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Mike Tyson: I was so scared on my first amateur fight, I wanted to, I went downstairs, I'm gonna buy... I'm going to the store in the Bronx New York, I'm going to the store to my trainer, and I went downstairs. Man I should get on this train and never come back, I wanted to get on the train and just leave I was so scared. I didn't want to fight anybody. It was just such a different dynamic fighting someone in the ring then fighting somebody on the street. I never thought I could fight somebody even after all the training. I was totally intimidated on fighting somebody in the ring. But I put myself together with the discipline learned from Cus, and I went in the ring and scored a third round knockout.
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Mike Tyson: One day he
[Cus]
Mike Tyson: said "listen you have the chance to change your life, your family's life, you can be very special. Don't you want to be champion? You can be champion of the world". I didn't pay no attention. He said really, "You could be champion of the world. You could devestate the world. No man can take what you did, you got to believe it". I looked at this guy and then I started thinking, I said, this guy is really crazy, that's what I said, this guy is really crazy. "You do what I tell you to do, and if it doesn't work then, then you can leave". So I said OK bet. I did everything he told me to do and I won, I won every championship. From the amateur championship, all the championships, I'm gonna cry, so I won every championship that he told, because, he told me what to do. And I started believing in this old man. I stopped being a little thief. I use to go back to New York and rob people and come back upstate and hide out. The day I stop doing all that I changed my whole life. I said I'm gonna stick to this boxing shit. I turned my whole life over to boxing. I turned into a complete animal, I turned into a disciplinarian.
Extended Reading
