Prime Evander Holyfield will always beat prime Tyson

Well, yeah a lot of that is pretty bad lol! But Mike was a wonder of ferocity and precision back in 86 to roughly early 89. He was undoubtedly the best heavyweight in the world by a great margin, perhaps the most unstoppable juggernaut since Foreman a bit before he fought Frazier to just before Zaire. He was a vision of warrior vitality, viciousness. That's why I'm just not sure Holy could have beat him during that time, because Holy was a warrior too and Mike had more drive, snap, and aggression then. Not sure even peak Bowe or at least pre-Steward Lewis could have taken him, either...or Wlad. But that's just me.

 

The time their heads really clash in the first fight it's actually Mike that goes in the most aggressive with his head. I'm sure they both took some liberties with their head in that fight, which mostly was fought at close range, but I don't see anything obviously intentional.

 

Well, to '91 really. I feel a basically artificial line has been drawn after the Spinks fight and some nostalgic semi-delusion has appeared where Tyson always performed as he did in the few minutes against Berbick and Spinks. That's not the case. Even if we throw out the Tillis fight since he was so green then, we still have stretches of for example the Thomas and Tucker fight where he looked quite human.

Nothing strange about that, but if those fights had happened after Spinks they would have been taken as evidence of his decline. Hell, even the first round against Tubbs would have been taken as such.

The fact of the matter is that Bruno, Williams, Stewart and Ruddock 1 all were very, very good performances and stacks up well with what he did before Spinks. Yes, he did have some off rounds against Bruno, but he had that against Thomas and Tucker, who had an injured right hand, as well. In the end, he finished Bruno off earlier than anyone else had or would, without losing a round. This against a good fighter that would give Lewis some problems several years later.

Ruddock 2 is the performance where he looked relatively flat. But he still gave a bad, possibly prime ending, beating to his fellow top contender, who probably held the stylistic advantage. Ruddock's "smash" was perfect against short swarmers and that was what he relied on. One-dimensional, yes, but just the dimension you want to have against Tyson if you're only going to have one.

 

They're contemporaries (even fought twice, remember.. though Holyfield was quite a bit older/diminished by then).. it's not like, say, a Louis vs Ali scenario.

I think it comes down to, it has to, the Tyson and Holyfield vs. Douglas performances, respectively.

That's exactly when they were supposed to FIGHT. Tyson vs Douglas and Holyfield vs Douglas is the common opponent, within a years time (and maybe Tyson was 24 yrs old by then).

Holyfield wipes out that Tyson.

 

Tyson whoops him.

 

By a close decision.

 

Holyfield was kryptonite for Tyson. Iron chinned, lion hearted fighter, world class counter puncher, excellent ability to adapt on the fly, excellent inside fighter.

 

Tyson stops him at his best.

 

They are an easy target. But it seems everyone wants to believe now that Tyson was never really an ATG.

 

No he wasn't. Holyfield beat him cause he was roided to the gills, while Tyson's skills had degraded bigtime

 

Douglas was 15 pounds overweight for the fight with Holyfield compared to what he weighed against Tyson.
And A beats B, C beats A, therefore C beats B does not work, it is a faulty logic that does not apply to boxing.

 

I think Mike deserves that status (top 10) mostly due to the overwhelming dominance of his presence in the late 80s, and his showing of heart in the Douglas, Ruddock, Holyfield, and Lewis fights.

The only arguments I can see against that have been made ad nauseum (though each has a kernel of truth): he never scraped himself off the canvas to win, and he got knocked out by losers like Douglas and those two guys whose names I can't remember (let's be fair, though) toward the very end of his career.

 

Unpopular opinion among the casual mongs who have prime Tyson winning via KO1 against everyone.

Popular opinion among everyone who knows **** about boxing is that any version of Tyson from 1989 onwards gets outmanned and loses the heart test vs Holyfield

 

Yeah, but the 88 version beats Holyfield.