debunking the myth of Mike Tyson

This view, while not from the extreme end of the spectrum, is certainly getting within sight of it.

 

He tested the waters for a comeback against King Levinsky, and thought better of it.

Tyson just kept demolishing top ten guys for years on end, long after he was out of the practical contention!

 

Who ?

 

I dunno. You make him sound pretty good.
Like you say, wins over Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tucker, Tony Tubbs were quite impressive.

 

I think he's referring to his career post-Douglas. In which case he definitely blew out a lot of top notch guys.

 

I agree with this.
But what's the difference between beating the best opposition and dominating ?

Define "dominate" and "era".

I'd say anyone who becomes champion is the dominant fighter, with very few exceptions.

I agree with giving Tyson credit for all that he did but I've always found it odd that his loss to Buster Douglas gets conveniently made separate to his era.
It's not as if Tyson got old and was beaten by someone from the next era. He lost to a contender of the era.

 

Tyson wasn't "long out of the practical contention" back then though.
That would be more like post-Holyfield.

 

Well, that's the impression I got from his initial post.

 

I guess it depends whether we class men like Frans Botha, Lou Savarese and Brian Nielsen as ranked contenders when Tyson knocked them out.
I think 1996 was Tyson last really credible year. The KO of Bruno specifically. For the WBC title.

 

Botha was pretty good at the time Tyson fought him. Only one loss at the time, a 12th round KO against Moorer and he was winning that fight before Moorer sealed the deal. He fought against Lewis for a title a year later.

Golota was a pretty good win too.

 

Yeah, I suppose it's debatable.
Either way, whatever his rating, the Frans Botha KO is an absolute classic.

 

With 30 years hindsight now, I think Tyson's defeat of Trevor Berbick was his finest moment.
His win against Tony Tucker might take second place.

One shows how devastating he could be against a legitimate fighter and the other showed his ability over the 12 round distance (more so than the Smith fight where Tyson got too frustrated with Smith's holding and probably performed down a bit).
Berbick and Tucker were coming off career best wins for their world titles. Neither of them were out of shape.

 

I think I am right in saying that Golotta was ranked when they fought, as late as 2000.

Of course Tyson threw that win away unnecessarily by failing a drugs test, which is a shame for him.

It wasn’t his greatest performance, but it would have given him one last high quality win.

 

Depends if we're rating by the alphabet soup rankings. With Ring magazine I'm not sure how highly Golota was rated. I think it was only a year before when he quit against Grant, his first loss since Lennox. Botha might've been rated close to the top of the IBF. Norris and Savarese were up there too.

I can check my old Ring magazines if it's something you'd like answered!?

 

Pre Tyson-Golota:

The Ring - February 2001
(as of October 10, 2000)

1. Lennox Lewis (WBC/IBF)
2. David Tua
3. Kirk Johnson
4. Evander Holyfield (WBA)
5. Mike Tyson
6. Oleg Maskaev
7. Michael Grant
8. Chris Byrd
9. Andrew Golota
10. Hasim Rahman

Botha, Savarese, and Norris were unranked by Ring going into their respective fights with Tyson.