Injury and drug free Tony Tucker.. How good could he have been?

this, Jeffs was more like a historic don king than a pres.

most of them prezs were some evil cooties, who wrote themselves into being good for the future.

back to boxing.

King woullda flattened Jefferson.

 

It was a great read for a NOVEL not a HISTORY but Vidal loved to take the unpopular point of view just to poke conventional mores in the eye...just ask William F. Buckley.

And you're imposing your 21st century set of ideals on an 18th century man (Jefferson). If you go that far, there is no man (or woman) in history that would be worthy of your Mount Rushmore. In today's world, the other three guys up there would be considered racists, and yes that includes Lincoln. It certainly would include Washington, and yes, Roosevelt as well.

But let's get back to boxing, shall we?

 

WHAT?

Tony Tucker didn't have a problem with Don King. Don King got Tony Tucker a shot at EVERY version of the heavyweight title. Don King did that. Nobody else did.

Tony Tucker was on the Muhammad Ali boxing club when it was run by Harold Smith. Smith showered everyone on the team with drugs and money before they turned pro. Tucker signed with the Duvas and Main Events when he turned pro. They were in control of his career (the Duvas) when he was on drugs coming up.

When Tucker's dad had a falling out with them, he sold pieces of Tucker to other managers and promoters (like Top Rank, The Houston Boxing Association, Emanuel Steward, Dennis Rappaport, etc).

I believe the FIRST fight Tucker had with King was his title fight for the vacant IBF belt against Buster Douglas. King was promoting the heavyweight unification tournament for HBO. Michael Spinks dumped the IBF belt. King promoted Douglas. King convinced the IBF and HBO to stage a vacant title fight to keep the tournament going if Spinks relinquished.

King promoted Tucker against Douglas and Tucker against Tyson in like a three-month period, then Tucker had a mental breakdown (due to his financial situation his dad put him int and his drug problem).

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Based on what, exactly?

A win over James Broad? Marvis Frazier and Tim Witherspoon beat him before Tucker did.

A win over Douglas? Mike "The Giant" White, David Bey and Jesse Ferguson all beat Douglas in the 80s before Tucker did.

A win over Jimmy Young. EVERYONE had a win over Young before Tucker did.

When listing the alphabet titlists of the 1980s, I often have to be reminded Tucker even held a title for three months.

I certainly wouldn't rate him the third best of the decade behind Holmes and Tyson. I have NO IDEA how you would successfully argue that point.

 

Injury and drug Free? I.don't see a massive difference. Maybe a few more win s on his record but not elite names. Maybe a rematch with Tyson or Douglas when he beat Tyson may have shown us a different Tucker .

 

Fair points all - the book is by no means the sole basis of my skepticism of Jefferson's greatness, though, just fresh in mind and I think distills all the available evidence on his life into an unflattering portrait, which I think is an inescapable conclusion (even if Gore did play fast & loose with his poetic license at times and serve foremost the interests of narrative quality).

Lincoln spent years waffling on emancipation and had to be nudged to it, after getting painted into a political corner, by what he deemed the "radical abolitionist" faction of his own party. He found blacks unsavory (and "incompatible" with the culture and civilities of whites) and would've preferred loading all the slaves into a giant ark for a one-way trip home to Africa. Yet he did issue the Proclamation, and led the Union in hands down its greatest military victory (sad testament as that may be, it stands true - we flopped hard in the Asian proxy skirmishes of the Cold War in the mid-20th century; we swooped in eleventh hour in WWII like a bunch of Johnny Come Lately's after most of the hard grunt work had been done, the UK were the real MVP's and yet we took all the accolades...once again, Liberty Vance; 1812 was a major embarrassment, and calling it a "draw" is generous to us - really, our greatest triumph of all time is versus...ourselves ) and put together arguably the most brilliantly assembled Cabinet of all time. Sure, it was probably for self-serving political reasons, but it ended up being a stroke of genius, as collectively, the administration did enough positive things laying the foundation of the country's future (even leaving out all the Civil War stuff) to call it a success without him personally even lifting a finger.

Roosevelt was a total unabashed imperialist, the damn poster boy in fact. He was a megalomaniac and blustering populist who blazed a trail for successors making the "common man" all sorts of promises with no plan in place nor intention to follow through (just an inexhaustible sack full of excuses and double-talk). He certainly had some kind of chip on his shoulder toward Latinos (maybe a suave one stole his college sweetheart, who knows) and of course there is the Brownsville affair (yeesh). AND YET - you have the affinity toward unions, trust-busting, the Panama Canal, and, for all that he was indeed as hawkish as they get, he did arguably prevent millions of casualties (likely outweighing the number that he caused, in the final balance) in the blossoming Russo-Japanese war before it could really pick up steam when he brokered the Portsmouth Treaty...and was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for it, FWIW.

Washington is the very definition of a mere, flawed mortal couched in shining godhood by the sheer will of the masses. He was a haplessly mistake-prone general, vastly overrated on the field if you check his actual W-L record and review many of his situational judgment calls, and got his badonkadonk (seriously, the most epic thing about the man was his derriere) handed to him on numerous occasions. He was also ridiculously pompous, elitist, mistrustful of all but rich, white, preferably Virginian agrarian land barons (save his opposites-attract boy-crush Hamilton), and harbored clear aspirations to royalty in his style. AND YET - he did serve as the fulcrum to bind all the disparate and even hostile elements of the Revolution together. On sheer charisma he stood as the beacon of the Independence movement and the frame around which the fledgling Republic started taking shape. He was in an unfathomable position under perhaps more pressure than any single American citizen in history, and yet he stayed the course in all matters, level-headed, always the first to suggest compromise and to quell internecine bickering with his avuncular sternness toward all partisans who strayed too far in any direction that might prove disruptive for the greater overall good of unity.



In all three cases, the great (not just good) outweighs however much bad may exist.

Not so with Jefferson IMO. His six term dynasty (including those of his puppets Monroe and Madison) did the country more harm than benefit. The Louisiana Purchase caused all sorts of problems for a country that was neither ready to expand in size that rapidly, nor had any pressing need to. The Embargo Act was a misfire that low-blowed our economy. He was an unscrupulously selfish and vindictive man, using James Callender as his personal character-assassin in hatchet jobs on Hamilton (via the Reynolds Pamphlet, throwing his own loyal sycophant Monroe under the bus after Monroe had, in concluding his investigation of fiscal impropriety, promised Hamilton that information would never be leaked) and John Adams, to say nothing of the fact that he attempted to literally use the full powers of his office, the Presidency, to orchestrate the cold-blood murder of a political rival in the Aaron Burr trial (as there's but one punishment for "treason")

I just don't see any of his deeds while chief executive being great enough to fully offset the unfavorable stuff. He wrote the Declaration and pushed for separation of church & state before taking oath, so we can't put those on his résumé. AFAIK, the point of being up on Rushmore is that you achieved greatness AS the POTUS, otherwise, say, Ben Franklin would be up there.

 

But yeah, sorry for the constant derailments williams7383; this is a good thread, let's have more posts on TNT.

 

Tucker is a classic example of Whatifism in boxing.

Opinions are going to always be divided on these guys - there will be some camps with the unshakable belief that we missed out seeing a truly special talent emerge (but for xyz happening, or not) while others will insist there was nothing to see there and the myth is based on scant evidence.

I admit that with Tucker, for instance, my inclination trends in the former direction, while on the subject of, say, Edwin Valero, my resolute conviction is firmly of the latter type. But YMMV. Opinions are like buttholes - you need to do plenty of wiping (through prejudicial factors; ie stylistic preferences, etc) to get a really "clean" one.

 

Apparently you are unfamiliar with Kings methods when a fighter under his thumb got on his bad side....the most common thing he did was he offered the opportunities to them when they were not ready or could not be ready and were in compromising positions so they would take the fights and oh by the way funny how he always seemed to know the right time to catch a fighter...look at his conditioning against Tyson and then his title shot afterwards....he was talented enough to be competitive with most everyone but his opportunities came at bad times King is no idiot no fighter can stay conditioned at that level 365/7 without being so flat it becomes the same circumstance.....I could tell you a story or two from any dealings others have had when king I fought with I personally cannot speak of him but can speak of other similar promoters I have dealt with.

This is why I say King was both good for boxing in his showmanship and production of fights he brought big money but his street smarts in hustling fighters is where he was bad for the sport.

 

I think Tony could have been good, if his head was right. I mean, he missed 15 months of action at a time when his career could have taken off, and then all the management issues and all. Tremendous talent, though I don't think he was on a Dokes/Page/Witherspoon level, looking back on it. The guy lost to Delucia, for pete sakes.

 

I like thomas but he beats him. Styles. The height and movement plus thomas' over reliance on his left.

And lets not forget he could have been and most likely would have been! lineal champ if spinks hadnt ducked him.

 

Douglas was a very good boxer himself but he didn't quit , he got outworked and stopped by Tucker. Similar to when he was battering Ferguson early until he got worn out by Ferguson's body attack.

Not sure about him being immobile when he evaded a stoppage loss to Tyson using footwork opposed to a survival based clinch tactic.
They call the klitschko's 'atgs' but id argue he had a higher skill level than the both of them. The Povetkin farce gives an insight into how Wlad wouldn't have lasted more than 2 rounds against 80's Tyson.
He didn't have that skill that Tucker had in movement and boxing of the back foot. Tucker also had better combos and was a more fluid puncher than the illegal bear boxer.