Cus D'amato himself would answer the question yes.
He certainly advised Rooney to keep Tyson in the gym, where he would stay out of trouble.
If Rooney had been able to do that, Tyson might never had lost a fight. Rooney seemed to be there for all the right reasons, and still insists he cares about Tyson and would work in his corner today.
D'Amato knew Tyson, and Tyson looked up to him, and to everyone else in the D'Amato camp.
Some people need ongoing guidance to succeed, and Tyson never had the day to day skills and self discipline or respect to do the routine of a regular life. He needed lots of support.
D'Amato also warned Tyson about King, and all the others waiting to cash in on his potential.
If only Tyson had stayed this course.
However.....
Someone else has a very different opinion. He would answer your question with a no.
He also worked with Tyson, and is well respected in boxing.
That person is Teddy Atlas.
And his theory is different. He believes that everyone lied to Tyson, including D'Amato.
"Our walls were plenty dirty," says Teddy Atlas, who first trained Tyson under D'Amato. "If there's a leak in the roof, you know, the spill doesn't just stay in the kitchen."
"You have to believe in your teachers," Atlas says. "All Mike's teachers turned out to be liars. It reaffirmed to him that he wasn't worth anything."
Instead of disciplining Tyson, Atlas says, D'Amato often overlooked Tyson's mistakes, snuck him into the gym at night and sacrificed his morals to fulfill his last selfish dream before his looming death: having the youngest heavyweight champ, even if it meant the champ couldn't control his emotions or his behavior, and struggled with self-confidence and depression.
When Tyson signed with King, left King, then came back to King after serving three years in an Indiana prison for a rape conviction he still adamantly denies, Atlas wasn't surprised.
In part, Atlas says, Tyson was always fascinated by King's aura, his street charisma, and the way he could talk and appeal to black fighters. But Tyson's decision to keep coming back to King is based on something different -- namely, Tyson's fear of confronting himself.
If Atlas is right, it would not matter if Rooney, D'Amato, or anyone else stayed in Tyson's corner. The stage was set, the characters cast, the play written. Tyson's fate was in his own hands, with the libretto a tragedy rather than a romance.
Tyson had too much baggage from his troubled past to face, and that kept coming back to destroy his success.
If Tyson could have stayed in mental and physical shape, he might have been unbeatable in his era.
Instead, he was already beaten by a childhood plagued with horrors.
Douglas was tough to beat, but he fought an out of shape Tyson who was knocked down in training camp. We will never know what might have happened if Tyson was not out partying instead of training. (Not to take anything away from Douglas, as he fought a classic fight.
Tyson now has a friend in George Foreman, who has offered to help him make a comeback.
With Foreman on board as a supporter, and Rooney back in the corner, Tyson would have a good psychological foundation, and they would get him (finally) back in shape. That hasn't happened since 1988.
However, if Atlas is right, it will never happen. The real competition is still going on in Tyson's head.
And Atlas should know Tyson as well as anyone.