Early 90s Tyson would wreck Liston in a slug fest

Ahem ... George ... cough, cough ... Fore ... cough ... man.

 

Tyson in his 1986-1991 prime was never intimidated by anyone....and he had a masters in how to fight hard and not fight intimidated even if he was.....these were the teachings of cus d"amato....the 1997 tyson hardly seemed intimidated by holyfield...biting someones,ears and pushing him, suggest a angry frustrated fighter not an intimidated one.....Tyson was angry at the headbutts and frustrated at the loss of his own skills.

Regardless 1991 Tyson the guy who fought the worlds most dangerous Heavyweight Razor Ruddock twice in 3 months...would not fight intimidated against Liston

 

First of all, you DONT know that Tyson never would have been down. He was dropped by guys who didn't hit as hard as Williams. I wouldn't be shocked if Ali stopped him late either.

Lets put it another way.

How do we know Vitali's chin is good? Sure he was only down once, but let's look at the facts. He fought in a terrible era and even the best opponents he had were pretty sub par. A wheezing 38 year old Briggs, a flabby plodding Samuel Peter, an old washed up Corrie Sanders, the mediocre clubber Derrick Chisora, etc.

They were mostly all overweight plodders who could barely string together 4 punches without needing to catch their breath. Sure they were modern sized, but part of being a good puncher is having good technique, timing, accuracy, and speed, 4 things that many of Vitali's opponents lacked.

See how incredibly biased that scathing take was? We give Vitali the benefit of the doubt because he was never KO'd in spite of the fact he fought in a weak era. If the average heavyweights 20 years from now were all 6'6 and 260 lbs we wouldn't just assume Vitali's chin was overrated since the average guy in his era was around 230-240 lbs. That wouldn't even make sense. A solid chin is a solid chin, period.

That doesn't mean we assume that Liston had a McCall or Chuvalo level titanium chin, but you cannot possibly think someone had a bad chin when they had literally 1 knockdown in 54 fights when they were a 40 year old heroin addict. At the very least you'd have to rate it at least an 8/10 for the benefit of the doubt even if he only faced a few serious punchers.

With Tyson we KNOW how good his chin held up in his era. He was stopped 5x and never got off the floor to win. He doesn't get brownie points for facing good competition if he LOST to many of his best opponents! That's why I say you can't have it both ways.

 

I go with Liston in terms of punching power as do many who've seen them and trained with both of them first hand. Tyson's speed, angles, and combos were what made him so dangerous. Also all of Liston and Foreman's common opponents said Liston hit harder while all of Foreman and Tyson's common oppenents said Foreman hit harder... and this was an older Foreman who didn't hit as hard as he did 2 decades prior. Johnny Tocco who's seen and trained with all three said Liston was the hardest hitter between them.

What was so outrageously biased? I'm willing to have a friendly discussion and argue my points.

 

Im done explaining this to you.

Liston had 1 legitimate stoppage loss, Tyson had 5. All you're doing is downplaying Liston's era and hyping up the average punchers who beat the crap out of Tyson to make excuses. You can do that with literally any resume and I proved it with my Vitali example but it either went over your head or you ignored it.

The facts of the matter are that Liston was rocked less, dropped less, and KO'd less. That's all I care about. Anything else is goal post shifting and biased assumptions comparing opponents from totally different eras cherry picking facts that suit your agenda.

Tyson also never won a single war outside of his brawl with the one armed no defense Ruddock where he nut blasted him over and over. To me it appears there is zero evidence he'd survive a "slug fest" with a solid chinned boxer puncher with the longest and most thunderous jab in history, power in both hands, good defense, good stamina, and solid fundamentals.

Now in a "boxing match", sure, his speed and timing and technique could enable him to outbox Liston or stop him early due to a punchers chance since he was such a fast starter and was a good finisher. But I only see Foreman and possibly Vitali beating Liston in a slug fest. Your thread title, not mine.

 

Tyson absolutely did not hit harder. A baseless claim. He could withstand single, heavy shots granted but he couldn't take accumalitive damage, against an average puncher in Douglas when he was himself in his prime. Also Williams was not "the late 50s version of Mike Weaver". Williams was a much harder puncher. He was a murderous puncher, who contemporary oppenents feared more than Liston and thought he hit even hit harder. Liston dispatched him with ease. When Tyson faced his respective Williams in Ruddock, he went life and death 2X, resorted to low blows and was seemingly trying to get himself disqualified to get out of there. Liston's chin and especially heart was more proven than Tyson's.

 

Jesus Christ man he makes that one "Williams is nowhere near Ingo" guy look objective!

 

Liston has the thinnest resume of beating modern sized Heavies......his claim to fame is cleaning out cruisers and light heavies..........pushing over another glass chinned Light Heavy to get the title and quit twice against Clay/Ali.

Could would but never did beat a Modern LARGE and in shape modern Heavy....there were simply not around when Liston was the "Big" guy.

Tussling with the cops, sparring stories etc etc are fairy tales similar to Hillary in a land slide.......in todays world Liston would not enforce shid for the Mob because he would get clipped by some 120 pound gang banger with a piece....end off.

You always know when some one mentions Tyson after prison, idiot alert because Tyson was finished as a top tier fighter after jail., never the same again , age had nothing to do with it, Boxing is 80 % mental and Tyson checked out.

Listons record is paper thin facing what I call todays Heavies and his record of title defenses in the thinnest of all.

In the classic section Liston is this giant killer but in reality he went rounds and rounds with under sized heavies and had his jaw broken in the process.........

 

Liston had 1 ko loss, Tyson had 5. I'm tired of repeating myself, you are trying to have things both ways and give Tyson credit for facing larger harder hitting opponents even though he was stopped more. That logic only works if the boxer in question had a chin that held up despite facing more hard hitters than the other boxer. That's why Ali and Holyfield are praised for their chins because they faced tons of hard hitters AND they rarely got stopped. Tyson got stopped multiple times and often was stopped by men who WEREN'T big hitters!

You cannot penalize Liston for fighting in an era where boxers actually got in shape and were conditioned to fight for 15 rounds. Lighter boxers are also faster and have better stamina and defense so it's not like Liston just had an easy time, he had to actually think and box. Many of his opponents were young and in their prime too.

You can ask where all the big punchers of Liston's era were and I can ask you where are all the prime in shape boxers with good stamina on Tysons resume? You had fat ass Tony Tubbs, old ass inactive Holmes, coke head Thomas with an injury, Tony Tucker with a broken hand, you'd think a guy as overrated as Tyson would have more prime fighters on his resume. Weird huh? I'll give him Berbick, Ruddock, Stewart, and Williams, who were roughly C and B level fighters with many glaring flaws. None of them stand out in terms of stamina, speed, or defense like many of Liston's opponents.

As for the "SHW KO punchers" you brought up:

Smith landed like 2 punches per round and mostly blocked, clinched, and smothered Tyson 90% of the fight. He didn't open up until the last round in possibly the most boring title fight of all time and yet still managed to rock and wobble Tyson despite hardly any built up prior damage.

Bruno also didn't land much and outside of a busy 1st round, went into survival mode constantly holding, rabbit punching, and backing up into the ropes hiding in his shell. Bruno had horrible stamina throughout his career, a shaky chin, leaky defense, no head movement, and little snap or speed to his punches due to focusing way too much on muscle mass. Yes he could punch hard, but he didn't land much.

Golota threw nothing and landed nothing, got brutally dropped in the 1st round, and literally spit out his mouth piece and left the ring with garbage thrown at him in the 2nd round.

Did You even watch these fights? Because those are HORRIBLE examples.

I already gave him credit for the Ruddock fight, but again he was a 1 armed bandit loading up for one big shot over and over. Even an average chinned guy can survive against a guy like that because you know what's coming and can block, parry, or brace yourself most of the time (which Tyson did).

Lennox wasn't really laying it on him until the last few rounds when Emmanuel Stewart yelled at him to finish things. Lennox was overly cautious at times and often content to go the distance. You clearly didn't watch the fight if you're under the impression Lennox was throwing bomb after bomb with everything he had and Tyson just tanked it. Oh, and he KNOCKED TYSON OUT. Why do Tyson fans keep bringing this up to support claims about a prime Tyson but then get mad if you point out things like how poorly Tyson dealt with Lennox's heavy jab, which is exactly what he'd have to deal with against Liston? You can't cherry pick moments in a boxer's career to make a Frankenstein version containing all their best qualities and ignore the bad.

Liston isn't going to be throwing single shots, he's going to be hammering away with that jab and setting up his brutal body shots, clubbing hooks, and uppercuts. He's one of the best combination punchers in heavy weight history, he was no 1 big punch at a time plodding slugger. Liston did not burn through his stamina nor was he overly anxious to seek out a KO.