Legend vs legend - Muhammad Ali vs Mike Tyson - When legends collide

You're just making **** up now.

I'm done with you.

 

Mark Ant is claiming that Holy turned into a big puncher in the mid '90s, and it's total fiction.

 

For those that were around at the time, this revisionism is just pathetic. Not a soul was going "oh, Holy has put on 5 lbs and turned into a dangerous puncher - Tyson better watch out". Absolutely no one. Because he hadn't.

He put on a few lbs, that just about every fighter does in their mid 30's, but he got a bit slower, that was the main change. As you do in your mid '30s.

 

I reckon you could look at his record and how many of his fights were stoppages, and against whom, compared to the period before that.

 

Yes, and it doesn't work in favour of what Mark Ant is making up.

 

Yeah, I watched the fight too Mark. Thank you for stating the obvious.

This content is protected

You still have yet to prove Hoylfield suddenly became a huge hitter adding 4 lbs.

 

Is there any other fighter that gets the kind of crazy revisionism in his favour that Tyson does?

If one thinks that Tyson would beat Ali, fine, but it would be nice to show enough respect for this board not to make **** up.

 

I already posted that and he just keeps repeating himself like an annoying parrot.

Holyfield fought another 20 fights after stopping Tyson. He only scored 5 more stoppages despite mostly facing weak opposition. The numbers don't lie. So if gaining 4 lbs and lifting weights dramatically improved Holyfield's punching power, the results don't show it.

 

I learned something . Thank you. Evander is another guy who fought too long. Got to tip your hat to guys like Rocky who knew when to quit.

 

Nope. Tyson's fans use more revisionism and apologist talking points than a politician. He is held to a different standard so that he is both better than everyone else but at the same time is given tons of excuses for failing to do what so many others could do.

Whether the discussion is h2h or legacy, they tend to focus more on tearing down the resume and abilities of the other fighter instead of just looking at the comparisons as is. There always has to be a narrative.

In the case of Ali vs Tyson, the narrative in this thread is that Ali can't punch. That falls apart if you look at the tactics of men who actually beat Tyson or gave him problems. So they do damage control by acting as if Douglas and Holyfield were these monstrous hitters. If they were smart, they'd realize Tyson being stopped by them doesn't mean he had a bad chin. The strategies and pace they set are what led to the stoppages. But so many Tyson fans only focus on the superficial, the power and speed and exciting blows being thrown. So they scratch their head wondering how Ruddock, Bruno and Smith couldn't stop Tyson but guys who obviously weren't devastating hitters could stop him.

 

Ali is the only boxer to stop Oscar Bonavena and George Foreman in 144 fights. That being said the fighters that beat Mike Tyson outworked him, didn't cower when he mounted an attack, and didn't lose the fight before it even began because they were paralyzed by fear.

 

Varying the speed and power of your punch can really keep your opponent guessing and unable to time, prepare for or track what’s coming next.

Evander might’ve deliberately lulled Bowe into a false sense of security - or Evander simply summoned all he had to land what was really an extraordinary left hook - well above his substantive norm - it really hurt Bowe who needed two attempts to arise.

Until that KD. as they accumulated more rds between them over their fight series, I felt that Bowe was simply reaffirming ever more thet Evander would never put him down- and when Evander finally did - it was a REAL shock, imo.

 

That kd is what I point to whenever I read that Holy "wasn't in good health", etc. Bowe had never been knocked down in the pros...in the amateurs even two massive, flush shots from Lewis failed to floor him. So Holy must have been in pretty damn good shape, folks.

Bowe's ko of Holy was a big deal, especially considering Bowe was definitely past it.

 

Bonecrusher was intimidated by Tyson and just wanted to survive. That's the fight where Tyson complained that tactic spoiled it. I would add holding is better than freezing like Spinks and Berbick.

 

Just because I'm an antisocial troll under my thin veneer of politeness, I'll throw this onto the fire:

https://sportsci.org/news/news9709/hatfield.html

According to Hatfield, whose people conditioned Holyfield for the Tyson fight and contributed to Evan Fields's metamorphosis from Douglas thru Tyson, they weren't just bulking Evander up. They were hooking him up to gadgets designed to increase punching power by training his upper and lower body to coordinate better.

So I could buy a gradual, large, cumulative increase in punching power beginning with Evander's victory over Douglas and culminating at Tyson 1. He might have hit a lot harder against Tyson than he did against Douglas, even if each individual fight only moderately boosted his hitting power. (Like going bald one hair at a time. Eventually you notice, even if each step is small.)

Whether that helps mark ant, I dunno.