'll make you feel better. I'll put down 17. Thank you. Now you tell the truth. I say he's not 17. But I knew what I had, you know, like I said, I knew what I had. So I fought a 17-year-old. I wasn't going to fight no 12-year-old. That wasn't going to happen. Right. And plus I get arrested for murder. So what was he like at 12 years old? He is physically, mentally weak, but physically, what do I mean mentally weak? Not weak for the average guy, but for a fighter, he still had remnants. He still had residual stuff from his upbringing. Listen, you want to know the truth about the guy? I mean, he always, but he used to hide in between abandoned building walls in Brownsville. It was a rough place. No doubt about it. Didn't have a father, whatever the mother, whatever. And he, he used to hide between walls to not get picked on. And I believe when you do that, you never get outside of that wall to a certain extent. You're always hiding in that wall for the rest of your life. That's just my belief. Teddy, what are you talking about? He came everywhere. Some people think he's the greatest. Some people. I don't have his record in front of me and this is going to blow some people crazy. But what are you going to do? I don't have his record. Let's just say we're going to make an arbitrary number because your man's going to pull it up. But let's just say it's 50 and six. We'll say five, fifty and five, but whatever. I think his record is truly, if you're going to be this, and we're not truly in life with anything, but if we're truly, truly in an absolute world which we don't live in. But I would say he's 0 and 5. Alright, now everybody's, everyone who's listening to you think it's just like, let me get what Teddy's drinking. I don't see him drinking nothing, but he probably had something before he came in. To me, a fight is not a fight into this resistance. To this something to overcome. Something to overcome. Otherwise, it's just an athletic venture. It's an exhibition. I think life is that. I think you don't know if a lawyer is a lawyer until there's something to overcome in the courtroom. Something goes wrong. I know he's a lawyer. I know he went to school. I get it. Nobody has to tell me that, but he ain't a lawyer. He ain't that. Until everything goes wrong, the judge draws all this crap out, and he is effed, so to speak, and he still handles it. Then he's a lawyer. A doctor's not a doctor, too. He opens up this kid, a kid, just like he's got it home, and arteries are bleeding all over the place, and it's not in the textbook. It's not in the freaking textbook, and he got to do it. He got to figure it out, and then he's a doctor. Then he's a surgeon at that level. You're not in a fight. Look, I admit it. I equate life to a fight. I do. You're not in a fight until there's pressure, resistance, overcoming something. Otherwise, it's just an exhibition. Tyson's talent was so great. His physical ability, his talent was so overwhelming, just like somebody's intellect, just somebody's charisma, whatever, beauty, until it came to something else. But his talent was so superior that the other stuff never got tested. He was blowing guys out, and it never got tested if there was anything in the warehouse, so to speak. There was anything inside. You never knew. And then five times, whatever the real record is, five times there was resistance. Five times it became a real fight. Five times there was something to overcome. And he failed all five times. He was only in five fights in his life, and he's all in five. I'm sorry. Soured grapes because we know my history with them, right? Am I capable of that? Yeah, I'm human, yeah. But I can honestly tell you that I try to be better than that. I've called many fights where the people in the corner, I couldn't stand them. I had no respect for them. But if they did a good job in the corner, if their fighter did a job, I talked to about them like they were Ray Arsel. Like they were Andrew Little Dundee, because that's what it was supposed to be. That's all. And it's selfish because I want to know, and I want my kids to know that I can be better than that. That it's about the code of the profession. It's about you. It's about you believing that what you say should be honest. It should be what you believe. It shouldn't be tainted or influenced by lesser things. That it does represent you. It does represent your family. It does represent where you came from. It does stay. You know, you're blurted out for those five minutes or maybe two hours on ESPN, but it stays. Someone can go back to it. You can go back to it. How do you feel about it? It does mean something. It really does. And so I'm only saying it because I would say it about somebody else. In the way that I calibrate things, the way that I evaluate things, that I don't think that you know crap about somebody until they're tested. You don't know if they're your friend. You don't know if they're a good wife. You don't know if they're a good girlfriend. You don't know crap. You think you do, but until they're really tested, you don't really know. And Tyson, when he got tested, when he had to overcome some, when he didn't run them over like one of those big monster trucks running over Volkswagen, because he was a monster truck for Volkswagen. Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was. And was he one of the greatest punches of all time? Yeah, yes. Could he punch from either side of the plate like Mickey Mano, the greatest switch hitter? Was he that in body? Yes. He could punch evenly great with either hand from either side. Was he all those things? Yes. Was he his greatest and intimidating Sonny Liston? Yes. Was he a great finisher like Joe Luce to a certain exact? Yes. But he wasn't a great fighter. Because great fighters, when the fight came to them, they found a way to do what they had to do. He found a way to disappear. They found a way to show up. Yeah, show up. He found a way to go and not show up. And look, you could go talk to psychiatrists and you could go through all the reasons why the hiding between a wall when he was a kid. Yeah, that's part of it. I tell you another part of it. To be that, not to be the power puncher, not to be the aggressor, not to be just those things, to be the Titan, to be the Viking, to be the Samurai, to be the warrior, to be those things. It has to be inside you. You have to believe it. You know, a lot of times people lie in life. There's certain places you can't lie. You know, sometimes we say that the ring is the Chamber of Truth. You know, it sounds good and all that, but it is. Because just like in other places in life, too, when the moment comes for those kind of serious things, you have to feel like that. You say that you're the Conqueror, you're Alexander the Great, you're all those things, right? Okay, words sounds great. Makes good sound bites. Probably bring more people to the TV. But when the moment comes and you didn't intimidate the guy, that didn't work. Okay? We all try it to a certain extent, right? Probably. Yeah. I'm sure you've looked at guys certain ways when you were younger, and you purposely looked at them in a way to invoke a certain kind of action, a certain kind of result from them. Just looking at them in a real serious way that you hope that it weakened them. Yeah. But because I know your background, you were prepared to do what came after that. But some people aren't. Some people aren't. And Tyson wasn't. As great as he was, I just said it. He's great guys that hate me for saying your hero or whatever your favorite guy was. He's great. Just not great in this area. And when that moment comes, you have to, that's where the truth matters. You have to believe that you really hate that guy. And if you're a guy that, and listen, he was convicted, so I think it's fair, that raped somebody, okay? Now listen, I wasn't in that room and I don't know, a lot of people don't think, okay, but he was convicted or, but I know a lot of people. I know a lot of people in the business that there was a lot of other bad things that he did, that are just not things that you would probably want to hang around with somebody. If you're a halfway decent human being that he did, there were weak things, okay? Weak things. So when you do weak things, and you know you did those, and I don't know what, but I'm just saying, you do weak things, and you know they were weak things, and now you got to do a strong thing. How do you become strong when you know that you did those weak things, and you know that's really you, and you got a guy across from your name, Lavender Holyfield, that doesn't give a shit about how hard you punch, doesn't give a crap about what a finisher you are, doesn't give a crap about how fast you put your punches together. He wants to find, you're gonna have to make him a believer by doing it, and doing it in a difficult place because he's gonna make it difficult, because he ain't gonna cooperate. When that happens, you got to feel like that person, and when you don't feel like that person, you got a problem, and that's what happened. It wasn't a matter when he bit his ear, it wasn't a matter that he was hungry, he was a savage, and he was from the street. Stop the crap. It was a way to get out, because he knew he wasn't that guy, and when you're not that guy, guess what you have a great talent of? Recognize when somebody is. Yeah, that's your greatest talent. You can recognize when somebody is, and he recognized that Lavender Holyfield was, and that was his way to get out. And he did. So that's why, again, it's not sour grapes, it's really not, because I'm more selfish than that. I really do care about what my reputation is, and whether or not I've been honest about things I say, it doesn't mean I'm right, but it means I believe it. I do care about that. I do. And so, it's not that. It doesn't mean I'm right, but it means I have a reason to believe I'm right. From the way I've lived, from what I've seen, what I've experienced in the business, the human condition, how strong it can be, and how weak it can be. And he was as strong a guy as you're ever going to see, but he was as weak a person as you're ever going to find. That's intense, but I see what you're saying in terms of you are judging it by the highest standards possible. You're judging it in comparison to other champions. You're judging it, you're looking at it objectively. What else are you going to judge it with, Joe? Well, you look at guys who are known for incredible heart and their ability to combat, like Diego Corrales. Diego Corrales and some of those wars, when you would see... Well, with Castillo. That was one of the greatest fights of all time. The first one. The greatest fight of all time. Mickey Ward or Troy Gary, the first one. Not the second, the first. Unbelievable. I mean, if you want to go back, if you want to go back farther, a lot of people won't know this, but Bobby Chacon was involved in a lot, and unfortunately, he paid the price. But Bobby Chacon in the 70s, 80s, he was involved in those fights every other day. I'm just kidding, but he was in too many of those fights. And unfortunately, you don't know about Bobby Chacon. You talk to somebody again, like the baseball thing. You talk about the average guy. Bobby Chacon, who the hell is that? Unfortunately, he's the guy that wouldn't know his name anymore, but he was a pretty special guy in that ring. He was pretty damn tough. Tougher than most people. There's guys that unfortunately relied on that toughness, right? Yeah. When it comes to guys known for incredible chins, that can be a detriment. Yes. And it can be... If that's all you have, or if you think that's all you have. Cusse used to put it this way. Cusse used to, because he wanted me to be a great trainer. So Cusse used to always be with me all the time, you know, saying things. And Cusse would say, Teddy, you got two tough guys, okay? Gotcha. Now, what's tough? It's a prerequisite to being a fighter. You better be tough. But what level? It's all levels, degrees. I gotcha. But how special is being tough? Because if you're a fighter, you should be tough. I gotcha. I'm listening. So you got two tough guys. But one of them is smart. Taught. Developed. That's him. He's tougher now. That's how he explains it. Tougher because he's smart. Yeah. Tough and smart. He goes from here, he's here. Because he's not just dependent only on toughness. So he's tougher than this guy. Because you don't have to depend on just that. You might not even have to get to it. It's there as a reserve. It's always there to call on. Like an army, you call on, you need it. But he's not dependent just on that. Isn't that the balance though? Is knowing that you have it. Knowing that you have it and it's there. There it is. See what you just said? You have to know that you're it. Tyson didn't know he was it. Will you ever admit that? No, he probably knocked me and said this. It's okay. It's okay. Well there's certain people that you can't question. And the Vander Holyfield is one of those people. That's why that fight was so fascinating. Because the Vander Holyfield was, he is a 100% warrior. Well he had the right nickname. Most of them don't. Most of them don't have the right fight nickname in whatever they do. But the real deal. He was the real deal. Yeah. And remember a small heavy weight as well. You want to know why? I mean trace it back. Cuz always told me this but I learned it innately on my own too. But trace it back to the parents. Trace it back to the background. Trace it back to all that stuff. Trace it back. He didn't live up to something. He didn't face something. He didn't do whatever it was that was supposed. He had a mother that he talked about a few times. And I'm sorry Vander, I'm not saying exact but it's there. And a great mother obviously. But they grew up in Georgia. I think it was Atlanta but whatever suburb of Georgia. And she had a different age, different time. Down south and all that. Had a little, I guess a little shack in the back with a thing called twitches. Switches. I'm sorry. I'm twitching. Switches. And she basically had different sized switches. Short ones, long ones, medium ones. Depending on the occasion. And when he didn't live up to what he had to tell the truth, whatever. Be accountable okay. Face what he had to face. Whatever. She had a switch for him. And you know what? It formed him. Because he faced things. Tyson on the other hand. And listen. Did he ask for it? No. No he didn't ask for that upbringing. I get it. But I know people have that upbringing and they get to a point they can make a left turn instead of a right turn. It's your ability to make a choice. Don't you think there's also the overwhelming hype and celebrity involved in Mike Tyson and his prime. It was probably so difficult for him to even understand himself. Yeah. But what he did understand and I'm glad you said that. Backwards. What he did understand was there was a way out. A van to learn there was no way out. You know a person. There was a way out. You know what I mean right? Yes. Like somebody would come and pay. Yeah. And he did a lot of things before he became champion. And somebody was always there with a check or cash or whatever and would absolve him from it. Would not have to face what he did. But there was a switch that a van to had to face. And that's what made him what it made him. And that's what allowed Tyson. Part of what allowed Tyson. Look you make your own choices at a certain point in life. So let's not make too many excuses. But it is part of it. That he was formed by what he was allowed to do when he shouldn't have been allowed to do those things. And that was one of the issues that you had with Cuss right? Yeah. That you felt like Cuss was ignoring his own principles and teaching because this guy was so special. Yeah. And Cuss was getting older. And Cuss recognized he didn't have much time left and this guy had a legitimate shot at being a world champion. And for Cuss everything in his unit, everything in the world of boxing, success and everything, he was great. He was special. Cuss his whole life. He didn't get married for a reason. Because he was married to boxing as he said that it wouldn't have been fair. I mean this was a different guy. That it was boxing. His whole life. Everything. Life was boxing. And lessons were connected to boxing. Everything. And principles, boxing. And so this is a guy that his whole, you know you use that word legacy. But really his whole existence was boxing and for him it was heavyweight champs. He had Floyd Patterson, youngest heavyweight champ ever. That was Cuss. That was Cuss. It wasn't about lightweights. Listen, he had lightweights. He had welterweights. Jose Torres. Yeah. Jose Torres, light heavyweight champion. Exactly right. He had other guys too. But it was the heavyweight champion of the world because it was around what we talked about before. When boxing was the biggest sport, bigger than baseball. And it was the heavyweight champion of the world was Babe Ruth. It was Rocky Marciano. And you're going to say that before you leave this earth that you have a chance to have another heavyweight champ that might be the best, could be one of the best ever. And could break Patterson's record which was part of the plan. Part of the plan when Cuss was alive. You're going to break Patterson's record. He broke it. He became the youngest heavyweight champion. And so when you float that out there, if you will, and tempt a guy with that, even a great guy like Cuss, some things are going to be pushed to the side. And he did. Yeah, compromised. And he did. Do you think if he didn't do that, that Tyson would have been a different person? I'm going to use his words. That was told to me by a great promoter, Mickey Duffy, passed away. It was close to Jim Jacobs. It was close to Cuss. And he was up there sometimes after I left and all that. And Mickey wanted me to train all his fighters. And he was a great promoter, Mickey. He had great sayings. He was a very witty guy, but he was a sharp guy. Boxing was his life too. And he ran everything in London with three partners. One of them was the officers there who owned Wembley Stadium. So they were powerful. They ran everything. They were the cartel in London back in those days. He told me that before Cuss died, that Cuss had said some nice things about Teddy Atlas. But he said, and listen, I know there's a danger that this can be convenient. You know what I mean? Self-serving crap. Sometimes you got to trust whatever. I was told by Mickey that he said that Teddy Atlas was right. But where he was wrong was he was going to get in the way of the possibility of making a great fighter. If he did things his way as far as the disciplining in the, you know, whatever. In other words, whether he left it like that. So I don't know. So I know what I think it meant, that Tyson wouldn't have been around if you did the, if you disciplined or he would have left. I don't know. Because I don't know that he had those options because he was a ward of the state. And, you know, he was coming out of obviously a criminal situation. He was coming out of a juvenile detention center called Tryon up outside of, 30 miles outside of Albany. You know, so I don't know that he had, but basically that if Teddy did it his way, he was right, but he was wrong because it would have ruined the possibility of a great fighter. And I couldn't let that happen. So I don't think that's, I don't know if it's true, actually. I don't know. You know what I was about to say? I don't think that's true. Because of course it's me. I want to make myself feel good. So I want to say you could have the best of both worlds. You could have maybe a better person or within the realm of a better person, right? Boundaries, right? There were no boundaries. Maybe those boundaries would have made a difference, right? And you still would have had the talent. I mean, the talent wasn't going to dissipate because of the discipline, you know, that you put on them as a human being. That wasn't going to change. But because we're saying that it wasn't going to happen. Maybe you lose them. Maybe it goes to someone else at a certain point in his development. Maybe that's what he meant. I don't know.