debunking the myth of Mike Tyson

This is definitely a good debate. Were both Berbick and Tucker Tyson's best wins because they were coming off their own best feats? What about guys like Spinks & Biggs who were both undefeated?

And then you have Razor Ruddock who had a nice win streak going. There's Bonecrusher as well, another one coming off his best win. Then there's guys like Thomas and Tubbs, who weren't coming off their best win, but two guys whose only loss came via split decision a while before they met Tyson. Both guys brought their A game and went out on their shield.

 

From that ranking I'm guessing this was right before Tua got his shot against Lennox. Kirk Johnson just recently knocked out Mazkaev. Holyfield was close to his rematch with Ruiz. Tyson was weeks away from facing Golota. Michael Grant was still being nursed after his KO loss to Lennox. Byrd had been working his way up the ladder post Ibeabuchi. And Rahman was months away from pulling off the upset in Africa.

 

You could make this same flawed argument about dozens of past greats

 

It's a good win relative to the stage Tyson was at, and Tyson looked pretty good and in decent shape.
But I wouldn't have Golota as a legit contender at that point in time, having quit against Michael Grant in his last significant fight just 11 months prior.
He quit against Tyson too.

I'm not saying Tyson couldn't have knocked out some genuine top fighters/contenders post-1996 but I'd have Botha, Savarese, Golota, Nielsen and Etienne as "fringe" contenders at best.
Frank Bruno, for all his faults, was arguably a top 5 fighter in 1996 so I rate that as Tyson's last definite win over a contender.

 

Golota was ranked 8th in the annual rankings of Ring in 1999. He went on to beat, in many folks' opinion, Ruiz a year later. According to the guys with white coats and stethoscopes, he suffered a fractured cheekbone, neck dislocature and concussion from Tyson. Not exactly a quit job.

Why are you judging Mike after a 3 year lay-off in prison rather that considering his prime 86-90 run, which in terms of quality and defenses exceeds greats like Dempsey and Marciano?

 

I'm not.
I was questioning the statement (by janitor) :
"Tyson never regained the lineal title after he lost it, but he kept splattering top ten guys for years on end"

Actually, I'd say post-Douglas he splattered (stopped, KO'd etc.) very few top ten guys. Post-prison there's one or two at most, by my reckoning.
There are a few borderline cases too.

 

Berbick didn't have a great chin but he'd fought plenty of top 10 fighters since the Mercado loss, and none of them had managed to stop him.
Tate, Holmes, Snipes, Page, Thomas. Admittedly, Snipes knocked him down early in their fight (and he beat him, as did Holmes of course.)
Also, while Berbick was 32-years old (perhaps older) he was coming off perhaps the best run of his career, and I thought he'd outworked Pinklon Thomas clearly enough to take the WBC title.

Trevor Berbick was a strong man but a fairly mediocre and inconsistent contender.
Still he deserves to be rated as one of Tyson's better opponents.
I see no reason to have the 1987 version of Pinklon Thomas rated higher than him, for example.

 

I don't see how Golotta cannot be seen as a legit contender at the time.

He was coming off a win over Orlin Norris, and he seems to have still been ranked after he lost to Michael Grant.

Tyson had announced that this was going to be his last ever fight, and he seemed genuinely upset after Golotta quit.

He wanted a high note to go out on, and this was almost it.

In my mind it is the last flash of the real Tyson.

 

I agree, it was an impressive performance.

 

Stewart, Ruddock, Bruno, Seldon and Golota were probably the ranked guys he beat after Douglas. And then there were a half a dozen or so fringe contenders. That's more wins over ranked opponents than Foreman had in his first career, I think. And probably more of the fringe variety too.

 

1986

Michael Spinks, Champion

Mike Tyson
James (Bonecrusher) Smith
Pinklon Thomas
Tim Witherspoon
Tony Tubbs
Trevor Berbick
James (Buster) Douglas
Tony Tucker
Frank Bruno
Tyrell Biggs

So of the 10 other guys in that list Tyson beat 8. How many other heavyweight champions can we do something similar with (I'm asking legitimately as I don't know the answer).

Edit: So I checked the 90s back and the only guy that did I saw who did it was Ali (who did it all the time). Louis got to 7 out of 10; everybody else was 4 or 5.

 

Mike Tyson was one of the best heavyweights who ever lived.

He was no myth.

 

I agree. What exactly is the myth?

 

Golota:
Blasted out in 1 round by Lennox Lewis.
Stopped in 10 rounds by Michael Grant who since had been blasted out in 2 rounds by Lewis.

Orlin Norris in 2000 was no longer a heavyweight contender.
I didn't think Golota looked good against Norris and the fight was much closer than two of those judges had it. Golota did not cut the figure of a legit contender, for me.

It depends what your standards are for being a legitimate contender.

I'm not knocking Tyson's performance against Golota - it was by far his best performance post-Holyfield.

 

RING magazine rankings END OF 1979

Title Vacant

1. Larry Holmes
2. John Tate
3. Gerrie Coetzee
4. Mike Weaver
5. Earnie Shavers
6. Leroy Jones
7. Lorenzo Zanon
8. Alfredo Evangelista
9. Gerry Cooney
10. Scott LeDoux

Holmes beat 7 of the other 9.
He also beat Muhammad Ali, who had only just vacated the title.
He never lost to anyone on the list either.