Tucker's hand broken or just an excuse ?

Guys like Floyd, Gatti, and Hamed won fights with broken or similarly injured hands.

 

Tony Tucker’s hand was legitimately injured going into the Tyson fight. But how much of a difference would a healthy right hand have made, we’ll never know. What we DO know is that Tucker failed to impress consistently throughout his career whether he was healthy or not. He was a good fighter but probably not someone who could ever capitalize at the elite level. At his best he was a mid-level contender with good survival skills but that’s it.

 

You’re loco man, but a good loco.

Your family anecdotes are the stuff of a hit comedy series centred on a dysfunctional family - working title: Boxed Ears in the Middle, perhaps?

Playing speed chess is an interesting optional euphemism for feeding the chooks, making the bald man cry, etc. I might have to steal that.

I bet you have an Aunt Sarah Pax also - or, even less subtle, Aunty Depressant?

 

Well, the way some have it, Buster Douglas had nothing to do with Mike being KO’d in Tokyo - it was purely a DIY job -

Mike was alone in that ring, in a virtual
vacuum, shadow boxing but somehow copping punishment all the while before ultimately knocking himself out.

Therein lies a big, long term problem - Mike can have all the excuses under the sun but his opposition are not similarly afforded.

If we eradicate consideration of and weighting for any excuses altogether, Mike is the one who actually suffers more for same.

 

Well, I’ve always taken the injured right hand to be legit without specific scrutiny.

But, if injured, a healthy right hand doesn’t necessarily turn it around for Tucker - rather. with a good right hand, TNT might’ve opened up more - leaving himself open more - much to Tyson’s liking.

In appearing that he was more intent on surviving than winning, Tucker’s approach wasn’t an entirely unique strategy in the face of Iron Mike. See Bone Hugger Smith.

 

There are few things which match the hilarity of the indignation from Tyson and Duran fans when excuses are made on behalf of their fave's opponents instead of, as is customary, the men themselves.

 

Who knows, but it wouldn't have changed anything on the outcome.

 

you know, we can also assume that Holyfield's 10 defeats to rivals such as Moorer, Ruiz, Donald, Toney, Ibragimov had nothing to do with his weaker form, age, etc. and speculate whether if James Toney had moved to HW 10 years earlier he would not have dominated this category in 1993.
Teddy Atlas, who is for obvious reasons prejudiced against Tyson, hating him at every turn, once said that: Tyson will not be defeated by anyone, but he will lose to himself. Tyson will lose to Tyson. That's exactly what happened, exactly as Atlas said when Tyson was undefeated. His defeat was inevitable considering his personality, lifestyle, fighting style. But we can of course assume that we only heard about Tyson because Douglas only got his chance in 1990 and not in 1986. That if he had met Tyson instead of Jesse Ferguson, Buster would have dominated boxing in the second half of the 80s, he would have been boxer of the year twice and No. 1 P4P. Only that damn Jesse... and before that White, Tangstad, Tucker..
we can also assume that Duran was never a boxer on the level of Leonard or Kirklaind Laing. He simply managed to avoid them up to a certain point and the fight in Montreal was a coincidence that could have happened to many others, just like Roberto's accidental 100 victories.

 

For real: If Mike had a broken hand and lost a fight, many on this forum would want the result stricken from the record.

His every loss has an asterisk (in their minds) with *’Had good excuse, doesn’t count’ by it.

 

No, you just invented that.

 

To answer the TS - yes, Tucker had an injured hand, but fighters fight with injuries all the time. They usually only become a thing when someone wants an excuse for their guy or to discredit the win of a fighter they dislike. Rarely mentioned otherwise.

 

all facts point to Tucker being a great boxer but he was never on Tyson's level. of course we can argue that Tyson was just lucky, like in the other 37 fights he had in the 80's and boxing experts were complete morons favoring him in every fight or putting him as #1 P4P as the only HW in almost 40 years. Which was Tucker? or Douglas? sometimes I get the feeling that nothing we see matters. Tyson was just an average boxer who had a lot of luck. a guy like Sainpat can describe in one statement that instead of training Mike led a crazy night life and in the next say that it doesn't matter and these are just excuses from Mike's loveboys. I can agree and respect it but finally make up your mind - either Tyson was lucky that he got Douglas only in 1990 and he is the biggest hoax in boxing and his 37 wins are a coincidence or he was unprepared for the fight and his next fight was a coincidence. There is no other option here. We can put Buster higher than Mike in the top 10 and laugh at the experts who have Tyson as no. 1 P4P and not have Buster even in the top 100

 

Tucker was complaining that he had hurt his hand the week before the fight. Multiple newspapers carried stories about it.

Tucker had an X-ray that showed he had a torn metacarpal in his right hand, according to Flip Homasky in a NY Times article.

Most fights would be called off today. But so many in the sport owned a piece of Tucker. They all wanted to get paid. HBO wanted to finish their tournament. Nobody wanted to delay it for Tucker. Don King already had a crown made and was planning a big post fight celebration for Tyson, and Tucker was just an afterthought. He only entered the tournament three months earlier.

In their minds, they just needed a final guy for Tyson to knock over.

And, after the fight, X-rays showed Tucker's right hand was indeed broken.

All in all, a pretty despicable example of the Nevada commission, HBO and probably Tucker's dad (who owed money to everyone) pressuring a guy they knew was injured to fight.

If Mike Tyson suffered a torn metacarpal bone in his hand before the fight, you can bet they'd have postponed.

Hell, Tyson got the flu two weeks before the first Ruddock fight was supposed to take place in Canada, and they cancelled the whole card. And Tyson was out nightclubbing days later.

 

Point? Tyson was just 23 yo without any substantial career wear/tear. He simply got his butt fairly and squarely kicked. We don’t have to or need to assume anything for Mike or anyone else - who loses out more based on that equitable treatment? Mike does, of course.

His fans ride on far more excuses to explain his lesser performances/losses than most fans of other fighters.

No, I didn’t just invent anything. You baulked at excuses being made for Tyson’s opponents earlier in the thread but you’ve made plenty of excuses on Mike’s behalf. I just replied to a member who literally stated that Mike defeated himself - as if Buster was just an innocent/impotent bystander.

 

Buster was pretty obviously a mid level Tyson title opponent.