UFC Veteran Doubts Mike Tyson Was Hypnotized Before Fights, Says It's Something Else

A former UFC fighter thinks Mike Tyson allegedly being hypnotized by former trainer before fights wasn’t true and something else happened instead.

Tyson once revealed that his former trainer and mentor Cus D’Amato was a ruthless and brutal person hiding behind a graying old man. However, aside from being a vicious trainer, D’Amato was also known for performing hypnotism. In fact, he allegedly performed hypnotism on Tyson before he enters the ring in order to turn him into a ferocious beast during fights.

MMA analyst and UFC commentator Joe Rogan recently debated alongside MMA expert Eddie Bravo and former UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub as to whether hypnosis really played a huge role during Tyson’s prime.

In an episode of “ JRE Fight Companion” podcast, Rogan, Bravo, and Schaub got sidetracked by all sorts of martial arts-related tangents while tuning into UFC Fight Night: Felder vs. Hooker.

One of the subjects the three have discussed was the remarkable career of Tyson. According to Rogan, “Iron Mike” himself told him during an appearance on “Joe Rogan Experience” in 2019 that D’Amato used to hypnotize Tyson. The legendary boxer was quoted saying D’Amato would make him “ totally focus on nothingness and just being this savage, intelligent animal.”

“He hypnotized him into being a machine. You don’t exist, it’s just the task,” Rogan said.

Bravo, a martial arts instructor and the founder of self-developed “ 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu,” chimed in and backed Rogan’s statement. He even joked about it and said that Tyson looked like a murderer during his prime.

“He would get hypnotized before the fights backstage. Look at his face in his early fights. He looked like a murderer,” Bravo said.

Schaub on the other hand, appeared to be the most resistant to the idea that hypnosis played a pivotal role in Tyson’s preparation before fights and questioned whether it “actually worked.” Schaub then hinted that Tyson’s success at the time might have been aided by some performance-enhancing drugs rather than hypnotism.

“I hate to be that guy, but they didn’t test back then,” Schaub commented before the conversation came to an end.

During his early boxing days, Tyson absorbed everything D’Amato infused him. In fact, the iconic boxer even revealed that it was D’Amato who influenced his “I don’t give a f---“ attitude which he carried with him almost in his entire career.

“He’d say ‘I don’t care, I’m an animal. They had to kill me to stop me’. Cus fuelled my ‘I don’t give a f---’ attitude,” Tyson revealed.