Most primes do not last much longer, certainly if you look at the number of fights he had. Tyson was an ATG with a highly unusual mix of great speed, power, aggression & defensive skills. I do not believe that Holyfield-even with PEDs-could handle peak Tyson. He executed a brilliant strategy, but prine Tyson would move & throw much better. It is reasonable to see it otherwise. But it is a cartoonish opinion born of just picking a fighter to overidentify with, &/or project an "enemy" to project hate & derision on, to have such an extreme & dismissive opinion about Tyson. Just as it would be in the mirror image; someone hating on & contemptuous of Holyfield & acting like he was garbage. Both are just picking a side or "tribe" & refusing to be scrupulously fair, give due credit-& see reality.
Even Holyfield didn't feel that way. He said he was glad he got to Tyson when he did rather than face that 1980s monster.
Of course I agree. My opinion hasn't change on Tyson. He has been a constant fighter his whole career. Same speed, same power, same head movements. What changed is he started to meet his men more often, and the blueprint to beat him was well known. His best victory is against Spinks who was a Light Heavyweight. Tyson lost all his fights against champions determined to challenge his aura. Holyfield eats him any time. Lewis same. Douglas did eat him in what many consider his prime (I think Tyson had no prime, he has been constant from his 20's until his late 30's). You can watch his performance side by side during all these years and he is the exact same: A one-way forward fighter trying to KO his opponent. The science of boxing teaches everyone that a good boxer beats a slugger. Holyfield was a great inside tactician I consider he was a very good boxer.
Think tyson would have beat him prime. Good fight that i think was actually pencilled in before tyson was incarcerated. Pretty sure tyson was heavily favoured to win that fight. Would have been a cracker back then...but think tyson would have won it but tbf tyson was on the slide around that time as well. Tyson 86-88 would have beat him tho imo....tyson after he lost his original trainers....would have won if he came in in shape but would have been a much tougher fight than 86-88 tyson. The tyson holyfield beat wasn,t near prime tyson. He was living off his power at that point. The signs we,re there going in. And holyfield pretty much just highlighted that. Tyson was living like an amatuer for years...after the d,mato days ended. It was pretty much testament to cus,s training that tyson had any kind of success after he left the trainers with the way he was living.
The Tyson Holyfield fought was pretty much 1 dimensional and easy to time with his single shot output. There was 1 rd in which Tyson threw his bodyshot/uppercut combo that stunned Holyfield but Tyson the resorted back to headhunting. I haven't seen it since it was live so my memory of the event may be a bit foggy.
I look at what Tyson lacked in 96 comparison to his pre prison form and it’s a laundry list. Anyone that thinks Tyson was the same at 30 as he was at 22, 23 is deluded. He had a young mans style, added to the fact he was inactive for near 4 years. That has to have an effect, it does when these guys talk about other fighters but I guess the rules change where Tyson is concerned... Yes holy was old in 96 but he was active, used to getting hit and adapted as an older fighter. It would have been a different fight, a great one but I don’t go for this Holyfield beats Tyson every time stuff. They were fairly well matched really, it’s a great shame it didn’t happen.
A prime Bowe gives a prime Tyson all sorts of problems. Not sure if he beats Mike though. Cant be taking shots from Tyson like he took against Holyfield in their first two fights. Mike would knock him out.
Its even wrong in two ways, considering the real bout itself lasted 11 rounds before Tyson was stopped on his feet. But the ten years younger well practised fighter would get destroyed....?
You misunderstand my post. I never said Tyson wasn't good. I said he was VERY overrated. Any time someone brings up the fact that Buster (a journeyman) beat and stopped Mike Tyson at an age where fighters are considered to be at their physical peak...the excuses come out. It's always "Oh he lost Cus" or "He lost focus" when the simple fact is he was mentally weak. He still to this day is portrayed as some killing machine that, "If only he could have stayed focused" would KO basically every fighter in existence, when the plain truth is right in everyone's face. He was mentally weak and when someone could take his power, or smother him... he looked for one punch. Was Mike capable of beating some of the other top heavyweights of other eras? Yes. But in no way was he ever likely to be some kind of GOAT that would be the #1 all time. He was WAY overrated to folklore levels and was the benefactor of great matchups. He got stopped by a journeyman who had never held a belt before, or after that fight in Tyson's absolute prime and the vast majority of wins on his resume aren't that good. He has a couple really good wins but people romanticize him way too much.
In most of Evander's big wins, he gets hurt but tough's it out. Mike was the best HW finisher the world had ever seen. Tyson ko9.
I did not claim you thought Tyson was not good-that would be deeply irrational. Just that you are too extreme in your opinion on the matter of him & Holyfield, & you rate Tyson too low. One problem is that you conflate the problems & regression of Tyson with his peak or prime years. He was not mentally weak during his prime, even if the seeds were there. He did not just look for one punch & lose heart until after his comeback. Even against Douglas-& Lewis when fairly washed up-he fought hard & took much adversity. Some lionized him uncritically; others go to the opposite end of the spectrum & deny how special he really was. He said it long after he retired "I am not tough now, but I was". The fact that he lost focus & a great performance by Douglas took his crown does not effect his overall skill & accomplishments. And if a fighter is physically peak but falters...Then that is subtracted from his peak-hence you did not count it-which is defined by not just potential, but actual performance. The vast majority of, oh, virtually every boxer ever are "not that good". If you take all the fights pre-prison Tyson had, compare them to what most top fighters face-he compares very well. Better pre-prison in terms of fighters faced than, say, Ali pre-exile. In opponent's records & how good the opponents were head to head. Both in terms of the records of those he fought, their size, how he beat them, & the frequency that he fought.
The funny thing is that Tyson was actually on his way to winning against Holyfield in the 2nd fight, at least was buzzing him badly with everything he threw in that round.....until Holyfield headbutted him and he lost his mind with the ear bite. All Tyson had to do was maintain his composure, but Holyfield's constant headbutting finally got to him. Holyfield at any stage of his career would lose to the Tyson who defeated Michael Spinks. Holyfield was hurt badly by Tyson in the 5th round of the first fight, had Tyson had the speed, timing and accuracy of his younger years he would have put away that Holyfield for good, probably well before the 5th round.
