Did Holyfield deserve a shot at the title earlier against 80s Tyson?

This is a good post

He did deserve a shot at Tyson before Carl Williams and Douglas ... Douglas was supposed to be a tune up for Mike in preparation for Holyfield

 

Before the Douglas fight...Evander was seen as the only man who had a chance of beating Tyson ...and that was a small chance.....a lot of the critics wrote Holyfield off after he was rocked badly by Alex “ The Destroyer “ Stewart

 

It's an interesting question. Casting my mind back, I don't think there was any particular stumbling block in the way to get the fight made earlier.
I really don't remember the ABC rankings for the period offhand.
The fight was obviously going to get made, but there was no real talk of a date back then.
Ruddock was also in the mix, especially in 1989 when he was seen as the biggest threat in the division at that time because of what he did to Dokes.
I'm pretty sure the Douglas fight was a 'keep busy' type fight until negotiations between Holyfield's camp and Tyson's camp got down to business.

 

Well, Frank Bruno was Tyson's mandatory after the Spinks fight. Bruno was #1 in the WBC and WBA. Tyson and Bruno were supposed to fight in London in the fall of 1988, but Mike Tyson went crazy and retired, and unretired, and fired his team, and got a new team, and the fight was pushed back to February 1989 in Las Vegas.

So Bruno was first.

Carl Williams was the IBF mandatory. The fight between Williams and Berbick was an IBF eliminator. Tyson fought Williams. Stopped him in one.

Then Tyson was going to fight Razor Ruddock in Canada. They were planning to do a "world tour." First stop was Canada. Then to Japan for Douglas. A rematch with Jose Ribalta was also floated. But Ruddock was first.

Julio Cesar Chavez was going to fight Sammy Fuentes on the undercard. Tyson got the flu on a couple days notice and the fight with Ruddock was cancelled. Since Ruddock-Tyson was off, the Chavez fight was moved to Vegas. Tyson was interviewed on HBO that night. It's near the end.

This content is protected

The Douglas fight in Tokyo was already scheduled. Ruddock and his team wanted Tyson once he got better in Canada. But King already had the Tyson-Douglas fight slated and Tokyo was paying more. King said they'd get around to Ruddock. He wasn't a mandatory or anything. Douglas was a King fighter. Buster fought on a lot of Tyson undercards. He'd also lost a vacant IBF title fight to Tucker. He was rated. He was an 'easy' win for Tyson. Buster didn't charge much. So Tyson could keep most of the money the Japanese were offering.

Evander Holyfield and Alex Stewart were rated #1 and #2 in the WBA. Holyfield was also the WBC #1. They fought to decide who got Tyson. Holyfield won.

Tyson and Holyfield came to an agreement to fight in June 1990, after Tyson knocked off Douglas in a tuneup. Everyone was signed. Holyfield flew to Japan and sat ringside so he and Tyson could hype their upcoming fight after the bout.

Then Buster beat Tyson.

Holyfield was the mandatory. But King offered Holyfield's manager at the time like $4 million to fight on a Tyson-Douglas undercard against anyone they wanted. Ken (can't recall his last name right now - Sanders), agreed. Then someone got Holyfield's ear and said if you fight Douglas first, you can fight Tyson as the defending champ.

So Holyfield canned his manager, and Holyfield pushed to get Douglas. He won.

Ken Sanders, was his name, was a car salesman, if I recall correctly. He certainly wasn't a player before he signed Holyfield. He did okay when Evander was a cruiserweight, but he was easily manipulated. I remember an interview with him where he excitedly talked about all the money they were going to make if they stepped aside and let the Douglas-Tyson rematch take place.

Of course, they ended up making a TON more when Evander told him to go sit down and they fought for the title and won it instead of stepping back. (LOL)

 

Holyfield had to be built up as a legitimate Heavyweight. The match had to be built up. Plenty had to be built up. With Tyson sitting so far above the pile a cruiserweight moving up, even one as good as Holyfield, was seeing quite a bit of doubt and skepticism. At the same time the public was clamoring for someone to come out of the woodwork as a legitimate threat.

Williams and Holyfield were bracketed as the top two under Tyson by the time Tyson fought Williams so it was a legitimate and deserved defense.

Rooney would have been warming the public up for a potential big fight providing things kept going well for both participants. Steward/Hearns Leonard/Trainer played the long game for the unification between the pair with spectacular results. Unfortunately Mike couldn't leep his end of the bargain in this instance.

 

This

 

Holyfield was actually Mike Tyson's mandatory challenger in the end of 1987, but then the fact that Mike Tyson decided to take a long break after the spinks fight in order to make changement (firing rooney, joining don king ex...)
Slowed everything down, Holyfield then beat in 1989 Dokes to become Mike Tyson's challenger and talks had finally begun and both agreed to meet in 1990 after Tyson's tune-up fight with Douglas.

 

Holyfield had never even had a Heavyweight fight at the end of 87.

 

Don King wanted Tyson fighting easier fights with fighters he had contracts with, or options on.
So Holyfield had to wait a little longer.
It all went out the window when one of those "easier fights" turned out to be a complete drubbing from Buster Douglas.

 

King denied that he'd been the one holding it up :

This content is protected

 

They were letting it matinate.

 

https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_Heavyweight--1980s

 

As i said Vander had never even fought at Heavyweight at the end of 87.

Out of interest what mob had him as the mandatory as big a joke as that was?

 

I know, that's very strange.