Kevin Rooney (boxer)

Kevin Rooney
Data
Birth Name	Kevin Rooney
Weight class	Welterweight , junior middleweight
nationality	US-american
birthday	May 4th 1956
place of birth	Staten Island , New York
Combat Statistics
Struggles	26th
Victories	21st
Knockout victories	7th
Defeats	4th
draw	1

Kevin Rooney (born May 4, 1956 on Staten Island , New York ) is an American boxing coach and former professional boxer. He is best known for his collaboration with Mike Tyson . As an amateur , he first made a name for himself in 1975 by winning the prestigious Golden Gloves tournament in New York in the welterweight division .

Professional career

1979 Rooney moved to the professional camp. In the course of his six-year professional career, he reached a fight record of 21-1-4. After his defeat on June 3, 1985 to Mike Picciotti by a technical knockout in the 4th round, Rooney ended his active career at the age of 29 and moved to the coaching staff of the Catskill Gyms founded by Cus D'Amato . This had trained Rooney throughout his career and made him familiar with the " peek-a-boo boxing style " he had developed.

Coaching

Due to D'Amato's advanced age, he was no longer able to train the young Mike Tyson himself, so that Rooney was given Tyson's care after Teddy Atlas left .

With the beginning of Tyson's professional career in 1985, Rooney stood by his side and worked with him on the " peek-a-boo " in the spirit of D'Amato . His extraordinary physique allowed Tyson to perfect this style to the point that it became a very difficult target for his opponents to hit. Tyson, with his height of 178 cm for a heavyweight, knew how to compensate for possible range disadvantages and to get into the in-fight , where he sought the knockout with the help of his extraordinary punching power.

Under his care, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight world champion of all time on November 22, 1986 at the age of 20 after beating Trevor Berbick .

Overall, he posted a fight record of 35-0-0 (31 times by KO) under Rooney. In 1988, Rooney was fired by Tyson after his successful fight against Michael Spinks at the urging of his new manager Don King . In the period after Rooney's resignation until the end of his career, he reached a fight record of 15-2-6. Rooney said: "Mike could have been 100-0 and made a billion dollars, if he stayed with me." ("Mike could have made a record of 100-0 and made a billion dollars if he had stayed with me." )

After the end of the collaboration with Tyson, Rooney devoted himself to other fighters. The cooperation with Vinny Paz in particular can be described as successful. At Rooney's side Paz Dele secured on 7 February 1992 after a TKO victory over the Frenchman Gilbert the IBF title of the United States Boxing Association in the junior middleweight division .

additional

Rooney stayed at the Catskill Gym and trained boxers until the early 2000s. Since the beginning of his professional career in 2011, Rooney has been looking after his son Kevin Rooney Jr.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kevin Rooney on boxrec.com
2. ↑ Getting A Belt Out Of Life at sportsillustrated.cnn.com (English)
3. ↑ Talkin 'Mike Tyson with Kevin Rooney on boxinginsider.com (English)
4. ↑ Vinny Paz talks to Livefight on livefight.com (English)
5. ↑ Kevin Rooney Interview on famousinterview.ca (English)
6. ↑ Q&A: Kevin Rooney Jr ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on fightnews.com