Teddy Atlas was one of the first to encounter a very young Mike Tyson, eventually being his 1st trainer and molding him into a future heavyweight champion when he was only 12-years-old.
Everything wasn’t always peaches and cream with their relationship.
One of the mostt taked about memories regarding them is the time Atlas stated he had to pull out a gun on a teenage Mike Tyson.
Back in September 2018, Atlas appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience and spoke on his experiences with a young Tyson.
“Tyson, when I first had him, he was 190 pounds nothing but muscle, 12-years-old,” Atlas said of the young Mike Tyson. Atlas said Tyson was “mentally weak” at 12-years-old for a fighter, and had “residual stuff from his upbringing.”
“He used to hide in between abandoned building walls in Brownsville, it was a rough place. He used to hide between walls to not get picked on,” Atlas said. “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.”
“He was as strong a guy as you’re ever gonna see, but he was as weak of a person as you’re ever gonna find,” Atlas told Joe Rogan.
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Teddy Atlas also spoke on how disrespectful Tyson was at a young age and how a gun shot basically put him in his place when he sexually assaulted a family member.
Teddy alleges that Tyson grabbed the butt of his 11-year-old niece and told her about the sexual things he wanted to do to her.
“Tyson had gone after a family member who was 11-years-old, a girl, and he had been pushing the boundaries more and more and more,” Teddy said. “His restrictions or care about how he treated other people became less and less.”
“I put him out of the gym for his behavior in school. What he was doing, threatening students, and basically putting his hands on girls in the hallways,” Atlas said. “He knew how to push those parameters. He understood the streets. He understood those rules, those laws. He understood people in those ways. Under those conditions, what he could get away with it.”
“Tyson was thinking that he could get away with more and more improper behavior,” Atlas added. “It pushed it into one day, I come home, and I find out that my wife and sister-in-laws are crying because what he did to an 11-tear-old girl in my family. Took him on his word for the things he wanted to do to the 11-year-old girl, in a sexual way.”
“So I got a gun and went and confronted him. I told him, ‘You made a choice to do this, whether or not you think you’re hurting me or you think you’re sending a message to me. You did send a message to me. You sent a message to me you don’t give a damn about other people, that you don’t care if you behave like an animal,’” Teddy told Tyson.
“You will never do it again. You’ll be dead if you ever do it again. There won’t be a conversation. You won’t be seeing me. You won’t even know that there will be repercussions. You’ll just be gone. Understand that very clearly because It’s important for my family and obviously you,” Atlas threatened Tyson.
“I put the gun in his ear, and he didn’t seem like he understood it at that moment,” Teddy claims. “So I pulled it out of his ear and pulled the trigger,” Atlas claims. “Missing him on purpose, and he understood it after that. It wasn’t a threat. It was to make it clear that I wouldn’t have to be in that position again, and either was he.”
This past December 2019, Atlas was asked by an interviewer, “What’s going through your mind when you pull a gun on Mike Tyson, that’s a scary thing to do?”
“You know what’s scarier? Having an 11-year-old girl, who had been approached by him, told by him what he was going to do to her, everything else,” Atlas replied. “Knowing that, and not doing something about that. And not stopping him. Knowing that I could do something. Knowing that the next time he might rape her. Or he probably will.”
“He told her what he was going to do to her, and she was 11-years-old,” Atlas said. “And he did it partly out of meanness. Evil, to a certain degree, that he wanted to get back at me because I put him out of the gym, and I was having that problem with Cus over the disciplining of him. And that’s the first time Cus and I was at ends, we were partners. He was doing that street thing, showing who has the power.”
“So don’t do it with my family, don’t do it with somebody innocent, don’t do it with somebody who can’t protect themselves, somebody whose weak,” said Teddy Atlas. “Don’t do that. Do it with me direct.”
“What was scary was me living with that not doing nothing about it. That’s scary. Not blowing his brains out, that wasn’t scary for me at that moment,” Atlas says. “I’m not proud of it at all. At all. At all.”
“God helped me to make sure it didn’t happen. And I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for that, and I’m cognizant of what it could have been,” Teddy continued. “I’m cognizant that I wasn’t gonna go and hide because I didn’t want to face that because it was uncomfortable, it was scary. And it was scary. I was going to do something about it, and make sure that I did what I thought I had to do, protect my family at that time.”
“It was a stupid thing and maybe a selfish thing because my family would have suffered,” Atlas said. “But I was willing to suffer, I was willing to lose my life, whether through incarceration or whatever, to do what I thought had to be done at that moment.”
Tyson gave his version of events in 2010:
“It wasn’t necessarily because I flirted with his niece or touched her butt or something,” Tyson said. “Teddy wanted me to go back with him. Teddy was leaving Cus, and I wasn’t leaving Cus. He wanted me to come back with him. That’s really, basically what happened. I wasn’t leaving to go with him. Leave Cus and go to New York and train. Whatever the situation was. That’s what Teddy always wants to tell people. He wants people to think he is a tough guy, he’s a mafia guy.”
“I’m not in the mood to prove that I’m a tough guy. I’m not a tough guy. Do you think he’s a tough guy? I know he talks tough, but do you think he’d ever come to my face and say that’s he’s a tough guy man-to-man to me? Sounds like he would. But he’s got everyone fooled that he is a tough guy. But no, he won’t.
“I’m 15-years-old, this guy however old he is, 26, he pulls a gun on me and didn’t even shoot me. So that tells you how much of a tough guy he is. He pulled a gun on me and didn’t even shoot me. If I pulled one on him, God knows those bullets are not going in the air.”
“He is supposed to be killing me with him and his mafia uncle since, I don’t know, since I was 16,” the former undisputed heavyweight champion said in the interview. “They were supposed to be getting me or doing something. I’m still here.”
Tyson said Cus D’Amato liked Mike more than Atlas, which caused Teddy to have a jealousy of him. “Cus liked me more than he liked him. He don’t like that. That’s just what it is.”
H/T – Bro Bible
