Did Mike Tyson in his prime only beat bums and over the hill fighters?

As undefeated and as fresh as Tucker was, he should really have only been rated #16 in the rankings based on who Tucker had actually beaten.

All Tubbs ever did was beat Bonecrusher on points right after James came off a loss to Larry. Marvis Frazier beat Bonecrusher on points too. And that got Tubbs a shot at Page, a spent force and lousy title holder himself who won the title after coming off a loss to David Bey.

Tubbs then lost straight to Witherspoon. That’s it.

Basically Tubbs record shows was only as good as a guy Larry Holmes stopped in one of his last title fights. And went the distance with another guy Larry stopped.

So When was Tubbs good?

The problem was the ratings of this era were littered with inexperienced guys who could win a belt from another inexperienced guy who had just won a belt, and the losers would remain in the ratings too. Nobody really climbed the ranks beating a rated guy who was winning. So It was harder for new guys like Ferguson, Tucker, Biggs, Douglas to break into a ranking from fighting each other because you only seemed to get rated from beating some sap who just lost a belt or lost a challenge to Holmes. So many of them were in the same stable. So many were not particularly active. It was a roadblock. And lacking substance. You were not seeing many 50-50 match ups between contenders and the division suffered horribly for that. A cycle of crowning a guy before he made his bones.

Then along comes Tyson. The TV stations loved him. The governing bodies loved him. The promoters loved him. And together they joined forces and paved a way through the roadblock for Mike Tyson. He was kept active. He was always matched to win.

There is a lot of truth in this too. For all I can criticise the 1980s division Tyson still took care of business. He absolutely did. But he also had more stacked in his favour than any other champion in history.

 

Tyson had a 20 year career and fans only want to talk about three of them

 

Cause he was incredible in those 3 years.

 

Did Ferguson fight like Tillis? No, he didn't, like I said before Tyson did not have experience with Tillis style. Tyson still beat Tillis and like I mentioned before a couple of months after Tyson improved and dominated Tillis very comfortably in the exhibition.. Tillis was dominated so hard that he did not want to fight more than 4 rounds. Remember Tyson was only 19 with a lot of personal problems that interfered with training but forget that since it's an excuse.

 

Hold the phone there Pahd'ner. Go back & see what you said & correct me if I am wrong & if so, show me what you wrote, but you seem to be shirting the goalposts here.
Maybe subconsciously to avoid admitting the point. I recall you saying Tyson had limited experience-which is true-not that you said anything about not having experience with his specific style.

EIther way, you made a claim that Tillis was clearly the best fighter that Tyson faced.
I showed you why this was not true, & you completely avoided responding.
You did not make the case that the style of Tillis would have been worse for Tyson than Ferguson, but please answer my new question:
Now that I showed you their respective records, especially in the few fights before Tyson faced them-which are the most relevant...

Do you now agree that Ferguson was better?

I do not doubt that Tyson was better in that exhibition.
I will take on faith that Tillis did not want to rematch him.
None of that at all minimized that Tyson did more poorly than all did or rationally would have expected against Tillis.

Two more things, & if you continue the discussion it is appreciated, but if so, please go through & respond point by point.
Because many due to inattention or a problem with ego ostentatiously *avoid* inconvenient arguments entirely, & I need to waste my time repeating them...

You claimed that Tyson then had a lot of personal problems that interfered with training.
I think this is completely wrong. He famously HAD those problems when still very young, but the issues bubbling over did not start until near the Spinks fight. Before then he was very dedicated, motivated, compliant & diligent under D'amato.
He was still at his absolute peak then, so the frist fight where you could claim it effected his growth & dominance was Bruno in 1989. Not over 3 & a 1/2 years later before he turned 20.

Lastly, Again I said that IF Tyson performed "much better than expected" against Tillis, in a fight that was quite close...
Logically that MUST mean that he should & was expected to LOSE against Tillis!
In fact, "much better" should mean he would at best lose by a lopsided decision, if not get KOed.

No, he under-performed in that fight.
You have folks above who are too critical of Tyson's competition & favoritism he received, even though there is some truth in some of what they say.
What I am tired of is when guys favr & psychologically identify with a fighter, & cannot be objective or fair.
Even if I was too harsh on Tyson, if I am correct about particular points you should admit it.

Although as you see elesewhere in this & many other threads, I overwhelmingly defend how great he was at his peak.

 

ain't even gonna read all that...

 

Again, Tucker had an outstanding amateur pedigree and had just stopped Buster Douglas .. by all accounts he was big, strong, fast, well schooled, had a strong chin and showed up to fight .. Tubbs had defeated everyone's favorite ducked by Homes opponent Greg Page right after Page just won the title .. Who did Tyson not fight in the era that you feel would have defeated him ? What five (5) dominant champions do you rate over Tyson and what was the opposition they defeated that was better ?

 

Tucker was a good live opponent but based on who he had fought before the Douglas fight, he should not have been anywhere near a title fight in 1987. The IBF belt was worthy of about a number 15 to number 9 ranking in actual terms when Tucker won it based on where both he and Douglas were placed when they were selected to fight for the IBF vacant belt. This was because the IBF was desperate to share a bonanza in sanctioning fees once they delivered their belt to Tyson. The two literally were about to meet for NABF title until they decided to strip Spinks.

follow the history of the HW WBA title in the 1980s. In actual terms the WBA title was not a real “world” championship since it never recognised the worlds best heavyweight. In reality this belt represented a mid position in the top ten rankings. Page lost to David Bey then beat Coetzee to get this so called WBA recognition. This means their “champ” is no better than David Bey! Remember the WBA allowed Coetzee three chances at their belt. He lost the first two times! When was John Tate ever the best heavyweight in the world? That’s who the WBA recognition started with. A 19 fight kid.

It’s not that Tyson really missed anyone out but it is true he missed out on fighting a lot of these guys when they were as well prepared as he was.

Too many of his challengers were parked up sitting on a ranking without having ever beaten a winning contender.

Now that might not be their fault, I am sure much of them would have been willing to duke it out with winners if they had the opportunity, but they didn’t get that opportunity. Probably to their detriment. And this is an important factor to point this out when comparisons are made.

Who was the winning contender Biggs defeated to challenge Tyson? How about Tubbs? Or Thomas or Larry? I’m talking recent wins around the time Tyson last fought. Bonecrusher, Berbick and Douglas were probably his most legit title opponents.

I think Lennox Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis and even Rocky Marciano all fought more challengers who were winning fights against ranked men when they challenging them. I am talking about the credentials for challenging the champion. Recent wins that were relevant and current.

 

Then read this: If someone is kind enough to you to respond when you ignored points that you were wrong about or had no answer to, AND good enough to repeat the questions...It is not right nor secure to waste their time further because your ego & identification with a fighter is threatened when they show you to be mistaken...And how you repeatedly failed to address what you do not want to believe or be proen wrong about.

I know you read enough to discern you were wrong & avoided points.
You are new here; why burn your bridges, look bad, & create bad Karma?

 

If you believe that all the best guys in the entire world just happened to be bad because they were old or for whatever other reason, you simply have no ability to think and that is something I admire. Because I would sleep so much easier, were that the case.

 

I think this topic has gone on bizarrely long.

Iron Mike fought more than a few really, really good fighters during the 80s and he was amazing. Let's just set that straight.

He wasn't the #1 ATG or PfP greatest, but he was right up there, and his competition was certainly not composed only of bums. That is a hilariously erroneous idea that no serious boxing fan or scribe would take seriously. It's really not even up for contention.

He was great, and his competition was fine, better that some eras (today), meh for...I don't know, the 70s and 90s.

 

Tyson captured the publics interest like few do. He decisively beat a large portion of the best heavyweights available in the late 80s. Very talented but he ended up liking to party and slack on training which lead to a quick decline in his craft. Even him half assing it through training he could still beat a lot of top ten fighters in the 80s and 90s. His work ethic (according to him) for the most part after winning the WBC title went way down. I understand the criticism of Tyson, its both impressive and sad how good he was when its obvious he wasn't focused for much of his career as say a Floyd Patterson.