Seeking opinions of grown adults in the 1980's on Tyson.

He was seen as unbeateble in 1988, there wasn't a guy in the division that looked capable.
The press compared him to Ali and Louis, this was the man who would remain the champ until he decided.
When Tyson said I'm the youngest champ and I'll be the oldest, no one scoffed.

Holyfield was the up coming guy then but I really don't recall anyone saying they were confident he'd beat Tyson.

That's how it was back in the late 80 s, no one believed that he wasn't unbeateble no one.
Ali was before my time but I'm not sure even if he was seen as dominant over the division, as Tyson was.

I know some young people may scoff at this, but that's how he was perceived.

 

I was 26 when he had his first fight, if that qualifies.

Basically he was viewed as Sonny Liston was viewed from July 1963 to February 1964. A brutal unstoppable force.

 

When I first saw him on ESPN I thought, WOW! that guys a total beast, not just power but speed and combination punching , I thought he'd be a tough match for any heavyweight who ever lived . still do . Later I recall Joe Frazier saying something that caught my attention about Tyson. Frazier said," I'd like to put the gloves on and see what that SOB is really made of" He had doubts about Tyson. I thought it'd take someone with firepower to stop Tyson in his tracks if he were to lose , remember his fight with Bonecrusher? a horrible fight for sure but Bonecrushers size was a factor and I'll never forget with about 30 seconds to go in the fight Smith opened up and caught Mike with a big punch that caused him to wobble and do a little jig . He was hurt , I always wondered if he'd have tried that earlier if it'd have been different. His loss to Douglas seemed to open a door that he never really closed even though he had some good wins later. I'd have picked him to kill Holyfield before the Buster fight and I still thought he would when they fought later and was surprised that Evander stood in front of him the whole time, outpunched him, manhandled him, and seemed much tougher. He generally did what he wanted with him, which brought back what Frazier had said. What is he really made of?

 

I was 18 when he won the title, but pretty together for one that age does that qualify?

What about having turned 21 by the time of the first Bruno fight?

 

I was very impressed when Mike came on the scene. Larry Holmes appeared to be winding up his career at this point and it felt good to have an exciting young heavy to succeed him. In retrospect Tyson was a tad overrated by casual boxing fans but I still see him as a great fighter - bottom half of the all time great heavyweight list for me.

 

I thought he was fantastic, but noticed some chinks when he fought Tillis and Ribalta.

I also found it interesting Thomas got as far as he did (especially after losing to Berbick not too long before). However, it was from that fight I could see where an authoritative jab and aptitude for tying him up were the most likely keys to beating him.

But yeah, overall I was pretty wowed. I saw both him and Larry Holmes as by far the best heavyweights of the decade.

 

Tyson was a very well schooled heavyweight, what else would one expect with Cus as his Svengali, who polished rough diamonds and nursed fragile minds.

I sure would never minimise his record or the impact he brought to the division, a short albeit built like a tank fighter beating fighters towering above him with speed, power and great movement to close the distance.

Controversial as it might be to say, i think the myth and the Liston type aura he created early on, went some way to defeating fighters later, the silent scary stare downs. Tyson was a bully type fighter, that is why i do believe Ali would have shown the fragility of Tysons mind, yes he was a wrecking ball, and yes fighters fell before him, but once a fighter did or would not succumb to the wrecking ball, then things went somewhat awry, so Ali would have messed with his mind prefight, prepared for the human buzz saw that he knew was going to be coming at him, found strategies to survive this and later in fight educate him what a mentally tough fighter can do.

Once Tyson learned the cold staring bully approach did not necessarily prevail, then we had another version of the bully, chowing down on ears, threatening to eat your babies, and talking a load of other intimidating spiel.

I am in no position to criticise Tyson as i like many were in awe of the wrecking ball, but even then i did wonder if a combination of a wise trainer, who saw further than just the physical attributes of a opponent, and a fighter willing, able and trusting to enact the trainers strategy might well derail the 'bully'.

Tyson strong and fast of arm, but weak in the head and lacked testicular fortitude when things got tough.

Having said all of the above, him winning the heavyweight title at 20 years and a few months old has to be applauded.

 

I was 16 when he turned pro

I was not an adult but was a hardcore boxing fan.

I was skeptical when he was first being hyped on ESPN

I could see his opposition was exceedingly weak. Not uncommonly weak for a first year prospect, but weak none the less

Then, when he knocked out the durable Jesse Ferguson in January 1986 I began to believe that he was going to be a legitimate threat

Ferguson had given Carl Williams hell a few months earlier who had in turn given Holmes hell a few months before that.

When he struggled with James Tillis in May 86 I felt more like it was a needed learning fight for Tyson moreso than his bubble being burst.

And he proved me right by continuing to develop, culminating in the Berbick massacre in Nov 1986.

Tyson seemed like the real deal. However, his personal issues were in the news a lot and I did wonder how long his team could keep him on the tracks. The marriage to Robin Givons was a red flag and the increasing influence of Don King was as well. When he dumped the team that got him to the championship I felt it was a matter of time before he completely derailed. And it did happen by Feb 1990

I dont think you had to be a full blown adult at the time he turned pro to properly analyze what happened. You just had to follow boxing and have astute observational skills and a somewhat cynical awareness.

 

Mike looked like a beast but fights like Tillis, Mitch ‘Blood’ Green, Bonecrusher and others showed that he wasn’t an unstoppable force. Those guys couldn’t beat him (maybe Smith could have if he’d gone for broke but more likely he’d have ended up KO’d) but they showed he wasn’t Godzilla.

The real thing that I thought at the time was someone had come to clean up the sloppy seconds of the 1980s champ-of-the-month club and be a true successor to Larry Holmes as the top guy. And mainly except for the possibility of what Evander would become there didn’t seem to be anyone on the horizon who could challenge him — which to me was more an indictment of the talent pool than the stamp of all-time greatness of Tyson … which Buster came along and punctured that balloon.

 

I can remember some believing he was the greatest champion of all time circa 1988. And his name and fame were broad spread. In the late 80s you could walk up to a ten year old little girl and ask her who the heavyweight champion of the world was and she’d reply “ Mike Tyson.” Today you could walk into a sports bar with grown die hard sports fans and most of them wouldn’t be able to tell you who the champion is.

 

I am, I'm afraid, coming to like Joe Frazier a lot less, the more I read about him. He increasingly sounds like he was bitter beyond repair and the humble image he had had bestowed on him belied an enormous ego.

This is a bit of a typical thing for Joe to have said. It's easy to call someone out when retired and that fight is never going to happen.

Joe showed uncommon fortitude in his fight with Foreman, the FotC, the Thrilla and in giving Foreman a rematch. As such, he should have recognised something of the same in Tyson when he saw him scrambling for his mouthpiece in Tokyo so he could go back to getting his head kicked in. Or the sustained beatings he took from Holyfield and Lewis, long after it was plain he couldn't win.

There were a few fighters in Joe's era with whom a fight could have been made who might have said the same about Joe but he, or his manager, never gave them the chance. The same can't be said about Tyson. When he was no1 contender for Holyfield, he kept busy taking on the division's most feared puncher in Ruddock. And when that ended controversially, rematched him four months later.

No amount of tough talking from a bitter ex champ can take that away. Tyson, before prison, brought it.

 

I'm too young to qualify for the OP, but from my look at the media it seems like boxing spent the 1980s looking for the next Ali and what worked for Tyson was he broke the mold.

People call him the next Liston but he really wasn't. Tyson has a childishness to him now (as a middle aged man), while Liston comes off as a guy who walked out of the womb smoking a cigar and needing a shave.

 

"Liston comes off as a guy who walked out of the womb smoking a cigar and needing a shave", well said Sir, summed Mr Liston up perfectly.

I was not suggesting Tyson as a man was the new Liston, merely at the staredowns.

I think if Mr Tyson had been in a street fracas with Liston rather than Mitch Green, Mr Liston would have been the one walking away still in one piece, the pavement arena was Listons turf, folk got hurt on Listons turf.

Mr Liston had no Cus taking him in to his home as a youth, only ones taking Liston in were the cops, and the accommodation provided had no home luxuries, just lots of locks.