Tyson challenges Holyfield before going to jail

That would be a interesting case when it comes to a championship lineage. Would tyson lose a claim when sentenced to 5 years being unable to defend?

 

Cooper had one big round where he wobbled Holyfield and came close to stopping him … but didn’t. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Bert did not dominate Evander. Buster dominated Tyson.

 

The claim fizzles out after 3-4 years, like Ali's claim did.

 

Buster dominated a Tyson who was on the slide, regardless of his age.

He had lost his father-figure, mentor and was getting into bad habits.

There were rumours of mucho partying in Japan.

IMO, if Douglas had face him a couple of years earlier , he would hav been stopped.
He was nearly stopped anyway that night....Tyson didn't have the finishing ferocity that night in Tokyo.

Holy was fortunate he met the version of Mike that he did.

And that's before we even get to Evander's pharmaceutical habits.

 

Tyson fought a Holyfield who was 2-2 in his last four fights with a loss to Michael Moorer where he was diagnosed with a major heart condition and a KO loss to Riddick Bowe. His fight immediately prior to Tyson was a win over Bobby Czyz where he looked terrible. Evander was considered shot and he manhandled Mike.

At the time, it was considered a shot Holyfield and easy win for Tyson.

Now you say ‘well it wasn’t a good version of Mike’ but Evander was more diminished by every standard going into it.

Mike was 23 years old and in his absolute physical prime when Buster bust-ed him up.

But of course Mike Tyson always gets an asterisk by his losses and they don’t count. He was completely undefeated.

 

Holy's state was not what I commented on. It was Tyson's.

And for the reasons I mentioned, he was past his best.

Not past his PHYSICAL best, but his best boxing days were behind him.

IMO, 87 or 88 Tyson, with no distractions, would have produced a different result.

 

Ok but was that BigBus cashing out? It looked like he was calculating how much he get while the referee was counting.

 

Kinda my point - all it took was one shot and the ropes holding up a prime Holyfield against a fighter of lesser caliber than Buster.

 

For years, boxing fans, especially Tysons, have wondered what would have happened if Cus and Jim had lived a few years longer. How much it would have changed fate. Without even claiming divine authority, however, I believe that a lot would have changed if Mike hadn't met Mitch Green on the streets of Harlem. Without breaking his arm, he would have knocked out Bruno in 1988, maybe Williams as well, and certainly the fight with Buster would have taken place in 1989, while his mother was still alive. The outcome could have been different then. Which doesn't change the fact that "party all the time" Mike, tired of breaking records with sex, drugs, and alcohol, Tyson, could have been an easy target for Holyfield, waiting for his opportunity in 1990.

 

You have a perfect example of what happens when the absolute favorite doesn't take the underdog seriously – Fury vs. Ngannou, Usyk vs. Rico, Lewis vs. McCall/Rahman, Jones vs. Griffin, and many, many more. It's the essence of sports, and boxing in particular.

No, Tyson doesn't get stars for fighting Buster; he's bashed by Buster in every thread. At best, he gets stars for beating at least 10 fighters better or much higher ranked than Buster, but damn – he lost his belt. He got punished. And Buster wasn't a 35- or 37-year-old boxing debutant. What's wrong with you, man? We might as well start idiotic threads about what if Rico wasn't the best heavyweight boxer in 10 years, but he jumped on payday too late. And if he hadn't fought Usyk in a 10-round boxing match, wouldn't he have been much better? Logically, he would have been. But no logic can explain why Buster didn't become a champion at 23 or 20. How could he have lost to White or Ferguson?

This is utterly idiotic, this invocation of Buster. It's like saying Jordan was an average basketball player because he didn't score more than 15 points in an NBA game several times.

 

Who's calling Tyson an average fighter? Buster's case wouldn't even be brought up if Tyson fanboys didn't make him some kind of a mythical creature who could have beaten Godzilla and King Kong in his prime both on the same night. Tyson lost at every stage of his career, even in his prime. Nothing wrong about it, several ATGs lost fights like that. But acting like it wasn't a real Tyson and making excuses for every single loss is just embarrassing.

 

I have said multiple times on this forum that I think absolutely prime Tyson was capable of beating any heavyweight who ever lived on a given night. I’m not calling that version of Tyson the GOAT. I’m just saying that he had the capability.

My gut feeling is Holyfield still takes him for reasons already cited in the thread.

 

I wouldn't say several: Jordan rarely scored just 15 pts.

What's thew topic again?

 

that Tyson won against people who were better than Douglas. So either all these victories are a coincidence, or this one defeat is a coincidence.
I'm also talking about the fact that even such a great boxer as Usyk does not always shine, as the fight with Rivo showed. And Rico was not the 7th HW in the world like Douglas.
Walla with Douglas in your or Sainpat's mouth comes up literally every time you mention Tyson. Much more often than Spinks, Berbick, Holmes, Tubbs, Williams, Biggs, Ferguson, Stewart etc.