What did you think of Tysons performance vs Bonecrusher smith?

Thats not really a fair comparison though is it? Smith was extremely inexperienced when he fought Bruno.

It would be 3 years and several high class contenderss/champions later before he would face Tyson.

Also, Its no shame to be outboxed by Bruno, after all Lennox Lewis was too. Bruno's achiles heal was his chin and stamina. Not his ability.

Bruno also had physical gifts (height and reach) that made for a much easier night to outbox a big guy like Smith. Tyson had to accomplish his shut out with severe deficits in height in reach.

 

Tyson loved being shorter then his opponents. Not quite relevant, methinks, as it predicated his whole style.

 

I'm sure they watched tapes of Smith and thought it was going to be an easy nights work. The guy was going to be right in front of Mike all night and the difference in handspeed is about as wide as it gets. And Smith is hardly a guy that is going to hold onto a title long anyway.

But it was like no plan B if things didn't go according to plan or the tko3 script. And no changes during the fight to get the desired results. To me, that's a weakness and a problem. Certainly Smith was not the type to capitalize, but later on Tyson met some guys who could and did.

 

Smith never got by with experience or skill. He put up a worthy effort against Holmes after the Bruno fight, which was a pitiful display with Smith barely throwing a punch until the final round, while going on to lose to Adilson Rodriguez months after Tyson beat him.

A more experienced Smith was also outpointed by Marvis Frazier. He just wasn't too good if he didn't connect his right hand on your chin. To Tyson's credit, Smith did do exactly that in the closing seconds of round 12 without putting him away.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifDJ4-Lja6c[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewHs5oh8qjI[/ame]

 

I think Smith learned to box in the military, he had barely any experience and did pretty good with limited skills. Hes kind of put him on the level of Hasim Rahman.

 

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

 

Yeah Ive seen that before. I followed Tyson's career pretty closely in the 80's. He was a wild child and you just knew once Cus was gone and Rooney was out of the picture things would fall apart for Tyson. He really had some good boxing guys around him in the beginning and they had Tyson as a real professional who just ate drank and slept boxing and really bought into the whole Cus D Amato legacy and mindset.

It was always about defense and combination punching. The power and speed just made Tyson that much greater. You hear Lott and Rooney talk about it in that piece but it was all about defense and thats what made opponents fear Tyson more than anything because throwing at air and getting countered is the most difficult thing to handle in a fight and what breaks an opponent down mentally more than anything.