Could Joe Louis beat Mike Tyson?

And I wouldn’t argue with your # 1 and # 2 rankings either - though always spare a thought for my man INGO never underestimate or inappropriately dismiss the Hammer.

More seriously, I don’t have anything against Mike - he was a GREAT fighter. It’s just the excuses proffered seem to really go beyond the pale - I don’t know that any other HW Champ’s “resume”’has been fattened up with so many hypothetical fillers.

There are no such excuses advanced for the likes of Ali and Louis. Their whole careers can be examined, warts and all, and they still come up looking like gold. Look at Ali’s exile. It can be observed or mused upon how it impacted on Ali and also allow the feed into the lamenting of a possibly even greater prime that we missed out on.

BUT, the exile has never been employed as an excuse or compensator for what Ali might’ve been but wasn’t.

Despite his own hiccups and back stories, Ali still materially proved himself beyond a doubt to be an elite ATG - same goes for The Bomber. Both men also wore significant defeat only to come roaring back.

Their careers were not, nor did they need to be, crutched and/or supplemented by the old woulda, shoulda, coulda syndrome. They weren’t about “ONLY IF…”, they were ALL about “ACTUALLY WAS/WERE”.

 

Yay! Party time. Bring on the beers.

Is that you playing all instruments, performing as a backing dancer and doing vocals too, spliced together, ala Paul McCartney or Phil Collins? Formidable.

Such a multi talent. Wait, I‘ll just grab my Tamborine - 5 years tuition is not going to waste….

 

Nice essay, lots of time on hand.

Tyson did go off the rails, no excuses.

Spent close to 4 years in the joint and DID come back winning a couple of belts.

Holyfield/Louis never put themselves into a position to warrant jail time, Tyson messed up and paid the price, no excuses.

Reverse the above and I bet my bottom dollar that after rotting in jail for years Holyfield/Louis would be about as useless as Tyson was, apple to apple..................or do you believe Holyfield goes to jail for 4, comes back, fights less than a dozen rounds combined in 4 years when facing a active committed Tyson and still wins ? LOL, of course you do not.

Now to the other Louis stuff, he made a lot old money, blew it and owed the IRS, was a coke and heroin addict at some time ,made poor decisions, ended up being a broke greeter at a casino and his main foe from the 30's paid most of his funeral expenses .

Tyson made a lot of money, more than Joe could ever dream of, pre and past prison, blew it all, went to jail. owed the IRS bigly, had coke/alcohol etc problems, went to jail again, got out, went in......got squared with the IRS, re invented himself, made decent money , some say big money again, is not living from hand outs or is a casino greeter, is currently more popular than ANY active Heavyweight including the champ(s), period, Mike Tyson IS boxing.as far as Heavies are concerned.

So by any metric, Michael Gerard Tyson is a winner, still alive and just generated 80 mil pay per view revenue vs Jones while being a senior citizen.

 

Essay: short piece of writing.

Less than average rate of reading /comprehension intake can make a relative short piece seem so much longer I guess.

Those inherent pitfalls also don’t correlate with the time required for those who can easily type out and elucidate their argument while remaining on point. So no, it took no time at all to clack out the relevant facts.

Mike had his a** handed to him, pre-jail, no excuses.

Not to comment on the validity or accuracy of your digressive “metrics” but they’re not the metrics being discussed so, yeah, nice “jumping out” of gear - it happens when you try to drive too steeply against all logic,

And, it speaks volumes of how little you can draw from Mike’s actual career to make your case. Instead, it’s the same old excuses, deflections and hypothetical “fillers” so….., winner, winner, chicken dinner.

 

In terms of greatness, Tyson is not in that company. He wasted his potential.
But in terms of H2H, he beats both.

 

That's certainly an interesting way to look at it. I would say that Tyson needs rather early stoppages to beat them, but I've followed boxing long enough to know that anything's possible in the ring.

 

You certainly have a very strong case for ranking Mike in the top 10 all-time, especially in a head to head sense. He may need some early stoppages against a lot of Heavyweights, and he would probably get quite a few. There are no doubt many Lineal Heavyweight Champions who could not go 7 rounds with a prime Mike Tyson.

 

Good point re Mike’s need to win early.

For fighters of Mike’s ilk, there might not be a lot of difference between an emphatic early round victory and equally emphatic mid to later round loss or lopsided decision loss.

That can lead to one reasonably entertaining two entirely different scenarios and outcomes against the same opponent.

Punchers tend to leave a more indelible mark on the viewer, not least being a perception of an “aura”, an impression of quality that is more likely exaggerated than that gleaned from other more rounded styles, all the way up to the pure boxer.

Can’t say for sure, but punchers might tend to be disproportionally better favoured in hypothetical H2H match ups than other styles/accents.

For the KO artist, the calculation for success on paper might seem relatively simple - does the puncher have the power to KO his fantasy opponent and can the puncher reach his opponent to deliver said power? Two “yes” answers is all it takes to conclude victory - and a resounding victory at that.

In demonstrated careers, the H2H doesn’t play out so neatly for the puncher. They will often fall prey to a notable “upset” - a shock outcome that, in hindsight. might have been reasonably calculated had the puncher not garnered less than reasonable perceptions of their quality and “apparent” invincibility.

You could take the absolute prime Tyson and fairly argue for a number of H2H victories based on the very simple criteria for the puncher’s success.

In an actual career however, the very best Tyson will only be available for a very limited number of fights, displaying a marked drop in performance quality otherwise.

The boxer type on the other hand can be a bit off and/or past best but the drop in their effective quality will be relatively negligible and, within the reasonable frame and span of an actual career, they could still actually pull off a number of H2H afforded to them on paper.

Say for a fighter like Liston, had Sonny ONLY been a puncher per se, despite emphatic KO victories prior to, the Machen fight might well have proven to be his Waterloo (eg - as Young was to Foreman)

BUT Sonny was so much more than a mere power puncher - Liston was multi optioned, and against Machen, Liston’s boxing skills really came to the fore IMO and he was still thumping hard over the full 12 rounds anyway.

But it’s funny, because even then, despite what was really an excellent, all round performance on Liston’s part, some viewed Liston’s 12 round decision win as part failure. He didn’t live up to what was expected of the PUNCHER - but he actually did far better than that, thoroughly outboxing a talented, clever fighter fixated primarily on survival - and Machen’s own performance might’ve ranked as his career PB anyway.

PS - Machen’s claim that Liston used an agent on his glove to impair Eddie’s vision is annoying and still ref. to this day. As much as I’ve read, Machen made no such complaint in real time nor in the years preceding Miami 1964.

It reads as very much a bandwagon jump to excuse his own loss - and given the public’s dim view of Liston - a man always presumed guilty until proven innocent - it was too easy for such an unfounded claim to gain fraction.

If there is evidence to the contrary - viz Machen claiming Liston dipping the gloves in real time or at least well before Miami and Ali’s own experience - I would very much welcome it.

 

Excellent point regarding the Machen bout, and Liston's performance.

1. Machen had all the reason in the world to make excuses for his loss to Liston. Even so he mentioned nothing about Liston putting stuff in his eyes at the time as you stated, and on film their's nowhere on film, where he appears to be blinded.

2. I agree, if Liston was this limited puncher Machen would've wiped the floor with him, and exposed him as such. Instead Liston showed excellent boxing skills, shortened his punches, and rendered him virtually helpless.

3. This is another reason I've found Williams very underrated as I mentioned to you the other day. If Williams was this overrated, one-dimensional, slugger Machen would've wiped the floor with him, and dominated him. He didn't. He was taken to a draw, a majority draw actually where two judges scored the fight a draw, and one had Williams up by three points. He also nearly floored Machen, which Liston didn't come close to doing. Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68996351/the-fresno-bee/

"Williams the no. 5 contender felt he had turned in an upset. Most of the crowd of 10,000 partial perhaps to the hometown favorite and one judge agreed."

Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/48465177/the-news-review/

“Cleve can punch and he’s fast for a big man. He’s twice as fast as Liston I had to keep on him keep on him keep pressing and keep him from getting set” Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68996756/the-sacramento-bee/

"Machen said Williams was twice as fast as Sonny Liston" Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/76953678/the-charlotte-news/

Lyle is always seen as Williams superior here but Williams was much faster, a better boxer, beat more contenders, reached higher in the ratings, and did much better against his slickster (Machen) than Lyle did against his (Young)

It should also be mentioned at the time of their fights, Machen was the highest ranking heavyweight not named Sonny Liston, while Young was unranked both times against Lyle (he might've been ranked the second time but I haven't been able to find anything).

 

Fantastic source material. Very generous of you to link. Thanks. Nice insight into Williams and his own well rounded skill set - which he isn’t necessarily given due and full credit for. Machen would’ve been trouble for a lot of fighters and he was quite a strong guy as demonstrated in the Liston fight.

 

I've always felt, he was unnecessarily aggressive against Ingo, seemingly unaware of threat Johannson posed as he was virtually unknown. Had he fought him like he did Liston, and Williams, I think he would've won quite handily.

 

Excellent, well thought through, even-handed post!

 

Cheers

 

Yes, as at that time Ingo had the unknown quantity, surprise factor in his favour. Despite his skills and boxing IQ, it seems Machen could be quite the erratic performer also, ala Jack Sharkey. Not that he was so much poorly performed v Ingo as he was ill strategised (overly aggressive as you pointed out).

As per Eddie’s comments, he really had the needle re Liston - unreasonably denigrating Sonny‘s skills and intelligence in the press.

Eddie certainly didn’t fight Liston AS IF he respected him so little - he moved around like a Jack Rabbit, pointedly avoiding any protracted exchanges, constantly turning/twisting and tying Liston up at every opportunity - Johannson would’ve had a difficult time landing anything on that version of Machen.

Also, a strong reflection of the compromised public view on Liston was the spectator reaction during the fight.

Sonny would land a sequence of heavy, clearly scoring punches. Machen would then pivot land a punch or two, if that, and the spectators would go wild. LOL.

I loved Liston’s work to the body - I’ll give Machen credit there - he must’ve been extremely well conditioned in the core to take that - he was getting hit with some very audible thumpers.

Finally, I really like the old school commentator for the fight - Jack Drees. No nonsense, on point but not too stiff, nice post fight IV with Sonny also - during which Sonny notes his care/reluctance going to the body lest he be deemed to have punched low - it seemed Liston might’ve felt he was unfairly adjudged on that score.

Interesting to note also - I had never seen the full telecast until recently - prior to opening bell, Jack Drees advises Liston’s reach to be 82 inches.

Though Liston was mainly listed as 84”, figs of 82” and 82 1/2” were def. bandied around here and there. Crazy long reach however you slice it and the most important part was Liston knew exactly how to use that reach for max. effect.