Was Mike Tyson good or great?

Could have been either. We'll never really know.

 

He makes "great" without a doubt.

 

Great fighter, could've had a longer career at the top but still achieved much.

He had pretty good achievements (youngest ever HW champion, 12-4 (10 KOs) in title fights) and great skills. That's enough to call him 'great'.

 

Anybody saying he was merely "good" is trolling or ignorant.

 

Definitely great, but still an underachiever.

 

No doubt.

 

when you take away the hype and look what he actually did its difficult not to call him one of the greats of the heavyweight division. People have different ideas on what they think great is I guess but if you are being objective he achieved the same or more than other fighters that would be labelled in this class.
His failing is his reaction to adversity, especially late in career. but this can be overblown to the point where some say Tyson will simply stop fighting and fold if an opponent shows no fear. The fact is he had showed plenty of times he would not be as discouraged as some think when under fire.
I'd have to agree he may have been a bit of a front runner, he liked that momentum but it took a great fighter to upset that rhythm when he was at his best. I class his comeback after prison a con job but I take into account he didn't have the mental strength to make a comeback in the same way as other greats did.
I don't believe he was the best ever but he should be ranked among the heavyweight greats without a doubt.

 

Exactly, people overcompensate for the perceived drastic plummet from grace and end up underrating him - when if you strip away the pent-up expectations and monstrous aura you simply can't deny his greatness both in theory and practice.

 

Mike Tyson had great skills and was a ferocious offensive fighter with skills great power & speed of combinations. I think his weakness may have been a mental weakness because once he lost Cus he folded vs Holyfield & others when the going got rough. Tyson had the tools to beat many of the greats but my only question would be how would he do under dire mental pressure. I still rate him as a great in the top 10 at least

While I rate Louis & Ali in the top 1-2-3 they may have lost to Marciano who is also in my top 3. Tyson had the kind of power to beat anyone just never seen him come back in a fight that he was badly hurt.

Hot and Cold guys like Walcott could pull off an upset & Foreman was another who could bomb but winded and fizzled

While I like Marciano to be a danger for Louis & Ali & likewise I think Louis & Ali proved to be more versityle against a variety of style & sizes (Ali did have trouble with the Hook) (Louis with the right at times)

My top 3 Louis Ali Marciano the rest are changable

 

People forget that most greats, on a bad night, fold under intense pressure from their peers. Hardly anybody doesn't - but hardly anybody had the invincible aura that Kid Dynamite had build up in the late eighties. Even the mighty Ali folded under pressure, too. (although in the history books it ended up not affecting his legacy, thanks in large part to a pair of elderly non-combatants mutually influencing an outcome that if left to both of the fighters would've been the opposite)

Quezon City, 1975. Minute break on the stools after the fourteenth. Ali wanted to quit. Frazier wanted to continue. Ali's trainer forced him to answer the bell. Frazier's trainer wouldn't allow him to.

 

Mike is held by his detractors to impossibly unfair standards.

 

Despite Tyson's short prime and rapid implosion, the heavyweight champions who beat more ranked contenders, could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand!

That is one detail that is not immediately obvious to many observers.

 

And even after the illusion was dispelled of the great and powerful Wizard, the man behind the curtain operating the projector is still pretty damn formidable. I don't think we have to hang Tyson's greatness solely on his accomplishments during the apex of his meteoric rise and exclude the h2h argument. Even if you buy all the platitudes of Teddy Atlas et al regarding his inability to handle opponents standing up to him, you're lying to yourself if you pick more than a dozen or so heavyweights from all of history to certainly defeat him with any measure of confidence.

 

Silly question. Even the most die hard Tyson hater would have to admit he was a great fighter.

What level of greatness can be debated, but it's idiotic to category him as merely a "good" fighter.