I'm probably the only one who felt this way - but it was a total bore for me to read.  I think if I had heard Iron Mike narrate this story of his admiration of Cus, I would have felt differently, but I had a lot of trouble finishing this one.

"I would let you fight Larry Holmes right now. You could beat him. But you don't believe it. Confidence applied properly will surpass genius. Nothing surpasses confidence."

Everyone needs a Cus in their life. Someone that sees something special, that speaks life into you, and doesn't give up on you when everyone has including yourself. What an excellent book!!!

A fascinating tale well told, offering insight into the conflicted psyche of one of sport's most divisive yet captivating figures, with surprisingly unsparing and critical self-analysis showing there's a strong mind behind Mike Tyson's muscle.

As always Mike never fails to disappoint! Mike and his relationship with Cus is fascinating.  Kudos to Cus for taking .Mike in

Behind every great boxer there’s a great trainer: for Joe Louis it was Jack Blackburn, for Muhammad Ali it was Angelo Dundee, and for Mike Tyson it was Constantine (‘Cus’) D’Amato.

D’Amato obviously featured heavily in Tyson’s candid autobiography ‘Undisputed Truth’, written with Larry Sloman, and the same team now examine the Iron Man’s relationship with D’Amato in detail in the equally well written ‘Iron Ambition. My Life with Cus D’Amato’.

Tyson asks how this boxing manager and trainer watched him spar for less than ten minutes when he was thirteen years old and correctly predicted that he would become the youngest ever heavyweight champion of the world and then proceeds to answer his own question by showing that D’Amato was much more than a great boxing coach, who developed the ‘peek-a-boo’ style of fighting (where both hands are kept in front of the body rather than adopting a stance in which one arm and one foot are placed forward). 

Tyson shows that D’Amato was a true mentor who built character as much as muscle, and mental discipline as much as physical stamina, believing that fights are won or lost in the mind before the competitors even enter the ring.

Tyson has acknowledged that had D’Amato not rescued him from the mean streets of Brownsville in New York City, he might well have suffered an early violent death. D’Amarto, the son of Italian immigrants in the Bronx, knew precisely what was at stake, having been nearly blinded and had his own hopes of a career in boxing ended when, aged twelve, he suffered a head injury in a fight with an adult. D’Amato’s personal courage was most obviously evident in his professional career, before he took on Tyson, by his taking on the Mob – effectively breaking the monopoly of championship bouts and boxing contracts exercised by the corrupt International Boxing Club.

D’Amato diverted Tyson from a life of crime when he took the thirteen-year-old into his home when Tyson left the Tryon School for Boys, a New York State correctional facility, and in 1982, upon the death of the boy’s mother, he became the sixteen-tear old Tyson's legal guardian. In just under four years from that time Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick in the second round to become WBC Heavyweight Champion of the World. Sadly D’Amato did not live to see this triumph, having died in the previous year.

Considering how badly Tyson subsequently went off the rails, both outside and inside the ring, it’s interesting but pointless to speculate whether, had D’Amato lived longer, he might have been able to suppress, or at least channel, Tyson’s inner demons. 

What we have in ‘Iron Ambition’ is effectively an extended love letter from Tyson to his surrogate father. Love is sometimes blind and never more so than with respect to self-love and Tyson exhibits something of a blind-spot in presenting himself as the youngest ever heavyweight boxing champion. When he defeated Berbick, to win the WBC title, the world of boxing had divided into rival organizations legitimising world championship boxing titles. Ironically the youngest ever undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion was another D’Amato protégé, Floyd Patterson, who won that title aged twenty-one in 1956.

Few would now subscribe to the description of boxing as the noble art and Tyson, as much as any man, is responsible for it losing that badge of honour yet in ‘Iron Ambition’ Tyson has painted an indelible and convincing portrait of Cus D’Amato as a noble soul.