Why is Tyson so overrated H2H?

A completely shot Holmes who four years later came back and defeated the unbeaten Mercer, regained a top ten ranking, and lost competitive fights with Holy and McCall. :roll:

For someone who doesn't like excuses being made for Tyson you sure make a lot for Liston. He was green, Marshall told him a joke, Marshall had a good strategy yada yada. Liston was 24 when he lost to Marshall. He outweighed Marshall by 20-25lbs every time they fought. When he was more experienced Marshall took him the distance again. Marshall lost almost as many fights as he won. Can you think of another all-time great heavy who would lose to Marty friggin' Marshall?

 

The underlined statement disqualifies you from ever being taken seriously here.

 

These famous criticisms of Tyson as a fighter that the thread starter mentioned allll originate and come back to one first-hand source consistently throwing it to the public:

Teddy Atlas.


In his book, in HBO legendary nights interviews and in various color commentary spots Teddy Atlas has stuck to this assessment of his former fighter, with anecdotal evidence in tow.

But even without his testimony theres plenty of evidence and other sources.

I'm a firm believer, and I'm sure others will agree, that you can tell
the type of heart and mental toughness a person will possess in the ring is easily found and displayed in type of person they are and life the lead outside the ring.

Tyson needed another person to take responsiblity to take him and his life his behavior, his emotions, (D'amato) or he was lost. And during his career his behavior was consistently mentally unstable, and cowardly. Touching little girls (teddy atlas's gun story, desiree washington) , beating up women (robin givens) pill pushing, telling physical wimpy press reporters "Im gonna **** you in the ass til you love me ***got" are examples and betray who he is inside despite all his physical gifts. A terrified kid who only felt big when he preyed on those a lot more vunerable then him. He was trained by old school D'amato and had all the physical tools and skills to achieve greatness, but he always had a lack of fortitude internally. Always.

As for Tyson 'standing up' to Razor, Tucker etc etc, well among his other attributes he had an Iron chin. But I don't think that the point is as a pro fighter that if you stand up to him he will start crying in the corner, but it will dishearten and remove his fire as the frontrunning intimadator he embraced to empower himself, and move closer to the terrified little boy that was within.

The biggest battle of Tysons life was to give himself and that scared kid true courage, rather then posturing and intimadating. I don't think he accomplished that until well into retirement and has seemed to have reached a point of stability, seems to responsible for his kids, treating people with respect including himself, no more addictions. I saw that he apologized to Atlas for the first time in 30 years about that little girl incident.

But due to not possessing the strength for the important muscle in the ring (the one inside you) during his career, despite the elite power and boxing skills i dont favor him H2H against most ATG HW's. But he'd ALWAYS have a chance with that power, and skillset. Always

 

I have always backed Liston in this hypothetical fight, but I certainly have concerns about my pick.

Not least of them is Tyson’s considerable advantage in hand speed.

You certainly shouldn’t dismiss those arguing for Tyson as silly people!

 

So Holmes obviously wasn't shot then. You don't shake off being shot by beating a few journeymen.

I can think of a few all-time great heavies who would have lost to Danny Williams at age 38. Can't think of any who would have lost to Marty Marshall at age 24.

 

You said Tyson beat "a completely shot" Holmes. Don't try to cover it up now, by saying "Holmes was rusty." Your argument that Holmes was "completely shot." was torn up. Deal with it.

 

This.

This guy gets his arguments torn up, then tries to change the argument. Nobody will fall for it.

 

Regardless of the nitpicking, i think the point is correct even though the threadstarter could have put it across in a more balanced and respectful way to not aggravate Tyson fans

 

Sonny Liston.