When you say “ 90’s Mike Tyson “ are we talking early 90’s or late ? Early 90’s Mike I’d favor to beat Mercer. Late 90’s. I’m not too sure.
The Tyson of the Ruddock fights takes Mercer. The Tyson of the Norris fight might be taken out by the Mercer who fought Lewis.
I was watching Mercer’s fight in its entirety with Morrison the other day. Man, could he ever take a shot. Morrison found a way through with an absolutely wicked uppercut-hook one-two combo. He landed it clean over & over, & Mercer’s chin stood upto it. The velocity & venom in Morrison’s punching was palpable through the screen. I cannot imagine Tyson hitting with the same type of intensity & desire to win. Mercer would probably wear mid-late 90’s Tyson out. Probably the Tyson of the Ruddock fights would still be too much.
He'd be a huge underdog. Mercer fell off massively in the late 90s and I think he had hepatitis to boot. Tyson would've always beaten Mercer because Mercer didn't have access to the time machine that would allow him to stay prime while Tyson aged.
Idk, 1995-1996 Mercer might beat the Tyson of the same time. He could conceivably weather the early storm while firing his own big shots he might be able to get a late stoppage like Holyfield did.
You’re still under the illusion that Mike was a force in the late 90’s-early 00’s. He wasn’t. He was fed Francis and Savarese etc for a reason. I’d take the version of Mercer who fared very well against Lennox, over any post Evander version of Mike. He was a head hunter then, and a much lesser fighter than he’d been before. Mercer had a great chin, and if Mike couldn’t have disposed of him early, I wouldn’t have liked his chances. Prime for prime, it’s a different fight. But Don protected him after Evander, before cashing him out against Lennox. Mike simply wasn’t a great fighter at that point.
Mercer's best win was Damiani. He caught Holyfield, who a lot of guys looked good in losing to, after Holyfield lost to Moorer and caught Lewis, who opted to trade with him, during a rebuilding stage of Lewis' career and still lost. He basically slipped back into the mediocrity that he emerged from after those two fights. I don't really buy it and assume Tyson would win.
Mercer at that time likely would've lost to Golota if not Botha and Savarese too. Mercer fought nobodies during that period until Wlad beat the daylights out of him.
I said that I’d have taken the version of Mercer who fought Lennox in 1996, over the versions of Mike who fought Evander, or the post Evander versions of him. Mike wasn’t great then. And he’d have struggled if he couldn’t have put Mercer away early. This was not a prime Mike. This was a head hunter, lesser version of Mike, who crumbled against Evander, got banned, and then returned to fight a series of low level guys, including guys who were non world level.
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/second-career-of-mike-tyson-9-5-0-2.717474/ I agree with ^this^. Tyson is the favorite against Mercer in the 90s just before prison. The win over Bruno in the last fight of his career does not place Tyson in the top heavyweights.
He looked pretty good against guys who didn't wrestle and compulsively headbutt. He didn't even look bad in the rematch. Easily better than Mercer, who was busy struggling with a washed up Witherspoon around that time. I'm not buying that Mercer was a totally new man for one night only when he lost to Lewis.