Mike Tyson:Overhyped?

Holmes and Johnson - arguably. I don't like their reigns.

Liston had an extremely brief title reign.

Tyson's opposition is underrated.

Partly because how easy he beat them all.

Same opinion.

 

I really don't understand the criticisms to be honest.

Would Tyson not have dominated Willard or Firpo? Are guys like Tucker and Ruddock not immensely more skilled/dangerous fighters? What sort of threat does a Floyd Patterson, Zora Folley, Eddie Machen pose to Mike Tyson? (Sorry Sonny).

You always hear, his two 'greatest wins' are against blown up LHW Spinks and 38 year old Holmes.

Were Ezzard Charles and Archie Moore best at heavyweight? Was Walcott not 38 years old? And speaking of Holmes, did he not - four whole years later - beat Ray Mercer and go the distance with Evander Holyfield?

BTW, Holyfield beats Tyson every time. Lewis beats Tyson every time. Its based on what we know. But Tyson/Holmes is an utterly different story because, by golly, it's Tyson.
:nut

 

No he cleaned and mopped up what was put in front of him. You can't ask anyone to do anything else.

By the same token, Liston, Holyfield, Foreman etc must be over-rated too because I can't name any ATGs on their resume either.

 

Wonder why that happens?

 

He's only overhyped by the 'average' boxing fan who watches a KO highlight of Tyson and spews some **** like "Tyson would KILL Ali"
I think top 15 is where he belongs and its where i rank him, an amazing accomplishment, however TAC602 raises a good point i think Tyson would whipe the floor with alot past champions competition that they struggled with but ranks way below them i mean i've seen people rank Jack Dempsey as high as number 3 for top heavyweights and his level of competition lets face it was shithouse, add to this 6 title defenses in 7 years and not facing the top competitor for nearly a whole decade. At least Tyson got in the ring with the best of his era even if he lost...

 

Was he overhyped?

Ofcourse he was, he was being lauded as the greatest fighter in history! Ko power combined with the speed of a ww (remember the last famous hw given that description!)

Imo mike was not the greatest hw of all time but he is a lock for the top ten which is pretty damn good considering the thousands of hw who put on the gloves before him.

He was so good he doesn't even need me to justify why, so I won't.

All i'm gonna say is the loss to douglas combined with 4 years inside potentially did rob us of the goat, but we'll never know. It does put a ceiling on his greatness though.

He's in a preliminary 8th position for me atm and I can't rightly say where I rank him p4p just yet.

Summary: whilst being overhyped, he's still exceptionally great.

 

As a side note, you'd be hard pressed find better film of a hw than tyson unifying the undisputed championship with the lineal championship against spinks.

Honestly how many hw's can compete with that in terms of filmed footage?

Louis against max schmelling 2?
Ali against terrel?
Johnson against jeffries?
Holmes against cooney?
Foreman against frazier 1?
Frazier against ellis?
Lewis against golota?
Holyfield against douglas?
Marciano against walcott 2?
Liston against patterson?
Dempsey against willard?
Wlad against byrd 2?

I'm not overly sure what the best film is of jeffries, or if there exists any film of sullivan.

But that's more or less my provisional top 15 with the peak performance by each man. At his very best tyson compares favourably against them all imo.

 

I'm not a fan of Tyson but this is the truth:good

 

Fine list of (mostly) all-time blowouts you've got right there. The bolded are those I view as fairly comparable and iconic.

 

If Tyson was so overhyped, why were the likes of Holyfield and Lewis obsessed with cementing their legacies, by beating him?

Because, they knew, that he was the man.

But no, some dude on a keyboard knows better than them.

Although Tyson does tend to get overrated by the average man on the street, who knows nothing about boxing and says Tyson Ko Ali 1rd or something like that

and imo Tyson knocks Louis out. There i said it.

 

As well as looking at achievement and resume I choose to evaluate how good a man was on his best night in the ring.

On this criteria mike is right up there with the best of them.

I might be tempted to rank it 4th behind louis, ali and liston.

 

Wouldn't call it a high praise

 

I think so too, not sure why it's considered blasphemy to think that greats from the past can be beaten by modern fighters especially ones of Tyson's calibre, when they're all human and all have their faults
As hard as it is for me to say i think Tyson would also beat my all time favourite fighter Rocky Marciano

 

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