Mike Tyson, Top Ten Worthy?

Head to head, I wouldn't have him Top 20.

Cooper won the first, second and obviously the fourth rounds... so obviously he was in some sort of control until the 3rd.

 

But most of these rankings don't centre solely on h2h, otherwise Vitali and probably Bowe would both crack the top ten.

Cooper may have edged the first (maybe). He lost the second and third, and the first 2:58 of the fourth.

And when Clay needed to turn it up a notch in the fifth, he did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hwn2mqNI1I

It would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that Clay "went life and death" with Cooper.

He got a scare, and it makes a nice story for 'enry's fans, but the truth is, even the 1964 version of Clay/Ali was on a different level than Cooper.



Re: the earlier discussion, as per my earlier list, Tyson ranks ahead of Dempsey, clearly in resume, and IMO, h2h as well.

 

Just out of curiosity, who do you have in your top ten?

 

PFP yes. The hardest hitting and best punching 216 pounder ever.

 

Ali
Louis
Lewis
Holmes
Foreman
Tyson
Marciano
Frazier
Wlad
Johnson

 

Imo, Tyson is far to high, Frazier to low, Liston should be on here, I personally don't believe Wlad should be here, Dempsey should be here. Other than that a very decent list.

 

No Shavers?

 

Tyson hits harder. But Earnie is a natural sub-210 pound guy, that's almost the difference of one weight division.

 

I don't do lists so I can't say where Tyson ranks with me, but I will dispute claims that his opposition was poor. First of all, like anyone, he fought who was around at the time. He didn't duck anyone...if anything people were reluctant to fight HIM.

Bonecrusher, Pinklon and Tubbs were very good boxers..... better than many of Ali's Euro bums certainly and Louis's Bum of the Month Club. Spinks was considered very dangerous and it wasn't Tysons fault that Spinks' sphincter clamped up.

 

Tyson gets a little overrated, but Lewis at #3 is a worse case of overrating, imo.

 

Tyson absolutely did NOT hit harder than Shavers.

 

What does over rating even mean anyways?

If, say for example you think I over rate someone doesn't that just mean that by default I would think you are under rating them?

And who decides who is correct? The divide between casual and hardcore fans increases all the time now. No one cares about history or lineage, they car about making a night of it. Think of Quigg v Frampton, huge domestic unification super fight. Who cares that Rigo beat someone who beat Nishioka?

So then do we go of a consensus of a particular forum? Calculate a spearman rank on terms of correlation between the rating of fighters?

Or is it just a lazy debate tool "blah blah is too high/low"

Don't get me wrong, I use those terms often as well, but as I read that post of yours it gets me thinking, what does it mean?

 

Of course, rankings are subjective.
No one's right or wrong objectively.
Yes, we just debate and argue. "Underrated", "overrated", it is just rhetoric to express our own point of view.
There's no resolution, even if we might sway people to our thinking now and then, it's an ongoing cycle.

That's why we've been stuck here for years typing all this stuff.

You've seen we're living in the matrix but are you prepared to leave ? It's rough out there in the real world. :yep

 

Don't you think Larry Holmes deserves to be ranked above Lewis ?
Holmes looks very close to Louis and Ali when I examine it.