tyson's height: strength or weakness

Right on.

Ali and Holmes would peppered him from the ouside, and they were too fast and skilled defensively to be easily caught by Tyson.

In order to get close, Tyson would have to accept a good deal of punishment. Would he been up to the task? I don't think so. Smoking Joe, he is not

 

Massive weakness, he had a style and skill that allowed him to beat much bigger men in his prime but past his prime it was really shown up as a massive weakness.

Height-for-Height (instead of P4P) he may have been the best ever

 

Aren't you guys confusing height with reach?

 

Barbados Joe Walcott was 5' 1'' and once gave up 18'' in height to an opponent and won. If he came towards you in a crouch there wasn't much to hit.

He verry much seems to have made a merit of his short stature.

 

I think height, reach, and weight advantages, in heavyweight boxing, are given too much credit by many...in my opinion. In Tyson's case, I think more height would have hurt him, not helped him. :hi:

 

He sure turned it into a strength. The way he was always on the come, not just head movement but Torso movement, and off that movement came his power. Can't separate the man, the style from the range deficit. Also he was often punching up; you get more power from the floor.

 

Neither Ali or Holmes are to fast for Tyson.

Tyson is on of the few HWs that speed does not work at since he himself is one of the fastest hws ever with superb footwork for his style.

Ali's retreating directly from a punch would play right into tysons hands who is fast enough to take advantage of alis defensive deficiencies.

And another thing Tyson was specifically trained to beat guys trying to pepper him from the outside.

 

Absoltely.

Some fighters are short with long wingspans which gives them the best of both worlds in some ways.

 

And those fighters are rare.

 

Very good question ... thinking out it .. as usual some of the brightest guys here (Janitor, McGrain, Mendoza) are dead on ..

 

Sometimes it's not about building the fighter from the outside in, i.e. finding a composite of "ideal" height, weight and reach. Rather, you accentuate what an individual boxer brings to the table. I was always tought to fight smaller if I was shorter than my opponent, or fight taller if the opposite was true. Like a small running back in American football, Tyson could be elusive with his lack of height, bob and come under the defense of his opponents. He used his height - coupled with great flexibility and balance- to his advantage. At 6-3 or so, he would have to rework his style entirely to something more conventional.

 

They are as rare as hens teeth but we ocasionaly get to see one.

Jimmy Bivins and Sam McVea spring to mind.

 

Before I opened the thread the words "depends on the particular h2h matchup" were already brewing in my head, and right behind them the thought "you know, even less than a full page in, at least one ESB Classicer will probably have already articulated this point". Bam. First two.