*How close in Percentage-Terms was Tyson to PEAK/BEST when he KTFO by Bummy Douglas?*

In terms of his physical attributes and skillset, he was 100 % at peak/prime.

Just not at his best that night.


And his prime ended with Douglas.

 

He starved himself for 3 weeks. How was he physically at a peak? I mean, it's his fault he needed to drop so much weight, but I don't think he was optimum.

 

Haven't read the thread but each time I've watched this fight, for me the thing that comes across the strongest has never been that Tyson looks bad. It's ALWAYS that Douglas looks GREAT.

He boxed his ****ing ass off that night every minute of every round. Even when Mike knocks him down pretty hard, Douglas just gets up and goes right back to schooling him. He doesn't look like he's an average contender beating a distracted, unfocused, undertrained champion. He looks like he would beat the **** out of whoever the hell you want to put in the ring with him.

:hat

 

Ok maybe bum was the wrong word to use.

However mutual opponents dont mean much, Bruno/Tyson 2 totally different fighters.

And you have to look at the stage of careers when Bruno fought these mutual opps and when Tyson fought them

 

I'm saying he had the skills but not the discipline.

He was fast, strong, powerful, durable, great reflexes and he wanted to learn.

When they found a young lad with that physique and saw him watching classic films and fights they must have thought they hit gold.

The problem was, even tho tyson made it look easy, it wasn't. He had to work on that movement, he had to work on that timin. That's what allowed him to deliver his power shots. Once that effort went so did the tyson we saw rip through the division.

Atlas once said something like "you can bring any kid in off the street and he'll throw punches, but he won't be able to make the other guy miss"

All tyson's entourage saw was his highlight reel knockouts. Even against bruno when the defensive master was no longer there he was still able to blast him out. This is when they "realised" he didn't really need to train because he was just too good.

The reality is he was never too good, he had to work at the defensive side of things. As I said he was a raw talent.

Even at a young age he'd throw hissy fits at cus but fortunately he had a way with tyson. Now imagine 5 years later and it's a big brick shithouse of a man who's just destroyed holmes and spinks and he's paying your wages. If he says he's taking the night off how you gonna stop him? If he flattens a sparring partner, gets bored and goes off to a strip joint how you gonna drag his arse back in the gym?

You do it with respect and by the time he was champ he respected noone. But who cared, this was iron mike, hardest hitting heavyweight since dempsey, he's already cleaned out and his so called next rival is a cruiserweight.

That's where he went wrong. No physical decline, just a man who believed he was too good to lose and stopped putting the effort in.

 

I agree Tyson ate slept and drank boxing but he was always a wild card. when atlas left him Tyson was just as crazy. Sure the kid thought, with some justification, that he was far too good for anyone. Tyson still always trained though and boxing was still his passion.

What I want to know is why was it that Tyson wasnt so great when he was presented with a problem in the ring?

I dont care how well a training camp goes or how good the trainer is a fighter will still come up against a problem and he will either overcome it or he wont.

Tyson was not fat, he was not hanging on out of breath, he wasnt begging to quit in the corner either. He wasnt stalling for time, complaining to the reff, he just did not have any answers for douglas.

I have seen many out of shape fighters know what they are doing until they get too tired to do it but this was not the case.

Tyson had beat guys with longer arms before but here he was against a guy who could time him who realy wanted to win and could read him. Tyson had no answers.

 

I don't think he had the smarts when he realised his power wasn't gonna win him the fight against buster. He probably thought like everyone before him he could walk through douglas and blast him out.

He had no plan b nor did his corner. But atleast he went out on his shield.

 

I think when you examine fight it becomes immediately clear that it was Tyson's own ineptness that did him in. He moved with far less intensity than he had in most of his fights leading up to that and everything from his rumored poor training, getting dropped in sparring and his trainers using a prophylactic as an enswell suggests that not only did they take Douglas lightly, they were no were near prepared for the kind of fight that Douglas brought forward.

He looked ordinary, didn't let his hands go, didn't jab or got to the body as often as he had. It was clearly a case of an average fighter rising to the occasion and an exceptional fighter not showing up.

Douglas did let himself down against Douglas, personally I think Evander would have beaten him anyway albeit in a more competitive fight.

Tyson didn't make the excuse and is usually brutally honest immediately after the fight regardless of the outcome.


Tyson didn't appear to have any answers because he was doing the same thing over and over. His jab wasn't really there nor was the body attack. His offense was predictable and he didn't use combinations. In effect his offense wasn't varied enough to make Douglas have to refocus. Douglas to his credit was able to time Tyson and neutralize his offense. Pinklon Thomas gave Tyson a bit to work with and IMO was a more talented fighter than Douglas and took some of the middle rounds but Tyson adjusted because he was focused and he had a competent corner giving him sound advice.

 

By physical peak, I mean his peak years.

If Ward were to starve himself or have some other excuse, and lose to Froch, I would still consider the event to have occurred during Ward's prime, even if he wasn't what many would consider prime' at the time.

Like you said, it would be his fault.

Twenty three year old Tyson was at the peak of his best years.

 

9 out of 10 times Tyson’s power alone would bail him out, so he would concentrate on that when he was frustrated. I am not sure he ever had the attention span to focus so if he missed a shot and was tied up a couple of times he wouldn’t be able to process the programmed defence and foot work that would position him for unanswered combinations because he was too frustrated. This was a immature man child in many respects.
The guy was so fast and sharp he wouldn’t be frustrated 9 out of 10 times and looking fantastic but against a problem he wasn’t so great. Douglas always would have been a problem looking as good as he was that night.

Tyson’s problem was he could only maintain his winning style when things were going his way. the combinations and head movement would disappear when he became frustrated. maybe each challenger was getting closer to unravelling Tyson’s formula?

Tyson was having to try new things because challengers were having more success and looking to use things other opponents managed to do against him. To be fair he was fighting a lot of spoilers who wanted to hold - forcing Tyson to think more. As soon as Tyson was having to think he became frustrated. it did not look like he ever had the attention span to truly focus in any of the fights he had that were not complete blow outs.

That being said there is still no getting away from it Tyson was a great fighter and nobody looked beter when he was on top. When he was "on top" in a fight Tyson was a different level from anyone but even in his prime he could be unsettled and frustrated into ever getting into "on top" mode.

 

How can people choose 100%??

If Tyson was 100% he would have KOed Douglas inside 30 seconds.

 

Yeah but what COULD he do? he was losing on the scorecards and he needed the knockout. He got one in the 9th (im not going to argue about long count etc) but then the bell rang.

When your short and have short arms...theres not a lot you can do

He wasnt 6ft like Ali, Lewis, Klit etc, he couldnt just lean back and rely on his jab, or do a rope a dope

 

Tyson was not loseing on the cards.
It was a draw going into round ten.

 

Regardless of what Tyson did or didnt do in training, he admits he didnt train for both Douglas and Tucker very hard. So there is two things you can take from this. One would a half assed trained Tyson under Rooney be better prepared than a half assed trained Tyson under Snowell? I would suspect definitely yes.
Also, Tyson admits to not being at his best. So Tyson got away with it and kept doing it because he felt noone could beat him. He obviously couldnt get away with it with Douglas that night, but that doesnt really prove Tyson was any less of a fighter, he just came accross a well prepared fighter when he wasnt, so he got his butt kicked. In no way does that mean Douglas always beats him, it only proves he wasnt really taking boxing seriously and paid the price because of it.

 

Tyson’s problem was he could only maintain his winning style when things were going his way. the combinations and head movement would disappear when he became frustrated.

A fit but badly frustrated fighter cannot perform regardless of his condition. A badly trained fighter can still show the right moves until he gets tired.