James Toney @ Heavyweight , Yes that's exactly what people are saying. As a whole his career is HOF worthy but Toney's campaign at heavyweight should've been WAYY more successful. JMHO wasted opportunity to win a belt (without steroid controversy) and defend it a few times in the early to mid 2000s.
Was Tyson unified champ twice? Were WBC and WBA the only belts of note at that stage. The 90's was confusing with Unified and Lineal championships. Foreman getting stripped of his titles for no good reason made things murky. Seldon and Bruno were not real champs, I assume Don King politiking is the only reason they ever were. I guess what I'm saying is Tyson didn't really achieve anything big after prison. But no, Tyson wasn't the biggest waste of talent, as far as achievments go you wasn't a waste at all. I wish he'd been able to fight everyone of note in the 90's; Foreman, Moorer, Morrison, Lewis (a lot earlier), McCall, Mercer etc but no one faces everyone. Youngest champ and held the crown for 6 years, that's a pretty HUGE achievement right there.
just the simple fact he went to heavyweight and beat a heavyweight champion(only to be stripped)is success in itself...............how many people won a title at mw and was successful at heavyweight??? 2 Roy Jones AND BOB FITSIMMONS.....SO I THINK YA'LL ARE ASKING A BIT MUCH
Hammed - Tremendous physical gifts. Should have come back after the Barrera loss. Hatton - Great ability. Should have come back after the Pac loss. Bowe - Great talent, didn't have the drive, determination and internal toughness to even make it through Marine boot camp. Michael Moorer - Great physical gifts, but lazy. Tommy Morrison - Great talent, ruined by drugs.
You say he ruined his career, but he made over 200,000,000, and was the youngest heavyweight ever at 19, so tell me how did he ruin his career.
its not so much tysons 'ring personality' that ate him up and was his downfall, his problem was that he didnt balance it out with a personality and life outside the ring. He had shitloads of the Yin but hardly any of the Yang. Unsuprising really given that he was so devoted to his boxing career in his youth (becoming youngest ever champ takes utter devotion), he probably rarely had time to develop his own stabilising character effects. Mentally he was still a young adult when he hit the top. well thats what I think anyway lol.
Tyson did pretty well for himself. Cleaned out an entire division and focused attention unboxing for short time as much as anybody.