Mike Tyson had a better career than Larry Holmes.

That's a fair call (although I think Witherspoon's win over the quite highly-touted Mike Williams was decent).
Thing is, hardly any of Tyson's opponents around this time had great form going in, yet the line is "They were highly rated by RING" or "they were ranked at the time".

 

The problem with that, is that Holmes is an all time great.

When we look at the best wins of Louis, Marciano, Ali etc, we don't say "well that guy was a bit green, but he was way up there six months later.

This would strengthen your argument, if we could firm the numbers up a bit.

Then we would have to look at whether one of them was mainly fighting top five guys, and the other was mainly fighting guys in the lower half of the top ten.

 

I'm not a supporter of immediate rematches, unless the fight is close or controversial. Why should dethroned champions jump the queue when contenders are already waiting. I'm happy for them to go straight into an eliminator (such as Dempsey did with Sharkey, for an example).

Holyfield had 5 heavyweight fights. I think 3 of those were wins over top 10 ranked RING contenders. At least 2 of those were wins against top 5 ranked RING contenders. All were stoppage wins. He'd earned his shot.

Actually, from what I understand, the common knock on Bowe is that he should have fought his #1 Lennox Lewis after defeating Holyfield.

 

Yes, it needs looking into.

We'll have to do the same with Tyson too.
I believe Berbick, Smith, Thomas and Tucker were "top 5", but it needs checking.
Biggs ? may have been, may not have been .... needs checking.
Holmes ? He wasn't even ranked.
Tubbs ? I don't think he was even ranked.
Spinks was "top 5" (lineal champion)
Bruno was not ranked.
Williams was top 5.
Douglas was #6 .... and Tyson lost.

That's perhaps seven top 5.
Perhaps 3 completely unranked.
1 or 2 lower-top-10, one of whom gave Tyson a shellacking.

I strongly suspect Holmes stacks up well against the Tyson reign.

 

We are comparing Holmes to Tyson though.

I agree with your general point, but you also tried to downgrade Norton and Shavers for being towards the end of their primes.
June 1978 Norton stacks up against anyone on Tyson's resume, clearly.
Shavers, firstly coming off the Ali fight, and then in the wake of his 1979 win over Norton stacks up quite well.
Berbick is among Tyson's very best wins. Holmes had Berbick too.
This has been done to death already on this thread. Holmes's resume is on strong ground when put against Tyson's.

 

Yes.
And when the best contenders (or "champions") are Berbick, Smith, Tucker and Spinks ?

 

Yup.
Unranked by RING magazine.

 

I do look at the context all the fime, that's why I don't give Marciano much credit for beating Louis, Tunney for Dempsey, Ali for Liston etc

 

Tyson missed Holyfield because Don King wanted to put him in with his own fighters for a couple more fights, fighters who happened to be regarded as easier fights too.
Those are the circumstances.
Of course, Tyson wasn't choosing anything. King did that. Tyson fought Douglas because King picked Douglas. And he lost.

This was happening just 3 years or less from Tyson winning his first WBC belt. It was happening from about a year or so from Tyson winning the lineal title. Tyson was 23.
King actually wanted to put him in with Jose Ribalta again around this time, but that wouldn't fly with HBO.

 

Holmes beat 5 of the men featured in the end-of-year 1978 rankings. (RING)
Holmes best 7 of the men featured in the end-of-year 1979 rankings.
Holmes beat 5 of the men featured in the end-of-year 1980 rankings.
Holmes did not lose to any of them.
I don't have the monthly rankings.
I listed all the years earlier.

Tyson is arguably more impressive because he beat 8 men RING ranked in end of 1986 (7 of them in the years 1987-'89).
But he was also KO'd badly by one of them.
People look at that list and say "look he cleaned out" ..... but the guy at #7 beat his head in when he got around to him.

I'm 100% with you guys in saying Tyson did an impressive job on the division and beat a ton of ranked men but the way he's been contrasted with Holmes (who people assume didn't fight the best fighters of his era) just doesn't hold up.
We can find several ranked fighters Holmes beat, we can find several ranked fighters Tyson 'missed' for several years. I think I've shown that clear as day in this thread.

 

Wow, this thread blew up fast.

 

I was going to say, I couldn't see how Tubbs did anything worth a Ring Rating, post the Witherspoon loss, by early '88. He did nothing for the remainder of '86; dropped out of the ratings altogether, by end of '87, because he'd fought no one of consequence, while other fighters were surpassing him.

Glad to see some confirmation of that point, because I had him has unrated in The Ring, by my records.

 

Tubbs had 3 wins in 1987. Against journeymen. Two of them went the distance with him. Mike Jameson had him on the floor in the 10th round. Not exactly awe-inspiring stuff from The Great Tubbs .....

 

I'd say that's about the crux of the matter.

 

Yeah - Even though, I seem to remember there being a bit of a buzz about Tubbs, at the time (he had shown some real promise in the past). Most of the chatter, however, was about whether he'd be in shape or not for Tyson, which would later be confirmed as 'not'.

Tubbs turned out to be a Paycheck Collector for this one.