Larry Holmes: Mike Tyson wouldn't thrive in the classic era.

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/21/...g-is-to-raise-demand-for-tyson-holyfield.html
An extract from the article :
" So what does King have to say about Tyson-Holyfield?

While Finkel, Duva and Cayton said a Tyson-Holyfield bout right now is worth $20 million to $25 million to Tyson, King insisted they're premature.

''It's worth half of that if you don't build the fight,'' King said. ''Holyfield's people have to go to school in promotion. Remember when George Foreman ripped the shirt off of Muhammad Ali at a boxing writers award dinner? Remember when Joe Frazier and Ali got into that tussle at the ABC-TV studio? That's great for the box office. Now look what happened when Tyson challenged Holyfield after the Carl Williams fight. Holyfield just sat there, like the pious church boy he is. Well, that ain't gonna make it.
Had he been my fighter, Holyfield would have been on him like white on rice. (...) You ain't going to sell pay-per-view like that.

''Long as we hold out, the fight will get bigger. If Holyfield loses, well, then it wasn't meant to happen.
(...)
I want this to be a megafight so that when Tyson beats Holyfield it will be a resounding blow. We've got to raise doubts that Tyson can beat him and create the magic of excitement. I can make this a megafight, I'm just that good. That's not braggadocio. I submit it to you very humbly.''

 

Of course. I wrote in a previous post what I think about it.

In one thread, I read that Holyfield defeated Tyson even though he was four years older, and at the same time, he didn't fight him in the 1980s because he wasn't ready yet.

That he wanted to fight Tyson even though we know he wasn't exercising his challenger rights, that he wanted to fight him even though we know he went to court to avoid it, that Tyson avoided him even though we know he signed a contract with him for the fight in 1990 and exercised his challenger rights in 1991, so Holyfield couldn't keep the belt without fighting him. Do you see the sense in that? Because I don't. I apologize. If there's an inaccuracy anywhere, I humbly ask for clarification.

 

I think what the others were saying is that the Tyson-Holyfield fight became a serious possibility only by 1989.
Being the naturally smaller men, Holyfield couldn't face Tyson before 1988.
And he wasn't ranked when he fought Tillis nor Thomas, it's only after that fight and relinquishing his cruiserweight belts (in December of 1988) that Holyfield got an heavyweight ranking.

As we agreed, Don King wasn't willing to make the fight in 1989, so Holyfield took on Rodriguez and Stewart, whereas Tyson lost to Douglas which scuppered the June of 1990 fight.

If we are fair, we can't count against Holyfield the fact that he wanted an easy defence first and made Tyson wait in 1990/1991 whereas Tyson did the same in 1989.

 

In December 1988, Holyfield was the No. 1 contender in all the major organizations Tyson owned. At that point, he could simply exercise his rights as a challenger, and King had no say in the matter. So why, instead of filing a lawsuit and officially demanding a fight with Tyson, did he fight four other contenders? Besides, you still haven't addressed the arguments on what basis Tyson avoided the fight with Holyfield and on what basis Holyfield wanted the fight, given that there's evidence he went to court to avoid it, not to fight it, and Tyson didn't receive any petition to fight it earlier, which could have happened as early as December 1988.
So Holyfield was older but prolonged the fight because it took him a long time to be ready. At the same time, Tyson was a champion in a weaker era, so beating him seems easy, but Evander preferred to wait and get older... or am I the only one seeing the contradiction

 

How could have been Holyfield the n°1 contender in December of 1988 when he was rated n°2,4 and 6 months later when he faced Dokes ?
Holyfield became the WBA/WBC mandatory challenger when he beat Dokes.
I posted earlier the relevant quotes indicating that Don King didn't want the fight in 1989 in order to create a greater build-up.
It's later that Tyson went to court when Holyfield opted to take a voluntary defence. It's Tyson's camp which delayed the fight first, not Holyfield.
Tyson's loss to Douglas only adds to his responsability of the fight not happening earlier.

 

I think the link got corrupted somehow, so here you go:
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/21/...g-is-to-raise-demand-for-tyson-holyfield.html

Just looking out.

 

Ok, thank you.

 

Okay, friend, I have to admit you're right about the rankings. While I don't have official data on when Holyfield was the mandatory challenger, it certainly wasn't 1988. I think it happened after the Dokes fight, but I'm not sure. If you know the federation's rankings from that time, please provide a link.

My mistake I thought that as the cruiser champion, Holyfield was automatically the number one contender in the heavyweight division, but that's not how it works. I pay tribute to Overhand. It's good to learn new things.

Despite all this, I still have to stick to my opinion – Holyfield wasn't ready for Tyson in 1988. The experts knew it, his trainers knew it, and Evander himself knew it. Here's his quote after the fight with Pinklon Thomas:
"I know I have to fight better than I fought tonight," Holyfield said afterward. "Because if that's my best I don't see myself being heavyweight champion of the world."

I'm also sure Evander was already No. 1 in the rankings (citation needed) before the Tyson-Williams fight and should have officially challenged Tyson then, yet he didn't block that fight or the next one with Douglas. It's a bit strange considering how much he wanted it.

 

No problem friend. It's my pleasure to discuss with you.
You are right, it's after the Dokes fight that Holyfield became the WBA and WBC n°1 contender.

During the Dokes fight, Holyfield was ranked n°2 by WBA, n°4 by the WBC and n°6 by the IBF.
You can see this at 8min24 in this video :

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I think the reason why Holyfield didn't try to juridically enforce a fight with Tyson in 1989 is because Tyson already defeated a mandatory (WBA/WBC) challenger in Frank Bruno. The champion has a year period to defend against the following mandatory challenger.

I agree with you about Evander being not ready to face Tyson in 1988.

 

You're firing blanks mate.

 

I’m not attacking you personally. I’m attacking the crap you’re posting but actually giving you an excuse with your assumed naivety.
Foreman was about 315lbs when he entered camp for his comeback in 1987 after his 10 year retirement. He got himself down to 267lbs for his first comeback fight. This is common knowledge if you were around then. Of course it was going to take time to A) Shake off the ring rust and get conditioned , B) To have his comeback be taken seriously and C) To get himself into the rankings só a fight with the champion would be viable.
This took about 4 years until 1991 by which time Tyson wasn’t champion anymore. Why you think he could have challenged earlier than that is beyond me.
Holyfield was two fights into his heavyweight career in 1988. He was still growing into the division. He was ready to fight Tyson by late 1989/early 1990 when Tyson took a keep busy fight before a scheduled meeting with Evander. Not Holyfield’s fault they didn’t meet before 1996. And trying to suggest Holyfield getting Tyson in 1996 was lucky on EH’s behalf is patently false. Holyfield had looked like road kill in the 3rd Bowe fight and didn’t look any good beating Bobby Czyz going into the Tyson fight (couldn’t even floor or properly stop a non heavyweight). Holyfield was thought to be totally shot and the pre fight odds back this up. It was a cherry pick by Tyson’s camp and one that bit them on the arse.
Evander had more mileage and wear and tear going in. He was also tougher and better. Deal with it.

 

nice argument, young griffo likes it you kids are funny

don't really want to read your drivel because you're not addressing the conversation anyway. You're a pigeon shitting on the board. I could tell someone else that George Foreman had 19 fights in the 1980s and only one weighed more than against Hoyfield, and in half of them he weighed less than against Moorer, but that's probably beyond your comprehension.

Michael Spinks moved from light heavyweight directly to Larry Holmes. He weighed significantly less than Holyfield. Ask your colleagues what the logic is:
Light-heavyweight Spinks moves to heavyweight and wins the title in his debut in the Holmes era.
Cruiserweight Holyfield moves to heavyweight and in his second fight claims he's not yet ready for a title fight with Tyson, while Duva claims his fighter needs to get stronger. You're smarter than Holyfield and his trainers.

 

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:
- spent 4 years in jail during his physical prime, in which he didn't practice his trade.
- came back and faced McNeeley, Mathis Jr, Bruno and Seldon - for 8 rounds COMBINED. That was all the fighting he did in the last 5 years.
- then he trained for roughly 3 weeks in Vegas while travelling / partying and fighting the Rooney Lawsuit in New York......in order to face

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who:
- was an ACTIVE top boxer, who never took a break in his career;
- had gained experience by fighting guys like Foreman, Bowe, Mercer, Moorer
- did top notch PED consumption, and had gained 10-15 pounds fact
- and head-butted

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Tyson in 1990 was not necessarily a past-prime shell so much as he was damaged goods.

Upon taking complete control of Tyson's career, Don King fired everyone who had essentially worked with Tyson from the time he was a teenager, including his trainer, cornerman, and manager. Bill Cayton, Kevin Rooney and everyone else was either terminated or had died by that point.
Hired in their stead, were nobodies like Rory Holloway, Aran Snowel, and Jay Bright. These were the men who worked with Tyson for some 18 months following the dissolving of the original team Tyson.

In the meantime, Mike had gone through several episodes of exercising erratic behavior:
- he had since been divorced by Robin Givens, and during the whole process, had made death threats to her and her mother;
- he had been involved in a car accident (allegedly called a suicide attempt ) where he was injured-postponing the Frank Bruno fight, which had an original date of October 10, 1988;
- he had been in a fist fight with ex-opponent Mitch Green which left Green's face a bloody mess, and Tyson's hand temporarily injured;
- he performed in subpar fashion against Frank Bruno;
- he would lose yet another family member, as his sister Denise Tyson would die tragically in her late 20's.

Tyson spent the weeks prior to the Douglas fight staying out late and rendezvouing with the local escort services. Additionally, he was struggling during training sessions, and at one point was dropped by Greg Page in a sparring session.
With his list of blood relatives dwindling, his former team dispatched, his life going to pieces, and working with incompetent management for over a year, Tyson entered the ring against James Douglas on February 12th 1990.
During the fight with Buster, Tyson was rarely making an effort to close the sizable gap against the much taller Douglas, whereas against other tall opponents with reasonable jabs, such as Tucker, Holmes, Tubbs, and Biggs, Tyson had slipped the jab and followed up with a barrage of combinations coming in. We saw little or nothing of this against Douglas.

Following the match, boxing legends, Gil Clancy and Angelo Dundee were interviewed on HBO. Both agreed that the corner work in that fight was some of the most unprofessional that either man had seen in quite some time. Snowel was using a dissolved bag of water to try and reduce Tyson's swelling over his eyes, while calmly giving him ambiguous advice with no real instruction " Mike your not closing the gap." All the while, Tyson sat with his head down during every intermission between rounds. There was clearly no interest here...

CONCLUSION: Was Mike Tyson the same fighter who had thoroughly flattened the division between 1986-1989 ? Absolutely not. He was by this point, the product of an unstable life outside of the ring, as well as a cash cow who was poorly managed. Ad on his immaturity and lack of guidance, and frankly, I think any decent challenger in the 1990 top 10 would have had a good chance of doing to him what Douglas did.

 

He still beat them, and he only got better after that.