Better resume Ali vs Mayweather

Look, obviously context matters. No one is saying all you have to do is look at a record to determine if someone's a top 10 boxer.

A perfect example is Floyd himself. His best hall of fame opponents (Oscar, Mosley, Pac) were all inarguably past their physical prime and somewhat worn out. It would be disingenuous to use this 3-0 metric to claim he's above Duran who went something like 2-4 against hall of famers.

If you compared Frazier to Nielson and then you examine WHO Frazier actually beat and WHEN, then obviously Frazier's record is 20x better than what the numbers suggest and makes him way above Nielson.

I was speaking in the general sense: having a losing record against your best opponents isn't a good look if you're trying to make a G.O.A.T case. That's true with or without context.

And with or without context, Tyson can't be the G.O.A.T. Make all the excuses for the Douglas loss you want, no other hall of fame athlete in their prime had a loss that bad except perhaps LeBron James choking against the Mavs. I'm sorry, but no amount of context or excuses about Japanese hotel maids and goofing off in training camp will absolve Tyson of this.

I can somewhat excuse the Lewis loss since Tyson was a shot, overweight 5 round boxer at that point, but Holyfield was an absolute disgrace. Yes Tyson was past his athletic prime with diminished speed and technique compared to his 80's self, but people forget Holyfield was no spring chicken either. Holyfield was actually four whole years older with even more wear and tear from a brutal series of wars with Bowe, Moorer, Cooper, Dokes, etc. He was hospitalized twice if I'm not mistaken and people actually wanted Holyfield to retire. Then he beats Tyson and all of a sudden Holyfield becomes some sort of h2h monster.

The rematch is the most egregious thing about his record. Tyson had time to go into training camp, come up with a new strategy, learn some new techniques, make adjustments, etc. Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn't. Someone whose truly the best of all time would've done so and found a way to win when facing adversity. The Hallmark of a truly great athlete is digging deep and finding a way to win, something Tyson rarely did. Instead, he gets himself disqualified for not one, but two intentional bites leading to people hilariously calling this match "The Bite Of The Century" as a parody of Ali vs Frazier's war.

Did Michael Jordan have any embarrassing bite of the century moments? Absolutely not.

Brady? Serena Williams? Babe Ruth? Usain Bolt? Phelps? Ronaldo? Not that I can think of.

What about boxers, Ali? Robinson? Armstrong? Name me a single boxer whose in the runnings for #1 ATG top 10 status who has 2 egregious black mark asterisks on their record like losing to a 42-1 underdog or fouling out against the best opponent they faced? Name ONE...!

To answer your silly question, yes Tyson would absolutely have been praised for KOing Holyfield.

 

Without going on a tangent whenever fans compare Michael to LeBron they go immediately to 6-0 versus 4-6 in championship series. LeBron fans then go to longetivity and versatility. He could credibily play the 1-4 and sometimes even the 5 in small lineups. And the question isn't who is and isn't Hall of Fame worthy. The question is who is the very best. Grant Hill was a fine player. He's in Springfield but if you told someone he was the very best you would be ridiculed.

 

Not only does LeBron have a losing record against the best teams he faced, he also has some holes in his game that often gets ignored. His laziness on defense for example. He also got way, WAY more help throughout the years than he or his fans are willing to admit. I mean, the dude has at some point played with over a dozen different all stars in their prime but they never get angry credit.

Much of Lebron's stats are accumulated by simply playing the game for a long time. He has also been caught stat padding during garbage time to make sure he numbers looks good. Then there's the flopping...my god, the flopping...

 

We will hijack this conversation. I usually stay away from GOAT conversations except when someone says this or that athlete is the GOAT when his or her entire body of work says they arent.

 

rankings are created by people. Here is the ranking from 1975, when Ali already had his biggest victories behind him and his worst defeats ahead of him
https://m-baer.narod.ru/top/ring75e.htm

Archie Moore is 16th in the 1996 top 50. In 2002, he is 14 among the top 80. I wonder what fights he fought during that time to get promoted so much. In turn, Carlos Zarate dropped at the same time as Moore, rising from 11th position to ...76th!!!
https://www.liveabout.com/ring-magazine-fighter-rankings-4153939

https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/The_Top_50_Fighters_of_the_Last_50_Years

Teach me the logic you use when publishing something so nonsensical. But you can of course choose any ranking that suits you and instead of having your own opinion, paste it every time why should you bother and bring your own arguments? If you want to emphasize Zarate's achievements, give him a ranking where he is 11th in history, if you want to emphasize that he was not one of the best, give him a ranking where he is 76th.
For me, rankings that evaluate boxers on an ongoing basis are always more reliable because there are no sentiments that often interfere with the evaluation. The same your The Ring had Tyson as boxer of the year in 1986 and 1988, and in 1989 had him number 1 P4P in the first classification although 1989 was Tyson's weakest year of the 1980s
https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_Pound_For_Pound--1980s
How many HWs have you had at the top of this list since then, Mr. Ranker?

 

1. Teach me the logic that says you get more credit for beating a guy you're a 25-1 favorite than a guy you're a 4-1 favorite. None of Tyson's rivals in the 1980s was as much of an underdog to Tyson as Hoyfield. This victory would be ridiculed by haters even if Tyson outclassed Evander in 60 seconds. Exactly as the victory over Spinks is ridiculed. Experience also tells me that if Tyson had won after a close decision against EH like Lennox Lewis in 1999, he would have been ridiculed by the haters even more. the best victory in LL's career would be considered proof of Tyson's weakness, just like Tony Tucker, whose success was not to be knocked out by Mike. Double standards have long been applied to Tyson.
2. the exhausted Holyfield wasn't exhausted when he fought Larry Holmes and Bert Cooper, and he apparently rested when he had his rematch with Moorer. If you have an ounce of objectivity, you know that Holyfield was in great shape in 1996-1997. As for Tyson, he wasn't. Before he went to Holyfield he had 4 fights in 5 years, none lasted longer than 3 rounds, a total of 20 minutes in the ring and the only one who fought him was a crypto bum named McNeeley. Tyson was burnt out, he was a name, he had cardio for 5 rounds of the fight.
3 How come Tyson couldn't beat the exhausted ex-cruiser in 1996 and he ruled boxing 10 years earlier?

 

I didn't rank them. Ring Magazine did and they found him at #72. You should share your displeasure with them. Look on the bright side. He's eight spots higher than Harold Johnson. I don't know where exactly I would rank him. I do know that when looking at his entire body of work he's not the best or greatest boxer to have ever lived nor is he the greatest heavyweight to have ever lived.

 

I don't know who you are talking to about Tyson being the best weightlifter, it's idiotic because I never said it was him
I wrote to you what I thought about the rankings and proved their nonsense, you yourself said it was absurd in the title of the post you posted and now you are telling me to blame someone. I don't have any. Recently I saw a ranking where Patterson was miles ahead of Liston. According to The Ring, Carlos Zatate is 11th and then 76th.
I don't know what criteria you use anymore and I don't think you know them either. Perhaps you are one of those people who needs someone to tell you whether a boxer is good or bad because you don't have your own opinion.

 

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Where did I mention weightlifters? We are discussing boxers and in my humble opinion and in the opinion of virtually every boxing expert Mike Tyson is not the greatest Heavyweight boxer or boxer to have ever lived. That is the notion virtually everyone is trying to disabuse you of. As to not having an opinion I have told you, ad infinitum and ad nauseam, why Mike Tyson is not the best or greatest boxer, heavyweight or otherwise, to have ever lived.

 

I will gladly admit that you are right because I never claimed that Tyson is No. 1. You also don't have to convince me that Tyson was not born in Turkey like a white man or that he is not a snooker champion. I don't know what made you say so, but you probably confused the interlocutors, maybe the threads or even the fighters.

 

My job is done. God willing

 

you didn't have to start it, but you could easily continue it in a different form, e.g. start convincing someone that George Foreman is not Goat and show him what place he occupies on the box record as proof. Good luck my friend, have fun

 

George Foreman is a consensus top ten heavyweight. There's a poster who believes he's NUMBER ONE. He can male that argument.

 

You didn't address a single point I brought up.

All these walls of texts to excuse the fact Tyson has a losing record against his best opponents.

 

I don't know what the gentleman's point is. If his point is that Mike Tyson is the greatest or best boxer to ever live he isn't