Looking back, how did Mike Tyson end up fighting Marvis Frazier?

go and pay some attention to all the Bill Cayton heavies and their early rise to power opponent selection.

 

Because money

This is no secret, Mark

 

Frazier edged a controversial decision over James Smith beginning early 86. Before that, he beat Ribalta and Tillis.

Maybe it was the Smith bout making them think Frazier could handle power, maybe it was just overconfidence and money.

 

It wasn't a title fight and he was probably the best guy who Tyson was matched with until that point.

 

Tyson was basically fighting once every two weeks then, and Frazier was as solid an opponent as anyone young Tyson had fought at that point...

 

Marvis was actually a fringe top 10
when he fought Tyson and Mike was just entering the top 10 himself. But, it was a horrible matchup style wise for Frazier. Thus, easy blowout for Tyson.

 

Tyson wasn't blasting everyone out in a round. Tillis and Green went 10 with him shortly before he fought Marvis. And Marvis had somewhat rebiult his career since the Holmes fiasco, which was almost three years earlier.

 

From Tyson's perspective it was perfect. The Frazier name carried respect and was marketable.

I guess Joe felt like the $ offered Marvis, he said about $400,000 was too good to pass up. He didn't think it was gonna go like that but that was actually merciful despite how it looked. It was quick.

 

Judged against which heavyweight does this look bad?

Dempsey?

Marciano?

Ali?

Nope. Par for the course.

 

This. Frazier was used to having the hand speed and mobility advantage over his opponent, which he didn’t against Tyson and thought he could beat Mike to the punch. Marvis did well against big men, since they were easy targets and he could wear them down with his speed.

Marvis also underestimated Larry Holmes and believed his Father, who said Larry was old and shot, but after Larry hit Marvis with a hard lightning fast right hand Marvis was basically done.

 

I´d say Frazier was on par with Ferguson, Tillis and Green at that stage, with Frazier maybe beeing the best (H2H) and Tillis the most expierienced. In fact all four of them weren´t much worse than James Smith, Buster Douglas, Trevor Berbick, Carl Williams, Joe Bugner and James Broad, who they either beat of had close fights with them.
In fact making it no easy question who was the best fighter Tyson faced until Berbick.

Anyway, team Jacobs made a perfect deal in matching Tyson against Frazier, but not that much in hindsight of bringing Tyson more experience.

 

Tyson's 1986 consisted of him working through a series of guys outside the top 10, but within the top 30/50. Fringe contenders, gatekeepers and trialhorses. Frazier fitted perfectly into that category, with the added bonus of being stylistic meat and drink for Tyson and a marketable name. On paper, he may well have been as accomplished a fighter as Tyson had faced at that point, considering he had beaten the guy who had given Tyson his toughest fight to date.

Absolutely nothing to see about this fight. Tyson at the time needed a mix of learning fights (Tillis, Green) and highlight reel footage (Frazier, Gross). Marvis was Tyson's 10th fight in 1986, and he was barely half way through the year. Tyson was as good as any a blueprint in how to fast-track a fighter towards the heavyweight title and superstardom.

 

I wonder if maybe it was a competitive thing for Mike: to beat even more succinctly and quickly someone Larry beat.

He sure did that. But Frazier didn't belong in the ring with either man, imo.

All that said, it might have been the singularly most ferocious knock out of the latter half of the 20th century. In fact, the ferocity of the kayo was probably the only interesting thing about that...…..


uhh, fight.

 

Indubitably. Hell, he could have taken on Larry and beat him at this juncture (after the first Spinks loss)….though I think Larry would have lasted longer and made at least a marginally better show of it.