Merry Christmas. Mike Tyson Presents:The Heavyweights

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If you haven't seen it before, you're in for a proper treat.

If you have, you could do a me and watch it again in the final hour you'll get alone for the next three days.

Merry Christmas, Classic.

 

Jack Johnson: "For his time, he was a defensive genius...he wasn't elusive with his body, he caught the punches in the air...i'm very interested in his fight with Mr.Burns because the way he toyed with Mr.Burns, and Burns was a tremendous fighter for his day despite the height differential. Mind-boggling...I watched Johnson-Willard until it came out of my ears, and I consistently see he got hit in the chin. Twenty-six rounds in the hot Havana sun...his style, no, if he was a modern-day, he wouldn't make a penny. He was very clever, very smart, but very uninteresting."

 

Jack Dempsey: "I love watching Dempsey-Willard. In the case we have here, Jack Dempsey is a very vicious man, he fights like someone who hasn't eaten for five days, ferociously savage...you must understand, me and Cus spoke about this fight, he said "Mike you must understand, this is a young Dempsey, he was wild, he was nervous, he wants to get the fight over as fast as possible". Everything is fast, explosive, he been fighting as a hobo for years, losing, winning, his experience is so vast, nobody really knows how many fights he had...this is unbelievable, an onslaught...people had the nerve to call Willard a coward and yellow...i love Jack Dempsey..."

 

Gene Tunney vs Jack Dempsey and the long count: "Look at Gene Tunney, way ahead of his time and doesn't get the credit he deserves...i think there was something funny going on with the referee, because Dempsey got dropped with a right hand behind the ear, and Mr Tunney did not go to the neutral corner and he started counting right away...his manager made a lot of enemies for him...he's a very cool and collected fighter Gene Tunney, but if he'd got up more quickly I don't think he would have survived Jack Dempsey, I'm crazy about Jack Dempsey, there's no-one like him...I would be a privilege to be compared to him, but I know deep inside, there's only one Jack Dempsey."

 

Joe Louis: "Louis showed a great deal of maturity against Braddock, in the first round he came back from a knockdown from Braddock who was a very deadly puncher...unbelievable punching accuracy [by Joe Louis]...people say Ali would have beat him, very hard to see anyone beat him, because of his keen instincts of boxing, hard to picture anyone beating him, even in trouble, he's cool and collect, even when he's hurt he makes you think he's not hurt, the sign of a professional...very accurate...if any of the fighters were around nowadays, even Joe Fraier and Muhammad Ali, they would be considered bums too."

 

Rocky Marciano: "You're not in there to dance. The name of the game is fight. You're in there to win. You're risking your health. In that kind of situation, anything goes...some people, even if they're great, they don't know how great they are, they lack confidence...Charlie Goldman was a masterful boxer and was from Russia I think it was...you have to rate Rocky as one of the ATGs because of his record. People say Ali would have beat him but you never saw him lose, you saw him on the brink of destruction, that's the sign of a great fighter, you're on the brink of destruction and come back...you look at Frazier and Ali and you think they're superior fighters but you never know until they meet. Cus told me "you have to press him" but it's very hard to convince the opponent to do that!"

 

Floyd Patterson: "Unbelievable handspeed, I never saw a fighter with faster handspeed than Floyd Patterson...nobody has handspeed like that...he didn't want to hit him behind his head, he turned him around - before he hit him with the left hook he hit him with a great bodyshot, unbelievable, sets up the left hook, look at his legs, quivering from the nerve. Belive it or not, even though Cus both handled us both, I never knew Mr Patterson that well...he's very quiet, an introvert person, if you are in a room with him, you'd be surprised if he said three words. It was a pleasure for me to be around him."

 

Muhammad Ali: "Ali since winning the first fight with Liston was incredibly confident. No man ever came out to meet Liston like this, and when they did it was a foregone conclusion...unbelievable movement on Ali, he makes Sonny Liston seem like he's from different times...Nat Fleischer had called the referee over to say "it's the count of ten, it's the count of ten" and he had no right doing that. Personally, I think the punch hurt Liston because it was so fast he didn't see it coming. When you don't see it coming, you don't know, and you just go...he was a throwback to Jack Johnson who was a great fighter but also controversial, Johnson would talk to the fighters, flirt with the ladies at ringside, being black at the time...Ali 60 years later, still, unbelievable, he's a clown, says he's going to knock you out in this round and he does it! The HW champion of the world is the symbol of the strongest man in the world, he can knock anyone out, he is supposed to be a very serious individual...Ali changed the course of history..."

 

Mike also reveals himself a big, big fan of Owen Moran and rates Ted Kid Lewis the greatest British fighter of all time.

Hearing Mike talk boxing is a joy. Harry Carpenter, who co-hosts here, always spoke up for him, even after he went mad a couple of times.