Can 1986-89 Mike Tyson go through this gauntlet undefeated?

This is just arrant nonsense.

Tillis went toe to toe with him and did fine. Guys like Takam, Povetkin and Ruiz all have at least the same ability if not more than Tillis to repeat that feat. Each of these guys brings different things to the table that will pose a challenge. Joshua and Wilder both easily have enough power to trouble Tyson and in AJs case enough technical skills to make the power stick. A guy like Parker is a big, tough dude who is well rounded in every aspect of the game.

Every few months we have one of these breathless circlejerk fanboy threads where Tyson beats them all EEAASILY but only if you take his "prime" version which lasted somewhere between breakfast and tea time and if you ignore guys like Tillis shooting it out with the supposedly invincible, untoucheable demigod There's at least three guys on that list that could have replicated "prime Tyson's" run up to Douglas and would have had a good chance of beating Douglas too.

There's nothing easy about that list for Tyson.

 

lol

imagine comparing Tillis to blobs like Ruiz or in fighters like Povetkin. Lol

 

I agree that guys like Povetkin were much better.

 

No I would not! But two things here man...

Tyson peaked earlier than most anyone, including then "Clay".
I could say Tyson had more fights (he was at 19-0), but Clay had an extensive amateur background & of course the Olympics.
But unlike Tyson he had, like most all, not fully developed yet.

But that was not what I was arguing-which opposed what you said about Tyson from 1985-1988!
You chose to contest another poster's comments specifying this Tyson peak & his abilities.

Other's count Tyson's peak as coming just after Tillis.
This is completely symmetrical to what folk's say about the prime-not peak-of Clay/Ali.

My point remains that Tyson, much as I like him at his hard working best, almost got beaten-some picked Tillis-by a fighter that on paper should not have been nearly that competitive.
And it was only a 10 round fight.
Sometimes a near great or even a prime ATG can be really pushed to the limit or beaten-due to flaws &/or great fights by a lesser fighter.
And a fortunate match up of styles.

But Tillis coasted at the end, might have clinched the fight.
Still he showed much better stamina, very good jab & then clinches, pivoting/footwork & lateral movement.

 

I pretty much completely agree.
Except he could lose one, & the size difference & a peak Joshua would make that one most likely-but yessss, Tyson is favored.

And I cited Tillis just because someone else defended Tyson's superb ability from 1985-1989, my point was this fight in the middle of 1986-that might be called pre-prime, certainly pre-peak-shows he had more vulnerability there.

So I would start the comparisons with Tyson from his next fight.

 

That's the point I'm trying to make. AJ, Wilder and even Povetkin probably can punch harder than any of those guys Tyson faced. They are all bigger as well. I think beating an undefeated AJ is a tough job especially for Mike because of the size difference. Then fighting someone as polished as AP for the next fight is tricky IMO. Idk if the person that started the thread thought about the order of the fights, but those 2 back-to-back would be hard for anyone.

 

You make a good case indeed!
Maybe The Truth is somewhere in between.
But AJ had flaws, & Parker arguably more.
See if you can dispute these; & a counter-puncher + aggressive one with level changes who could read that telegraphed right hand...
https://www.google.com/search?q=jos...YsA&sourceid=chrome&source=chrome.ob&ie=UTF-8

But you are just wrong about Tyson being assigned the prime of a Mayfly.
If we skip Tillis, he fought later the same month.
That is still 3 year 8 months until Douglas in Tokyo.

And between Green & Williams, "The Truth" (pardon the pun", that is still 17(!) fights.

This is a pretty extensive prime, which arguably doubles as his peak.
Tell us how many other fighters, maybe especially HWs, had so many peak fights.
Many had *much* less.

 

Don't think AJ & Povetkin punched AS hard as Bonecrusher, Bruno, & Ruddock-that is 5 fights right there.
Maybe Wilder punched at least as hard.
But was much more limited as a fighter.

The sequence of opponents is a good point!

 

I'd say fighters like Ruddock, Bruno, are on the same level in regards to punching power as those fighters.

You're also not taking into account that someone like Wilder bases his whole offence on a long right hand.

He's going to have immense trouble landing that punch on a shorter opponent.

Someone like Joshua simply isn't durable enough and once he's hurt he stays hurt.

Ruiz who's not really noted as a big puncher landed 1 left hook on Joshua. And he was basically in a fog for the rest of the fight unable to recover.

You're saying Tyson wouldn't be able to beat those fighters in a row without a loss. But Tyson's actual championship opponents in real time were quite a strong list of opponents.

And Tyson dominated most of them with ease.