Was Mike Tyson a cherry picker in the 1990's?

I know when Bruno fought Tyson and never implied otherwise.
Tyson fought the following punchers in the time scale you provided.
Stewart,Bruno ,Ruddock x2.

 

Alex Stewart was no big puncher. Impressive numbers wise but look hard at who they came against and when. It was a case of his regional fights on the MSG network and not even live bodies.

Bruno is Bruno. A beatable guy that if he does manage to win a tile, just how many title defenses you think he can generate? 1? If Mickey Duff could get somebody out of the graveyard or whatever DKP wants?

Ruddock is extremely over rated and if you went to his fights you would know why. And he hardly fought a who's who in the division and when he stepped up he got licked. His woeful punch output was going to be successful against hardly anyone at the top. And if Razor did win a title, he's another guy w/o much on the successful title defenses ledger.

All those guys have a defense easy to solve.Simple. Automatic openings. And all of them are not slippery enough when hit with punches to do much. The only guys the Tyson camp fought during that timeframe that had a defense to solve was Holyfield & Lewis. The defense that got solved was the Tyson defense.

 

I thought this thread was about Tyson in the 1990s? He didn't fight Lewis until the next century.

 

All of them were punchers.
It's really rather simple .In the 90's Tyson had 13 fights ,7 of them were against top ten ranked contenders.The other fights were against unranked men but several could be called second string fringe contenders Botha and Norris were taken on after Tyson had been out a year and a half. McNeeley a real no hoper was matched with Tyson after Tyson had been out of the ring for over 4 years,he was followed by 2nd string Mathis. Justifiable ,easy fights given the time he had been out of the ring.
Let me be clear ,I am no fan of Tyson's , I think he is a shitty human being ,but facts are facts.

 

What you said about Tyson ducking punchers has been proven false, but of course you're the type to stick with their narrative even when presented with facts.

How about instead of pretending to be reasonable, fair, and objective, just say you dont like the guy and move on...?

I'm not even a huge tyson fan and i dont even have him in my top 5 for resume OR h2h and even im scratching my head at the mental gymnastics.

 

Mendoza once more being properly owned.

 

How challenging title holders suddenly has become cherry picking is beyond me.

 

....and the fact that he is the only one who cannot see it is quite impressive lol. Even non Tyson advocates are left scratching our collective heads at the dizzying intellect and mental gymnastics of this thread.

 

No. After Tyson lost to Douglas he fought two light guys as comebacks however Steward was built as “the hard road back” then he fought Ruddock (a top three heavyweight at the time) then he challenged Holyfield but got injured. He went to prison came back two comeback fights then fought Bruno for the WBC title, then unified the titles against Seldon, the fought Holyfield. After the ear bite he got banned and needed to build his reputation.

 

Mendoza, why all the Tyson hate in all the Tyson threads? All your posts here lately seem to be so negative, it really doesn’t make good reading.

 

This is comical and disingenuous from the one who started a controversy seeking thread but never actually watched the fight by their own admission.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/canelo-vs-jacobs-who-won-round-ten.628766/

 

1995 Heavyweight rankings:

1. Riddick Bowe
2. Lennox Lewis
3. Mike Tyson
4. Michael Moorer
5. Evander Holyfield
6. Bruce Seldon
7. Frank Bruno
8. George Foreman
9. Alexander Zolkin
10. Henry Akinwande

Mike Tyson returns to ring on 19th September 1995. He fights Peter McNeeley in a tune-up bout. This was his first fight after a 4 year 2 month layoff. On December 16, he fights Buster Mathis Jr. 2 tune-ups bouts after a long layoff.

There are 3 titles that mattered at the time. WBC (Bruno), WBA (Seldon), IBF (Vacant). Bruno was 40-4 (38 KOs). Seldon was 33-3 (29 KOs). Both could punch. Bruno was 27 lbs heavier than Tyson and Seldon was 10 lbs heavier.

This is what you said of Bruno-McCall, "Tyson only fought Bruno once in the 1990's and Bruno was old, / barely had enough gas left in his tank to beat a semi-motivated Oliver Mcall in the fight before". How do you know McCall was semi-motivated? The winner was supposed to fight Mike Tyson. That'd be your biggest payday. What more motivation do you need? You didn't give Bruno the credit he deserved by saying McCall was 'semi-motivated'. You discredited Bruno's win because Tyson destroyed Bruno. Tyson beat Bruno at his peak (not prime). Bruno had lost just once in the 90s and that was to Lewis. He outboxed Lewis for 6 rounds before he was stopped. Bruno had a weak chin, nothing new. McCall had beaten Lewis (#3) and Holmes (#7) back to back. Bruno's performance against McCall was the best of his career.

This is your take on the Seldon fight- "I guess you could say Tyson won Seldon's belt, who he picked up from a past his best Tony Tucker and act like that matters. It was a vacant belt fight fight between Seldon and Tucker. Tucker was no where near being ranked!!! If you have an IQ slightly above stupid, you'll see this was a Don King type of play, to get Tyson in with the winner, and claim a belt." As others have mentioned in this thread, Foreman vacated that title. Why wouldn't Foreman fight Tucker? If Tucker was past his best and no where near being ranked, why didn't Foreman fight him? You can say that Foreman was old but he was a champion. All champions must be held to the same standard. Foreman didn't fight Tucker, Seldon did. It might be a Don King play to get Seldon to fight for the vacant title. But Foreman vacated the title first. Maybe Foreman knew that due to these Don King plays, he'd have to defend his title against Tyson when he got back. Maybe it wasn't Tucker, maybe it was an eventual showdown with Tyson Foreman was afraid of. lol

Someone mentioned that Holyfield was a cherry pick. I think that's ridiculous. If you go and watch Tyson vs Mathis/Bruno, you can see Tyson's horrible timing and he also lacked fluidity. There was no rhythm in what he did. He was more ferocious than before but he was also more predictable. One could say that Holyfield was the one who cherry picked. He doesn't see what an average fan sees. Maybe Holyfield saw a rusty and emotional fighter who lacked composure. Maybe he wanted to test that composure with a few headbutts. Do you think Holyfield was surprised when Tyson beat Bruno and Seldon? I doubt it. When Holyfield lost to Bowe, he didn't lose because he wasn't a good fighter anymore, he lost because he had no gas and looked miserable. He didn't look good against Czyz. Was that the first time Holyfield performed poorly against an inferior fighter? Holyfield was an inconsistent fighter. It's honestly astonishing that the fighter who came off a 4 year layoff is considered the cherry-picker. Not the fighters who were active during that period. There is no way they could think Tyson was rusty and beatable. It's got to be Tyson. That cherry picking fraud.

Now, Tyson fought #5, #6 and #7 heavyweights in 1996.

Who did Riddick Bowe fight in 1996? Golota (x2). The #1 heavyweight in the world fought an unranked fighter and got whooped. Fought him again, got whooped again. Golota entered the top 10 after these performances. But wait, Bowe was past his prime by 1996. Wouldn't you agree? So, Bowe was past it by the age of 28. No one craps on Bowe for fighting Golota and then getting whooped. But Tyson at the age of 30 coming off a 4 year layoff must fight the best or gtfo. Right?

Who did Lennox Lewis fight in 1996? Ray Mercer. Hmm. That's a decent name. But wait, was he even ranked top 10? Nope. Was he in his prime? Nope. He was 35 years old, overweight, and coming off a 12 month layoff. Mercer's best win in the last 4 years was a split decision over journeyman Jesse Ferguson. Ferguson beat Mercer first.

Who did Evander Holyfield fight in 1996? Czyz and Tyson. Czyz was a 5'10 LHW no one had heard of.

Who did George Foreman fight in 1996? Crawford Grimsley. Be honest, do you know who that is?

Who did Michael Moorer fight in 1996? Alex Schulz and Frans Botha. C'mon now.

Tyson lost to Holyfield in November 1996.

Heavyweight rankings at the end of 1996:

1. Evander Holyfield
2. Lennox Lewis
3. Mike Tyson
4. Michael Moorer
5. Andrew Golota
6. Ray Mercer
7. Henry Akinwande
8. David Tua
9. Riddick Bowe
10. Tim Witherspoon

Tyson fought Holyfield again in June 1997. That's the best heavyweight in the world. The guy who knocked him out in a big upset.

Who did Lennox Lewis fight in 1997? McCall, Akinwande, and Golota. Why did Lewis fought McCall for the vacant title? You don't like Tyson winning titles off of Bruno and Seldon. But why did Lewis fight a mentally ill fighter? McCall wasn't ranked top 10. Then Lewis beat Akinwande and Golota. How is this better than Seldon/Bruno? In 1998, he'd fight Briggs and Mavrovic. Wouldn't you call the Briggs fight cherry picking? Perhaps the weakest lineal champion in heavyweight history. And he won the title via a robbery. Did Don King play a role here or do we only mention him when Tyson is involved?

Who did Bowe fight in 1997? Retired.

Who did Holyfield fight in 1997? Tyson and Moorer. Moorer was clearly past his prime but he had the IBF belt. Doesn't this fight qualify as cherry picking? Snatching a title from a weak champion. Could the Tyson rematch be considered cherry picking? I mean, Holyfield already proved he was the better fighter when he whooped Tyson. Is it possible that Holyfield knew Tyson couldn't beat him and still fought him again?

Who did Foreman fight in 1997? Lou Savarese and Shannon Briggs. Neither were top 10. I don't think they were even top 20 lol. Briggs somehow got the decision against Foreman and won the lineal title. But even if Foreman got the decision, it wouldn't mean anything. Briggs was a nobody.

Moorer fought Bean and Holyfield in '97.

Tyson was suspended after the Holyfield rematch. He was around for 22 months and had 6 fights, 4 against top 10. If we go back to early 90s, Tyson fought Douglas, Stewart and Ruddock. Douglas could punch. You can watch his fight against Mike Williams where he was the underdog. He dropped Williams 3 times with his jab and KO'd him in the 7th. And you can't KO Tyson if you can't punch. Ruddock was one of the biggest punchers of that era. He KO'd Bonecrusher who was a highly durable fighter. He had fought Witherspoon, Weaver, Tyson, Bruno, Tubbs, Holmes, Bey, Moorer and didn't go down a single time. How about his KO over Dokes? Brutal. Ruddock was avoided by most. Tyson fought him twice. Alex Stewart was a good puncher and can't be called a cherry picked opponent. Holyfield fought him twice. Moorer and Foreman fought Stewart after Tyson. Tyson dropped Stewart 3 times and stopped him in the first round. Holyfield struggled against him in their first fight (8 rounds) and went 12 rounds in the rematch. Stewart arguably beat Foreman. Moorer stopped him in 4th.

Tyson fought 11 times in the 90s before he was suspended and 7 fights were against top 10 fighters. Ruddock, Seldon, Bruno, Holyfield, Stewart, and Douglas could punch.

Foreman had 15 fights in the 90s and faced 3 top 10 opponents. Bowe faced 6 top 10 opponents in his entire career. Moorer had 19 fights at heavyweight and faced 1 top 10 opponent twice (Holyfield). Foreman wasn't top 10.

Lewis had 10 fights against top 10 during 90s (including fringe contenders like Jackson, Butler, Briggs, Akinwande). Holyfield had 12 fights against top 10 (3x Bowe, 2x Moorer, 2x Lewis, 2x Tyson). You gotta respect Holyfield, he fought them all.