Step back in time - Mike Tyson versus Trevor Berbick

I'm intrigued....

 

People will take my opinion on the matter of Tyson's H2H ability due to my awesome fight prediction record, where as McGrain, I argued with you that Hatton was **** and would do nothing to Floyd, while you bought your British compatriot's hype and said it'd be really competitive.

Then again, my agenda was to make Floyd's win look like a big zero, it stands that I still got the win correct, Floyd TKO9, uncompetitive and a beatdown.

 

Nothing at all, just stirring you up a bit as you stir me up a bit. I think you're more intelligent than I am however, therefore nothing worked.

 

Please refrain from the homosexual innuendo involving me and re-direct it to Decebal, who will partake in such discussion's.

 

I had seen Tyson going in and figured he could not live up to the hype in his first proper test.

Mind you I was not alone, look at the books, the fight was pick-em all the way up to the final week before the bout, where Tyson became the 3/1 on favourite.

 

I saw it live, got up to see it, Tyson back then was something special.

 

Tyson had great troubles in sparring with men like Lennox and Carl Williams, back in the early eighties... That can be a factor in many cases , but wih Mike it didn't at all he in fact used the (what don't kill you makes you stronger) The first time i saw Mike Live was when he faced Tillis , i saw highlights and they tried to compare him to our own UK heavys like Bruno and Mason , Notice etc.. I then watched Bruno lose to Witherspoon, Berbick beat Pinklon Thomas, Spinks get stripped , and Witherspoon lose to Smith at the Garden.. Then i waited with baited breath for that very momentous night when a kid as young as Mike (20 years ) would get a chance to fight such monsters to try to beat Pattersons record as youngest heavyweight champion. I remember sitting up into the early hours with my dad , to see the fight live on ITV television, That kid i saw beat Trevor would have beaten Lewis , Bowe, Wladimir and Holyfield, he was too ferocious and spirited.. the young man was on fire , unless you saw him at the time you wont ever realise how unbeatable he was, i actually thought he would retire unbeaten.. he did seem like after he beat Carl Williams that this may have panned out , the challengers were all but beaten, Dokes and Douglas were the two left, Dokes priced himself out and Douglas was a massive outsider.. I think many who were around as close followers back then would agree that Mike was awesome and after that disasterous day in Japan , he became a different man, Jail just suckerpunched the broken spirited young Tyson.. He was always very dangerous , but the aura had all but gone.. God bless.. My Opinion in hindsight was that only one man could offer a decent challenge style wise , Tyrell Biggs the 1987 WBA # 1 heavyweight, but after his 1897 fight with David Bey he looked just like cannon feed.. Mike had the chance to become unbeatable but fell short.. one amazing kid..

 

All of that is very true. In fact, there was a great deal of "buzz" around Tyson at least a year before he fought Berbick - he was already beginning to be touted in boxing mags and newspaper columns, which were the primary modes of communication between the industry and fans back then.

There was even talk of this "phenom" from the Catskills before he started to face decent guys like Jesse Ferguson, Mitch Green or Quick Tillis, even when he was knocking out the usual cannon fodder prospects are fed, and even before his fights were shown on TV. I've been trying to remember what his first TV fight was - I think it was Jesse Ferguson. Y'know, the one where he said he was trying to "jam the bone up into his brain!"

Yeah, we fans knew back then he was gonna clean out the HW division, or at least we hoped he would. The division was pretty much in the same kind of doldrums it's been in for most of this decade.