Step back in time - Mike Tyson versus Trevor Berbick

There were some people who felt the fight was a little too soon for Tyson, that he hadn't fought a fighter as strong or as durable as Berbick previously, that he hadn't faced enough sterner competition to go in with Trevor at such an early age.

Tyson was favoured to beat Berbick, but I don't think anyone could see him winning in the fashion that he actually did. Tyson's handspeed was something special. He beat Berbick to the punch everytime. Tyson was letting combos fly from every angle. Berick couldn't deal with the accumilation of shots.

When Berbick went back to the corner after the first, Angelo Dundee knew his man was in trouble. Angelo was going nuts. Even at this early stage, you could sense that because Angelo was agitated, the writing was very much on the wall for Berbick.

Tyson showed excellent boxing skills - accuracy, timing, patient aggressiveness, etc.

I remember Jimm Watt giving his opinion on Tyson around this time & he stated he felt Tyson was the most complete boxer in the HW division. The only thing he lacked was experience, which obviously, comes with time.

One of Tyson's best performances in my view. Even now, it's amazing to think Tyson was only 20 years old. Just take a minute to think about that. Being HW champ at 20!

What's also incredible is that it's getting on for nearly twenty-two years that the fight happened.

 

I tried to send the official ESB results to my contacts at boxrec but they informed me they already had the results posted.

Strange.

 

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the great WILLIE PEP.

 

WILLIE PEP V SANDY SADLER 1950


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My first impressions were "damn!"

I was glad someone had come along to clean up the division and I thought we were witnessing a future all time great.
I thought he would reign for as long as he wanted and was likely to be his own worst enemy.

 

I love that version of Tyson, but I'm not as convinced of his invulnerability as some others.

My greatest beef with Mike is that his prime was too short. You're talking what, about two years, and no great notches on his resume. Further, he didn't have the post-prime wins to buttress his previous achievements, a critical factor for many great fighters in cementing legacy.

Thus, the question becomes whether Tyson was an all-Millennium sort of HW along the lines of Ali and Louis, who lost his drive and skills very suddenly, or whether he merely was an excellent (top 15 all-time HW) and exciting champion whose limitations were brought to light as he fought more talented and determined men.

Despite what should have been his physial peak, Tyson's abilities did appear to drop precipitously even prior to prison. For that reason, I think everyone would accept that the slippage was not all due to the particular craft or style of an opponent. There simply was no aging gracefully for Tyson, as Ali, Louis, Lewis, Holmes, Foreman and others were able to do.

Still, how much goes to this loss of ability, versus his encounters with better fighers, versus his own apparent tendency to implode under duress. Clearly, he'd have been tested mentally (and physically) by the other greats than he was by the likes of Berbick, Tucker, Tubbs, Spinks and a past-it Holmes.

While no one would have an easy time with that 1986-88 version of Tyson, you have to take a pretty big leap of faith to assume he'd have defeated any HW ever, given the caliber of competition he faced during that time.

But wouldn't we all love to find a worthy successor.

 

this version of tyson was focused, determined and best of all, hungry. You can say poor as well, considering that he was gonna taste the real big bucks after the berbick fight.

and that version will destroy a lot of the so-called prime heavyweights(if there's really such) of this era, IMO.

 

No ****. It seems like yesterday. Sometimes it amazes me that I saw the entire Tyson era come and go, start to finish. Hell, I was following boxing for a good 6-8 years before Tyson came along!

 

H2H, prime Tyson could have taken anyone in history on a given night, if only he had better handlers and morals, he would have gone down as the greatest.

 

Trevor Berbick was a talented fighter who was even more emotionally unstable than Mike Tyson - if you can believe that.

He, more than most, would be likely to fall victim to Tyson's aura of invincibility - even though he possessed a huge ego.

 

That's totally false and I've had many discussions about it as well. Holyfield and Lewis aren't the only ones that stood up to Mike, neither was Douglas. Razord Ruddock stood up to Mike twice, Jose Ribalta, Bruno the first fight(hurt Mike in round 1), Larry Holmes was doing good, Biggs was also doing good, Tony Tucker and Mitch Green. All those guys stood up to Tyson, they didn't win but they gave their all and didn't fight scared to death. The only time when fighters were scared to death was when Tyson came out from prison till he ran into Evander Holyfield and since then everyone started claims that Tyson fades against guys that fight back, ALL those guys mentioned fought back and Tyson didn't really fade.

 

great footage!

 

great