Mike Tyson - The Hardest puncher in History

First of all you have to remember tyson (age19)was only a pro for 14 months! you know tillis had a cement chin(and body) because he went 10rds with shavers and 15rds with weaver, two awesome(and much more experienced) fighters than tyson.i feel even if tyson lost,he gave a great effort.Here are some quotes from the fighters concerning the fight.__"I'd say he hurt me," Tillis said. "You could see he was hurting me. . . ." Tillis, the Fighting Cowboy from Tulsa, went on to recommend that Tyson hereafter keep company with Earnie (Acorn) Shavers when hard hitters are evaluated. "He punches harder than the Acorn,"-"Boy, you punch harder than...." Tillis said, "and the Acorn can crack."___ "He was too experienced for me. He was hitting me in the belly and I couldn't fight the way I was accustomed to fighting. ...It was a real close fight. I think the knockdown saved me."Mike Tyson.

 

Okay frank, here's where we can all hear what Tillis says about the power of Shavers over Tyson. At 2:30 of the following audio clip in a telephone interview, you can hear the man himself start raving about how hard Earnie hit, bringing up the subject of Shavers on his own initiative with a great one liner.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXxnmaX4FAo

 

Well Seamus, I think Mercer has aided Tommy's reputation for power considerably, joking that Morrison was hitting him so hard he was farting in the ring.:rofl

Ray is an awfully credible reference as to Tommy's power, sort of the Tex Cobb of his era in the HW division, somebody not to be casually dismissed for his opinion in this discussion.

Back in the day, after decisioning Mitch Green, veteran ringside scribes were saying Tyson's two handed power was more comparable to Frazier's hook than Foreman's double sided lethality, causing me to speculate on what Smoke's reputation for power might be if his right matched his left in potency.

As C00ney rose to contention, many were also comparing his power to Foreman's, but I seem to recall that some common opponents were leaning towards George in that regard. (Some scribes were enthusing over how Gerry dropped Denis while Foreman didn't, but Dino only avoided an official KD against George because he fell to his knees just after a round ending bell from shots Foreman landed right before that bell, sort of like Zale did against Cerdan.)

Maybe Tillis would have felt differently against the more effective and experienced Tyson of a year and a half later. (My personal favorite performance of Mike's is the body shot based beat down of Biggs to close out 1987, after having been extended the 12 round distance by Smith and Tucker to officially reunify the alphabets. James was food allergy hindered against Weaver, but he also admitted he didn't care for the body shots of Hercules too much. I don't think the Tyson of Biggs would have been much fun for him either.)

 

Pabold I much respect your knowledge, but I feel you are off base here.

looking at who Koed what qualitry opposition is clearly an excellent indication of a combination of effective punching ability & skill. Sometimes more leveraged towards brute force, sometimes the many other factors involved.
Since speed, combinations, work rate, skill, endurance, defense, accuracy & other factors are necessarily involved in dropping a man & ending a fight....

It is a TERRIBLE way to measure absolute power just to see who stops who how often.

it is tremendously inexact. there is usually a corelation, often strong, between power & stoppages, but oftenthese things are partally or very untethered.

So we must go by our eyes & the estimation of many boxers.
I used Cobb as one MORE example who though Shavers hit hardest, after backing Annubis who listed Shavers as hitting hardest when they fought OTHER candidates for those with the most power.

We also must consider the impact of blows when they land glancingly, not in effective combos, partially blacked, seen & rolled with, etc...

it is always a matter of debate, there is no one absolute proof.

But it is exponentially better than just awarding the guys who are best at putting together MANY skills tos core KOs against good opposition the title oif hardest hitters.

 

my only point was tyson was very young and inexperienced yet he did very well.

 

Is this really the best you can do? Name calling and quotes from a renowned crackpot?

The tape is available. Do you seriously think that Tillis won 8… or even 5 of those rounds?

And more protean to the argument, how does this fight 5 years and 6 KO defeats before Tommy met Tillis strengthen your ridiculous argument that Morrison was a stiffer puncher than Tyson. Please to answering that before more asinine name calling and revisionist history.

Your bullshiit just bullshiit upon itself.

 

I would conceed that if the title of the thread was "hardest single shot" I wouldn't suggest Iron Mike qualified. That honour may go to Shavers right hand or Tuas left hook.....However, looking at the subject in more general terms I cannot think of a harder two fisted puncher in history. Every shot Tyson threw was sleep inducing. Left hooks wiped out Carl Williams, Tubbs and Berbick and right hands detsroyed Spinks, Holmes and Botha. The uppercuts that brought down Bruno (first fight) were devasting. Have a look at his early round body attack against Biggs, Spinks (just one shot) and Ruddock....even his jab was powerful when he committed to it.

The remarkable thing about the punches I have referred to above is that they where either in world title fights, or against former champions (with the exeception of Ruddock). Tyson's range of lethal punches and their effectiveness against world class opposition places him at the top of the pile in my books

 

Tyson his really hard. Pablod I appreciate the distinctions you make.
I would agree that a guy like Wilder MAy hit amongst the top guys, but hard to know against middling opposition.

Also caturn has a point, though I think it fair to say that hardest single shots is a reasonable assumption of what the question means0unless it is qualified as something like in all punch types, considering all punches thrown, &.or weighting for VOLUME of punches, as if adding up all force thrown or landed.
if that was the case. Ike may well be #1 in the Tua fight, though Tua & others hit harder...

Pabold, ffective punching power is just a distinct QUESTION than force.
Yes it is more complete & important.
But even if a guy rarely landed clean. fought poory & burned out, made Shavers look like a Master Boxer...

The query is simply who prduced most force per blow, not impact or success.
So we need to weigh the effect of punches CONSIDERING if they are glancing, seen & rolled with, pasrt of combinations that helped put a man down...

In informally triangulating not who is best at KOs, but who produced the most force.

One more point. I cannot establish precisely why scien-terrifically...
But there is something going on beyond mass X speed = power.
That accounts pretty well foir a Louis or Tyson.

But natural & developed leberage & biomechanics play a part also.

Long arms wound up just are distinct from Tua/Tyson arms, though both can hit like trucks.

And large "heavy" hands absolutely add to impact, & effect surface area struck.Gloves may damp this down, though alegedly their weight does not affect things. But the extra weight & size where the blow is delivered must have an effect, like blackjack or club would enhance impact.

Shavers did not have much size compared to even those in his day.
But his long ars, huge hands, commitment to the shot, great leverage & form-his one technical asset-& relative speed for such long blows has him at #1 for me. Well this is secondary to the testomony of many who fought other Monsters like Foreman. Lyle & Tyson. Frazier was not in the same class-for single blows.

If I & others are correct, is it not amazing that a man who was maybe 6', in his prime a max of 210, could have hit harder than any natural giant that completely dwarfed him, enhanced by modern weight training & sometimes by high tech PEDs?

 

If the hardest punch ever is thrown in the woods but completely misses its target, is it still the hardest punch?

This navel gazing bullshiit is of little interest to me. It's just a c o ckmeasuring competition. Give me results and I will give you power, functional, provable power.

 

Cant argue with that.

 

I said mass x acceleration = force not power and there really is nothing besides this going on. whether its applied to boxing or snooker ba11s or tennis or planet collisions.
You say its hard to judge wilder because of middling opposition, (which is true) but then you go on to say that it doesn't matter if a fighter is terrible, its the guys hitting power you're interested in and his ability to deliver it against top opposition and chins is irrelevant.
So by that criteria you should really include a man like wilder.
We might as well set up a punch machine in a fairground and let random members of the public queue up to take their chance at being the hardest puncher in history.

 

I would put Lewis, Wlad and Foreman higher. Certainly they are stronger than Mike. Maybe Tyson through the hardest combinations.

 

first of all,shavers' fists, like lennox lewis',were 12" not huge(especially lewis at 6'5"! -- liston at 6' had huge 14" fists. rocky's at 5'9" were 11.5",tyson's 13" like frazier's.dempsey once said that galento had fat man's small hands,yet galentos' hook was the best and it was deadly.so as you can see, hand size does not matter.shavers like liston, had long arms,so what? galento,tyson rocky,frazier and tua had short arms.how long were valuev's at over 7'? i am sure they are quite long (and i bet valuev had huge acromegaly type fists) or mike grant at 6'7" or carnera at 6'5" but they were not know as punchers.i won't re post my "giants of boxing" list highlighting men all the way up to over 7' tall and none of them known as punchers.i feel that physical strength is the most important(name one awesome heavyweight banger that was not know for his build and/or strength) close second is execution and commitment. and then placement and combination punching.

 

Wilder is not massively built neither was Joe Louis and both those are one punch knockout artists.