Monteith Illingworth - Mike Tyson (Text Only Edition)

For the New York boxing reporters, dealing with Cayton wasn’t exactly a breath of fresh air. Yet, compared to Jacobs, almost anybody was preferable. “Jimmy was a propagandist. If he approached anything that made him uneasy, he just closed down on you,” said Phil Berger of the New York Times . “Sometimes it was innocent things. I once asked him what his father did. He got very uptight and said, ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything. ’Then he called me back and lied, told me that his father was in the office supplies business.” Berger took advantage of Cayton’s sudden availability. “I only had perfunctory conversations with Jacobs after Ferguson. When I needed to find out something important, I talked to Cayton.”

Matthews had similar dealings with Jacobs—namely, pointless ones. “If he didn’t like your question, he’d ridicule you. He’d play word games with your head. I’d ask a simple question and Jacobs would say things like, ‘Wally, that’s like saying is it colder in the mountains or colder in the winter’ or ‘Wally, that’s like asking me if I’m going to paint the fence green.’ After a half hour of that, I’d forget my question!”

Although Cayton was more likely to give straight answers, he could also be trying. “Everything Jimmy said was right and you were supposed to accept it,” recalled the AP’s Ed Schuyler. “But I could argue with Jimmy if I wanted to. Cayton treated me like I was on the payroll. Cayton I wanted to hit.”

Jacobs and Cayton attempted to keep the boxing reporters, and any other inquiring journalist, devoted to what they deemed the key issues: Tyson’s indomitable ring prowess, the inevitability of his becoming champion, and whether he would go for the title via the HBO series or by some other independent route. For the most part, they were extremely successful. That was the news, after all, the stuff of sports page headlines. It was also presumably what people wanted to read about at that stage of Tyson’s career. And reporters who had to meet the pressure of deadlines two or three days a week might well not have the time or the appetite to delve into the subtler aspects of the Tyson story—especially when getting the basic news from Jacobs and Cayton was such a task.

But the fact remains that the subtleties were missed. One in particular, the issue of just who managed Tyson would later surface as a central drama of his career.

Starting in late 1985, and more frequently at the outset of 1986, Jacobs and Cayton asserted that they were comanagers. No such status existed in the boxing rules and regulations of New York State boxing and they knew it. Jacobs was sole manager, and Cayton a partner sharing in the manager’s purse cut. Still, the boxing reporters parroted and endorsed that fictitious label—even though no major boxer in memory ever had more than one manager.

“Boxing being the business it is, what do they call it, an assignee? That’s how they did it to become comanagers,” said Berger of the New York Times . Ed Schuyler also recalled having dismissed the subject of precisely who managed Tyson. “I believe the [New York State Athletic] Commission said Jacobs had a legitimate managerial contract. It never questioned the contract, so I never questioned it. It’s such a shady business. I mean, who manages who? There are so many people who have pieces of fighters, so many conflicts of interest. Doesn’t make it right, but that’s the way the game is.”

Taking a lead from the New York State Athletic Commission was not a good idea, especially when the chairman was José Torres.

Torres retired from boxing in 1969. He did do that promised book, not a novel, but a biography, Sting Like a Bee: The Muhammad Ali Story , published in 1971. Torres spent the 1970s writing for the New York Post . On the side he dabbled in politics. He campaigned in the New York Latino community for John Lindsay’s mayoral campaign and for Jimmy Carter. For a brief period of time in the late 1970s, he became an ombudsman for the New York City Council. Four years later, in 1983, Torres was appointed a commissioner of the New York State Athletic Commission by the office of Governor Mario Cuomo. By 1985, just as Tyson turned professional, Torres had been elevated to chairman.

That was the official version of his career outside the ring. On paper it looked impressive. Torres was the first chairman ever to have been a boxing champion. He promised to represent the needs of the fighters, not the managers or promoters. For Torres, that wouldn’t be easy. He had a penchant for letting himself be compromised.

As Athletic Commission chairman, Torres had an implicit obligation to act impartially, When it came to Tyson he did precisely the opposite. Torres frequently visited the Catskill gym to offer him boxing advice. He also went to almost all of Tyson’s early upstate fights, at the taxpayer’s expense. That in itself wasn’t improper, but his ringside behavior was. Torres always cheered wildly for Tyson and derided his opponent. At fight’s end, Torres often jumped into the ring to embrace and congratulate him. On a few occasions, he would still be sent by Jacobs to track down Tyson in Brownsville during his many disappearances. Torres provided other unofficial services as well. “He used to introduce Mike to Puerto Rican girls all the time,” said Tom Patti. “I think he wanted to quit the commission and get involved managing Mike.”

That seemed unrealistic. He was, though, at the least willing to see things from the point of view of Tyson’s management. And that was a clear conflict of interest. Starting in 1985, he went on record several times stating that Jacobs and Cayton were both the managers of Tyson.

The boxing reporters knew of Torres’s partiality, of his incestuous ties to the Tyson camp. They talked about it in cynical asides among themselves. Rarely was it revealed in their news stories. It seemed that a news judgment had been made—perhaps, put in the context of the times, a fairly understandable one.

Recording the emergence of Mike Tyson, the next great heavyweight, was like being swept along by the titles of history. Reporters had the feeling that they weren’t just observing, but also participating somehow. They saw the gaps, the rough edges, the inconsistencies, and the conflicts of interest, but they were apparently overwhelmed by the phenomenon. Both the persona of Mike Tyson, and the process by which he emerged in the national consciousness, became extremely seductive. “Tyson wasn’t just another boxing story,” Matthews admitted. “He was ‘the story.’ We all got caught up in it.”

* * *

By late February, Jacobs and Cayton had reached agreement with HBO on the three-fight deal. Tyson would earn $1.35 million, or $450,000 per fight. Once again, he broke all records of financial reward for a fighter of his age and experience.

Tyson’s next fight was set for March 10 against Steve Zouski at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. It was designed as a breather fight, an easy victory to bolster Tyson for the subsequent series of tougher matches on ABC and HBO.

Zouski was another appropriate opponent for the purposes of the business plan. He looked better than he actually was. Zouski claimed never to have been knocked down, let alone out, in a record of twenty-five wins and nine losses. The problem was that eight of those losses had occurred in his last ten bouts, putting Zouski on the downward slope of his career arc. Whatever muscle he had seemed to have softened up in large, billowing puffs around an ordinary frame. For two rounds, Tyson used Zouski to showcase his combination-punching abilities. It was over in the third—by a knockout.

Tyson was to meet James (“Quick”) Tillis three weeks later. He developed an ear infection and the bout was put off until May 3. That was the longest layoff of his professional career, just over three months. In a sense, it was fortuitous. Tillis was expected to be a watershed fight. Although twenty-eight years old and near the end of his career, Tillis was still considered a fringe contender for the title. In his prime, he’d fought hard-nosed veterans like Earnie Shavers and Gerrie Coetzee. He had also matched up against some of the better fighters of his own peer group, such as Carl Williams and Pinklon Thomas. He had a tough chin, came to a fight in good condition, could employ a full arsenal of boxing skills, and moved well in the ring. Beating Tillis would gain Tyson a measure of confidence, prepare him for the emotional pressures of the next stage in his pursuit of the heavyweight championship.