There were quite a few people picking Conn before the first fight. He was considered an underdog, but a serious live challenger, and there was some opinion that Louis had lost some of his speed and was past it. Lets not forget it was his 18th title defence. If Conn ended Louis' career that night, he still would have been up there for most title defences, with only Wlad and Holmes having more defences at heavyweight.
That's what I mean, they try to say 'that wasn't Tyson in there'. And it gets repeated ad nauseam until none Tyson fans accept it as fact
I hear you. It’s my all time favorite performance at heavyweight. I’ve started a couple threads on it over the years: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/buster-douglas-performance-against-tyson.561780/ https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...he-week-2-buster-douglas-v-mike-tyson.619604/
Tyson was not in his absolute prime, his skillset started declining gradually after firing Rooney. He barely trained for the Douglas fight and his mind was elsewhere.
He definitely had slower hands and he didn't move quicker than Conn. His reaction time wasn't better either. Sure, he covered more distance in one move because he was much bigger but I wouldn't call him faster overall.
You can just tell by watching both of them, Tyson had better head movement, was much faster, hit harder, and was a much better combo puncher, if they were to fight they would both have to swarm in and Frazier just wouldn’t handle someone the same size as him who is much faster and stronger, would be exciting while it lasted though
I disagree about head movement. Frazier on the other hand was much better inside, had much more stamina, was better pressure fighter and fought better when hurt. Both have advantages over the other one. It's a matter of styles - Frazier would never lose to Buster.
