Could an Iron Mike-like HW excel in todays era of giants?

Tyson has a good list of 6'4, 6'5 etc HWs, he's beaten 230, 240, 250 lb guys. Wilder is a tall Bridgerweight and weighs a lot less than many of Iron Mike's opponents. The only "real" giant with skill is Fury. Big guys would not be alien to him. Most of these guys would be nowhere near prepared for Mike Tyson's attributes.

 

I should of read the whole thread but I'm tired

I think Tyson versus both Bonecrusher Smith and Tony Tucker back in 87/88, should be a good pointer.
They both managed him somewhat. Tying him up i.e.

Does Tyson excel today though? Possibly - if he's matched well.

I could see him stopping Wilder early.
I could see him doing the same to Usyk - but only early.
I think Fury beats Tyson.


I don't really like comparing eras, but we do sometimes dont we.

 

The modern athlete is incredible and thats why Larry Legend gave his peers a piece of his mind regarding that. Ironically, I believe in individual sports the odds greatly decrease that the modern athlete destroys the previous ones. Todays boxers have all the means to improve at a more rapid rate but the thing is...everybody has a planned to they get punched in the mouth. So team sports, im taking todays guys but the one on ones are different kind of mental battle

 

I'd still take modern track and field athletes, tennis players, all that jazz over older ones, but boxing is a bit more of a level playing field.

So I wouldn't say it's an individual sports thing, just a boxing thing. Boxing is I think the only sport that's evolved in a way that's either made fighters worse, or limited them to being only just as good as their predecessors.

Martial artists and martial arts trainers despise science and evidence based training, meaning that unlike pretty much every other sport training methods for boxing have remained the same for over 100 years. That's a horrible baseline of improvement to begin with when compared to other sports.

That and the modern fighters ability to not only have much, MUCH fewer fights, but fewer fights that are also against vastly inferior cherry picked competition means that modern fighters don't have / avoid the opportunity to develop as much as their peers. Mike Tyson for example had 28 fights in the first two years of his career, and I think in the first 5 years of his career had 40 fights with 7 wins over reigning or former champions. That's an insane amount of experience that you'll never see a modern fighter get ever again.

 

I think it is possible but unlikely for modern fighters to gain that kind of experience in the pros. Canelo was putting up similar numbers, and like Mike, he entered pro boxing young. But what about Usyk with 109 amateur fights (according to boxrec), clearly that experience put him in good stead for pro level.

Regarding former champions, that was kind of because of the era Mike was in. There were a number of champions/former champions who didn't make any successful defences of their belt (but they are still champions). But it's a good number! Usyk has 5 in his first 5 years (albeit at cruiserweight). Similarly, we could say Anthony Joshua has 4 wins over reigning or former champions in his first 5 (if you count Povetkin), and then throw in the Olympics as well, and yet we were always hearing how he was learning on the job. So I agree, most modern boxers could benefit from being in the ring far more frequently, especially if they didn't come through the Olympic programs. But boxing now (sadly) is either not really set up like that, or maybe it's better to say boxing promotion isn't. Maybe Warren has plans of a somewhat similar nature for Moses Itauma, though I would prefered him to go the amateur route and get experience about higher level opposition than knocking over bin men in the pros.

Possibly we should also note that it was on 5 years that Tyson lost to Douglas, and over the remainder of his career he would only beat one more champion (former champion): Frank Bruno. And noteably going back to the thread topic, for all Mike's experience against smaller men, he didn't have much success against the super heavyweights we see today. Sure I have no doubt he could beat up overweight smaller men, he showed that. But big men with the frame to carry the weight? He basically has 3Ws 3Ls and 1NC against true big men (i.e. over 6'3" and 230lbs).

So here is one final graph I made on this topic
Mike Tyson's Wins and Loses again fighters over 192cm, alongside the comparative sizes of the current Ring Top 10:

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I didn't mention amateur boxing cuz a lot of amateurs only seem to turn pro in their mid 20's and then proceed to have an extremely low fight output until they retire, which I feel essentially that from an experience standpoint puts them back on par with high fight output pros with no amateur background. That, and as much as fighting experience is still fighting experience the Ams and the Pros are virtually two different sports. Hell Lomachenko's amateur experience arguably lost him his second professional fight, as he went into it with an amateur mindset. I can confidently say that if Lomachenko had been a pro up until that fight he'd have won easily.

In regards to the graph, tis an excellent graph! Funnily enough that's actually much fewer reds than I expected, most of which came when he was past his prime tbf. I still think Prime Mike Tyson is a Top 2-3 fighter in this division. The only tall fighter he struggled with I'm his prime was 6'5 Tony Tucker who he adjusted to very well after the 3rd - 4th round and very importantly had WAAAY faster feet than pretty much every opponent in the top 10 rn barring Prime Fury and current Usyk.

When it comes to this division the best defence is a good offence, because everyone's actual defence is ****, except for Usyk, Fury and AJ. I just can't see someone like Half Asleep Hyrgovic giving Tyson any problems, nor can I see Slow Mo Joe Joyce do anything. I mean if a 40 year old Zhang can connect on 60% of his power punches what is Tyson going to do, 80%? Lord have mercy. Even a Joseph Parker who got dominated by Joyce landed 47.5% of his power shots. I don't think very highly of Dubois, Ajagba, Zhan, Kabayel, Mahkmudov, Bakole or Sanchez so, eh.

I don't think anyone outside of currently established elite being Usyk, Fury, AJ or Zhang gives him trouble, and I favour Mike over Usyk, AJ (punching him hard in the face is basically an instant win button) and Zhang. Not liking his odds Vs Fury.

 

The blueprint was out in the 80's but only Buster could get it done, but that was the perfect storm. Tyson fought and beat bunch of big heavyweights, Tucker, Bonecrusher, Ruddock , Holmes, Bruno, Biggs, Golota, Tubbs, just to name a few. He could do just fine. These boys wouldn't know what hit them.

 

I do believe boxing is the most even playing field I just dont care to argue with folks for giving an opinion(not this but that thread-jacking stuff) but I think mental fortitude cant be measured by eras and thats why I feel that way about one vs one. Athlete for athlete there's no comparison, the modern is superior

 

Being the "better athlete" has NEVER EVER been what boxing is about...