Mike Tyson had a better career than Larry Holmes.

Yes. Some of them.

 

This is incorrect. Both Holmes and Dokes were being promoted by the King family and it was never their intention to put the two together, as Dokes was being groomed to be Larry’s eventual replacement and they didn’t want him having a loss to an older predecessor

 

Holmes had the perseverance and discipline to excel throughout his prime years. Tyson did not.

 

My head is spinning from reading all this. Learning and recounting alot. Thanks. good posts....One fighter was the sprinter, the other long distance. I favor Tyson----his career was meteoric. Did anyone miss any of his fights when he was on top? His career was too short but I bet most of us can remember the majority of his fights. Holmes no--even if they were on NBC. A Tyson fight was an event......I know this is not the analytical approach most of you are going with...... I just thought a different way of judging a career. Two great fighters. Two great careers. Would have been a classic if Holmes was a bit younger.

 

His logic is good he himself is a douche kebab.

 

Here's the big lover of facts again. So it isn't a fact that Ocasio was highly ranked when he met Holmes - because he was small?

 

I said they were more or less on par, not better. Well, Norton was much more accomplished, so he quite probably was better depending on how much age had dulled him. And, no, I don't think a fighter necessarily gets better because he has a title. Not sure at all that Berbick was better at 32 when he faced Tyson that at 27 when he faced Holmes.

And as Unforgiven has pointed out, 80's fighter often took a turn for the worse when they won a title.

You're essentially saying that Tyson won more titles. And yes he did. But better comp? No, I don't see that.

 

We're comparing Holmes's resume to Tyson's.
What have Foreman and Frazier and Quarry got to do with it?

 

What's that supposed to mean?
Holmes entered the rankings in 1977, won the title in 1978.
Tyson entered the rankings in 1986, won the title at the end of the same year.
You talk as if they are contemporaries.
Holmes's era was coming to an end around 1984, he lost to Spinks in 1985.
Holmes is 17 years older than Tyson.
Holmes had defended the WBC title sixteen times before 1984, over a year before Tyson turned pro.

What's so difficult to understand?

 

Weaver and Witherspoon are held up as good wins because Weaver and Witherspoon were rated among the top 2 within a few months of losing to Holmes, which kind of explains why Holmes didn't have an easy time with them, and taking a landscape view of history they are two of the best of the era, without question.
They are good wins, that's all.

You keep making vague assertions "Tyson can probably do better ..."

You were wondering how many "ranked contenders" (RING) Holmes beat in eight years compared to Tyson in four years.
I showed that Holmes probably beat 9 or 10 ranked contenders inside FOUR years.
What do you make of that then??

 

You really are being a bit slow to understand basic things.
Don King didn't have a firm control of the heavyweight alphabet belts when Holmes was in his prime.
Arum had the WBA. Arum and King were bitter rivals.

Don King and HBO announced they were going to unify all the belts in 1985 and started promoting all heavyweight title fights as part of "the tournament". King had control of WBC and WBA by then, and Spinks's promoter Butch Lewis was brought on board (until they bailed out, when King had the IBF rankings tied up anyway, so Tucker and Douglas could fight for the belt).
It's boxing politics.
Tyson wasn't even a factor when King and HBO decide to unify, but his rise was meteoric and they brought him into to face Berbick.

If you think a 19 year-old Mike Tyson was saying "hey, how about me unify the belts? Can someone arranged that please" and then everyone lined up the fights and said "go for it, Mike", you obviously weren't around at the time and you can NO CLUE how boxing business works.

All credit to Tyson for establishing himself as the champion.
But don't act like Holmes was in the same position. Holmes's reign came along when Ali left the sport and promoters were using the alphabet organizations to SPLIT the title. It was an opposite situation.
By the time Tyson came around the fans were sick of split titles, King had control, and the way to make money was to build up the unification.

THESE ARE HISTORICAL FACTS, by the way.

 

Berbick was still rated well inside the top 10 when Williams beat him. You are spot on 2. - Tyson cut a swathe thru the top ranked fighters in the division in a very short period of time.

 

This is actually true. It's incredible how fast Tyson went thru the top guys practically one after the other. This is severely underrated and often written off by attempts to downgrade his opposition. The thing is they were the big players of the division at that time.

 

Tyson didn't duck Witherspoon in any way, shape or form. The winner of Witherspoon - Bonecrusher II fought Tyson very next fight. Witherspoon wins he gets Tyson.

He lost and then split with King and was basically blackballed from meaningful fights. This is far different from meaningful guys getting avoided of course.

 

Yes, Berbick was highly rated and well inside the top 10.
But Williams was rated #6 at the end of 1987 RING rankings, Berbick was rated #7 .... then Williams beat Berbick six months later.
He was already above Berbick in the RING rankings.
So, "he was rated because he beat Berbick" doesn't quite explain it.

Williams beat Bert Cooper, who was a decent prospect but unranked, in 1987.

Williams was destroyed by Weaver in 1986, in 2 rounds, yet really didn't have to do much in 1987 to get rated by RING as a leading contender.
I think that's because the division was at a low ebb.