Why Tyson Isnt An ATG

:rofl

That presenter was on the verge of being eaten alive!

 

Yup, same old Mikey. The guy is lucky his ears and legs remained intact.

 

Make sense please.

 

What I usually find is if you apply the same negatives to other great fighters Tyson comes out better than you would think, but people get caught up in applying these points to him exclusively. I’m pretty balanced when it comes to Tyson and can recognise the latter part of his career hurt his legacy massively but I recognise him as a great in the top 10 easy.

 

rski....i think you have summed it up very well.
His 'great 'years were about 3 or 4.
After prison his 'in between' years were 3 or 4
His 'shot' years were the last 7 years or so....the fact that these were so played out with so much bull#$/t attached to his diminishing ability ,damaged his legacy beyond belief.

 

Perhaps the best proof of how suspect is Tyson's claim to ATG status is precissely the fact that we can be here still discussing whether Tyson is a legitimate ATG or not.

I can't imagine an 11 pages thread titled "Why Ali is not an ATG", or "Why Robinson is not an ATG". But in the case of Tyson, unfortunately there is plenty of ammo to throw to his legacy.

Anyway, my opinion is that Tyson is a borderline ATG per sure, but he is also the poster child of "shoulda, woulda, coulda". With his incredible fighting skills Tyson could easily have been a top HW ATG, just up there, with Ali and Louis, but as things stands right now, Tyson barely qualifies as top 10.

 

Qualifying as a top 10 ATG is certainly an ATG.

People suspect about him due to inconsistency after his dominant period does not in itself show his claim to being an ATG is suspect. It shows there is much to critique. But however much more he might have done, his championship dominance & head to head peak match up easily make him an ATG.

Comparing his to the very best only shows he did not do enough to be consideed "The greatest" in his division or P4P.

 

I can agree. If we simply dissect his career and what he actually accomplished you'll see that he accomplished more than most ATG heavyweights - and that there's only a handful who accomplished more. Regaining the championship 10 years after first winning the title was done by only 3 men: Ali, Foreman and Tyson. Dempsey never regained the title. Nor did Liston, or Frazier. Louis and Holmes, despite having lengthy reigns, couldn't do it either. Not that they needed to.

A lot of the critique comes from his falling short of the lofty goals we all set out for him. He fell way short, which lead critics believing he was a failure. Not so fast. There's been a plethora of threads in Classic comparing winning percentages against the competition of the time and how it stacks up against other ATG's. Tyson's always at the top in every category. I feel he's a lock for the Top 10 and may be rising in the future when the dust settles on his career.

 

Tyson is an all time great no question.

At his best probably beats any other heavyweight. I think a lot of people don't want him to be considered as an all time great - but you can't change the facts.

 

Azzer, let me draw your attention to the fact that Wladmir K never lost to an ATG or a HoF, like Tyson did.

 

The Wlad loss against Purrity can be brushed under the carpet, he basically wore himself out unlike Tyson who was destroyed and taken apart from the opening bell, it's one of the most one sided beatings I've seen in a title fight where the champion lost.

All the above went on to redeem themselves Tyson didn't, true he won a version of the title back against a frozen Bruno but was then outfight and stopped by an aging war torn Holyfield, IMO prison saved him from even more defeats by missing certain fights that would have likely happened and tarnished his legacy even more.