Tyson- What if?

I just wanted to say this last word on the subject, before I let this go for good (getting tired of this debate :nut ).

It sounds like we're debating whether Tyson basically wasn't as good or sharp after Spinks. Can we at least agree he wasn't as sharp in the Douglas and Bruno fights? If that's the case then I think we can agree on something.

Look no ones making excuses for Tyson. Clearly losing to Douglas hurts his legacy and no ones arguing with that. But it's perfectly possible to analyze a fight and make your judgments about a fighters condition without having to be making excuses at the same time.

As I've already mentioned Tyson fought over 30 times before Douglas, that's within a span of 4 years. Some fighters peak early, some late ... Tyson peaked very early. His career went by really fast as did the degradation of skills and focus in the ring.

If you spread out Tyson's 85-90 period another 5 years, would we even be arguing about this? Probably not. It's the fact that Tyson was still so young when he lost to Douglas is what people have a problem with. But young doesn't define prime, it's training, focus, and all of those other things that have already been mentioned.

The only point me and lefthook have been making is that Tyson as a fighter, did some things differently when he was Rooney.. His method of attack was different. That's all were saying. If you don't agree, fine , but I've already explained and demonstrated it clearly enough.

That's all that I'm gonna say.

 

Fair enough.

I'll say this. Tyson worst performance was the Douglas fight, but I don't believe his decline was as significant nor as consistent as most Tyson fans believe. In fact, I don't even think Tyson rapidly declined. I think the Douglas fight was more of result of having a bad night. Yes, I'll say for that specific fight he probably didn't train or focus as much as he had so he wasn't going to be as sharp, but I'm not making any sort of pattern post Spinks.

I keep saying Tyson fans, but I am a Tyson fan. Now here's a fight after Bruno when Mike fought Carl Williams.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXmQdl7rJiY[/ame]

Check it out. Tyson throws about 5 jabs throughout the fight. He's feinting too, but rushing in and throwing big shots. Guess what, he times Carl big time with a devastating hook.

People will rave the Spinks fight. Josak talk about Tyson feinting and throwing the jab. Sure, Tyson jabbed 4 times in the Spinks fight. But he does against Williams too. Sure he fiented against Spinks, but was really allowing his feints to work because he was just rushing in exploding on Spinks. It was ferocious and he was really just lunging forward. People can talk about counters all they want but Spinks was scarred to death and just throwing a big punch to try changing the fact. Spinks really had no pray. Tyson blasts him out and times with an uppercut. What makes the fight so special? What makes this so much more an ideal Tyson?

In the Bruno fight, we don't see a great Tyson performance but it's definitely not his worse. There are comparable ones. Again 2Scents went over this. He used the jab against Bruno, he used head-movement. Okay, Josak says he didn't do it as effectively. That's fine, but he was absent of these things and he surely wasn't rapidly declining in the way a lot of hardcore Tyson fans suggest.

I said it before and I'll say it again.

Frazier declined more so from 70-73 than Tyson did from 87-89.

Foreman actually had more an alteration in styles to me than Tyson did from Spinks to Williams than Foreman did from before and to the Frazier fight all the way to the Ali fight. Foreman got wilder, threw his jab less, and feel deeply in love with his power. At least we can cite more examples of Tyson jabbing, head-movement, etc.

Marciano declined more from 52-55 than Tyson did from 87-89.

All of these statements are realistic truths. Now, for Tyson and his sake he gets glorified because Douglas did beat him. More credit should go to Douglas, and less about how Tyson declined or was so much more invincible 2 years earlier.

It's like when people argue about Jack Dempsey 1919 like he was God. Similar frenzy. After that he was never the same. What hardly gets mentioned is the 3 years off by Williard and him being an big oaf. Tyson fought a fighter that had no chance, no pray, was completely scarred, and posed no threat to Tyson. Visually, the performance shows nothing as spectacular as Tyson fans protest but it's the result. He was better in the Holmes/Biggs fight I think.

 

Bowe was never blown out of the water.

 

Well I dont agree with this, but your assessment on Tyson I do.

 

He probably watched the Bruno fight and said, dam I looked like a sloppy amatuer I better do better.
Dont forget theres a difference between Carl Williams and Frank Bruno too, but yes it was quite the counter shot he landed on Williams.

 

Perhaps.

But that still proves my point that there wasn't a rapid decline. He could've just had a bad night interchangeably.

 

It wasnt overnight no, but it certainly started in the Bruno fight. Consistency was always my point, and it was from that night forward that consistently Tyson started doing the wrong things in a fight.

 

Except he couldn't have "started" to get away from those things, because he already had an established history of getting away from those things even when he was with Rooney. The fights that I've referred you to clearly show that. You could look at a number of pre-Bruno fights and find see where he wasn't doing the things he was "supposed to". It's only because the Bruno fight happens to be between the Spinks and Douglas fights that it's given so much (over)emphasis, while other similar performances are overlooked.

Moreover, to say that those were the things that "got him where he was" is questionable given that he had a history of not using or forsaking those things on his way to where he was.

Again, as I said, there were already fights in which he had forsook those things as well.

Heck, here's a fight which you yourself pointed to earlier as another of his peak performances, against Berbick:

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Tyson starts off bobbing and weaving and showing discipline, but by the end of the first round he's walking in almost upright, leaving himself wide open, neglecting the body and swinging wildly with haymakers at the head. Even the commentator remarks in the 2nd round how wild and reckless Tyson is looking. If this fight happened to happen post-Spinks, you could just as well rip him for "getting away from" his skills like you do for Bruno. The only reason it hasn't been singled out that way is simply because no one's looking to argue that Tyson had declined two fights after this.

Look at all those combos he finished off Bruno with.

He flattened Williams with about as perfectly-timed a counterpunch as he's ever landed.

He bobbed and waved numerous times against both Williams and Douglas - moreso than he did against Spinks in fact.

So couldn't Tyson's "sloppiness" against Bruno be at least partially attributed to Bruno's hugging him?

I don't see how that's "obvious"; just because you keep saying something over and over doesn't make it true. I've actually SHOWN the footage and referred you point by point to them, as have others in this thread. You keep insisting that you're right about your notions of the fights, yet admittedly refuse to address points that are plainly shown that illustrate otherwise.

 

Agreed.

The analysis that's being applied to either of these fights is basically interchangeable. Someone could just as well emphasize Tyson's "subtle skills" against Bruno or criticize his openness/recklessness against Spinks. It really is just selectively choosing and/or spinning points to support whatever notion is being argued at a given time.

 

I was just about to post this exact video and breakdown myself. Tyson actually showed better technique against Williams than Spinks, yet somehow the Spinks win is being trumpeted as the peak of his technical ability, while the Williams fight is considered as being part of his "decline" of that same technique. It's completely contradictory, if not outright senseless logic.

 

Right on the money. It's very selective criticism that's overstated and spun. Show them a performance post 88 that's comparable if not better and your wrong, you're forgetting Rooney wasn't there. Show them a fight with Rooney being there and something is missing. And how can someone think The Bonecrusher Smith or Tillis fight was a bad Tyson fight. Bonecrusher was a fine performance with one guy just not making it a fight. Tillis was decent but a younger Tyson against a veteran fighter. Is it because both went the distance?

 

You guys are making this arguement because of your dislike for Tyson. Sure there is people who tend to over exaggerate Tyson, but there is absolutely merit to the fact that Tyson was starting to decline. If you go 37-0 doing things a certain way, and then you go 6-1 with three of the six performances not considered the greatest there's something thats not right. Again the fighters Tyson was facing were no better than the previous guys he fought. If he was looking bad against Holyfield Bowe or Lewis, than there would be a difference, but it wasnt.

Contrast that to Lennox Lewis who after making a run at the title to start facing comparable contenders that Tyson was facing, went 4-1 with one of the wins against Bruno being a pretty **** poor performance. After losing his title and hooking up with Emanuel Steward he won 14 fights with one of the 14 fights being a tough fought out decision with Ray Mercer, (but what I consider a coming into his own great performance win or lose). Still 14 fights at the championship level is an obvious improvement. He was beating guys better than Oliver Mcall and Frank Bruno without a problem or any shaky moments. You didnt see him go down in a heap or get outboxed for an entire fight.
There would have been a very good chance had Lewis stayed with his sloppy ways he might have been knocked out again.
Point being some of the minor things that were being done wrong made a big difference at the top level of competiton. Tyson was always an offensive fighter that had to get close, but he never got hit as cleanly and consistently over a fight as he did against Bruno and Ruddock, fighters he couldnt afford to be as reckless against compared to a Henry Tillman or a Carl Williams level fighter, who presented far less danger. Tyson's approach to those fights was exactly the same, they just werent qualified enough to expose the mistakes, as were the fairly soft opposition Lewis faced leading up to the Ruddock fight. I dont know too much about Gary Mason, who really doesnt have too many significant wins, but its clear Lewis made a pretty large step up in class starting with the Ruddock fight, and thats were his mistakes starting getting exposed fairly quickly.

 

Theres also a difference of getting reckless when Tyson hurt his opponent, something M2Sense keeps pointing out. Yes Tyson tended to get a little more reckless when he hurt his opponents, as was the case at the end of the round in the Berbick fight, but thats holds true for most fighters when they hurt their opponent and go for the kill.
Same goes for combinations. Tyson threw less of them within a fight, and used them more as finishing shots.

 

I didn't mean that I thought Tyson would "blow him out of the water" although I do think he'd have stopped him-the Rooney version of Tyson that is, if we could pluck them from time on their respective best nights. TBH I'm amazed that long post I made is remotely lucid, I was really, really drunk at the time.