There is a large group of people consisting of fans, critics, analyst, historians and posters on this forum who absolutely hate Tyson unwilling to give the man any credit at all of what he did in the ring. Iv heard some wild assumptions and even conspiracies to discredit this man. And if you disagree they start name calling and trying to discredit the person disagreeing. Lets go over some quick facts and be objective. Youngest heavyweight champ ever Unified the WBA , WBC , IBF then beat Spinks for The Ring title. Is considered one of the most ferocious fighters of all time with 75% Ko ratio. Never tested dirty for steroids or was accused of being on steroids. Often his resume is ridiculed aswell but no fighter has 58 bouts and all of their opponents were HOF, ATG or P4P. To name a few of Tysons notable wins Berbick , Smith, Holmes, Tubbs, Spinks, Ruddock, Bruno. Imo Tyson easily makes it onto the ATG list. And for the record Im not a Tyson fan. Im a Cus D'Amato fan. EDIT: *their
Top 10 HW of all time for me. He makes most top 10 lists and some favor him as a top 5 h2h fighter of all time. I'm a Tyson fan, and a D'Amato fan. Regarding D'Amato, I used to believe his rhetoric until I saw it for the mind games it is, the old saying is if you're in a room calling everyone else the *******, you're the *******. This is true for Cus, in my estimation. He was paranoid about the mob killing him because he was also a corrupt guy who was stepping on others trying to protect his investment. That being said, I love his personality, knowledge and boxing training ability--a true character. Guy was awesome. As far as the criticism of Tyson, just because a few people think Tyson loses some hypothetical matchups or juiced for his career doesn't mean they discredit him entirely. He had a long period where he looked absolutely horrible, he never won the big fights against marquee names outside of a blown up LHW/old Larry Holmes, and he was on the wrong end of the biggest upset ever. He earned all of his criticism. He was lazy as hell outside of the ring and left a lot of meat on the bone, it's amazing he can even be considered a top heavyweight with the back half of his career in mind.
There is definitely a Tyson derangement syndrome. It's where Tyson fans cannot accept any proposition that any boxer could beat Tyson; and won't engage you in any discussion of technique, history of matches, etc. and resort to name calling at those who CLEARLY hate Tyson. This is not a knock on Tyson. I'm not an overwhelming fan of his, but I admit he had a lot of skill and a lot of big wins. He doesn't give me a headache. Just a lot of his fans.
When you are a generalational Talent with success you are going get a fair amount of haters who are jealous of success , comes with the territory and is futher proof of ones greatness. Next to Ali, Tyson is the most recognized prize fighter on the planet, Mike Tyson IS Heavyweight boxing. Mike Tyson and George Foreman are the definition of the American Dream, come from absolute nothing and end up on the very top.
The current best Heavy on the planet was named after him................not Ali Fury, not Foreman Fury, not Holmes Fury, not Lewis Fury but Tyson Fury and thats a fact.
I rate Tyson highly, I think even a prime Tyson can be beat of course, but that he also has a chance to beat anyone in history. His style is impetuous, his defense is impregna- oh i mean his style is extremely efficient and effective. Tyson still suffers from longevity and stamina issues and his style requires a spartan's attitude that is just not realistic to maintain long-term. I wish Tyson had done like Foreman and evaluated his remaining strengths to tune his style once he came back from prison, I think post-prison Tyson is underrated though, but clearly still was not the fighter he once was.
The main reason Tyson gets so much slack is because of how overrated he's become. If you look at literally any mainstream casual list, Tyson is in the top 5 all time. Obviously that doesn't justify the hate for him, but he's certainly become overrated. He's an ATG, no question. Prime Tyson is one of the most impressive fighters I've ever seen, before Don King got his hands on him. But it's also a fact that he's nowhere near the top 5 even in his own division, certainly not P4P! His resume is mediocre, with his only actual great wins being over Razor Ruddock and Michael Spinks. Holmes was 38 and retired for 3 years by this point, and I believe he was only training for a few weeks but don't quote me on that. The names you listed are all decent wins, but most of those fighters were just Holmes' leftovers. In the end, Tyson's great, but he could've been so much greater.
This plus infinity. You know, failure to genuflect or worship doesn't automatically equate to hatred or derangement.
Tyson is one of those guys that REALLY polarises. There are a lot of people at both ends of the extreme with him i.e. loads that love him and for who he can do no wrong and loads that virtually despise him and can only focus on the negative. He's one of those fighters who can even put top level posters off their game. His fans can be so irritating and single minded that many a poster has been pushed to the point of no return by them and can see no good. Of course this infuriates the huggers and things go to hell in a handbasket Seldom is anything overly agreed upon all the way from whether he was on steroids to whether he really did commit the crime to just how good his resume and H2H abilities are. We see it every week in here. There's a surprisingly small amount of middle ground on all things Mike Tyson. One things for sure - he ain't as good nor as bad as the two extremes paint him to be.
He was great, certainly top 6 or 7 h2h. I have him at #9 ATG, not bad considering the only hall of famer he beat was a 38 year old, nearly two years ring rusty Holmes. If you take a snapshot from 1987 to 1988 he was truly remarkable. It did hurt his legacy that he seemed to decline at the age of 23. He never looked as good as he did against Spinks again.
I see your point, but to me Spinks was a Hall of Famer at light heavyweight. But yes, an HOFer is an HOFer. My bad.
All good mate, semantics more than anything. Spinks winning the Heavyweight title after moving up from light heavyweight would have been a pretty big piece in it all too.
