I have two .. Teddy Atlas claiming Tyson wasn't great and that he'd rate him as 0-5 as a fighter , losing to every man that presented him with resistance. He's repeated this ad nauseam and besides being flat out absurd it's an insult to so many fighters than showed top and lost. Larry Holmes, a dear friend, saying "they said my legs were too small, I had no heart , I was a copy of Ali ' .. it's a bit much when you spend forty eight years repeating a reference that ran about two years .. Others ?
Ugh I have a lot… “Foreman has ATG ring cutting” that’s my favourite dumb thing repeated on this forum especially considering no film supports it, Ali ran to the ropes, Young outboxed him on the move, Peralta was a LHW who wasn’t cornered or “destroyed” quickly… who’d he cut the ring against? Ken Norton? A guy famous for his lame leg and come forward attacker style (yawn) - Pep “won a round without throwing a punch” that’s annoying… basically everything written about the “Rumble In The Jungle” is contradictory to the film and only backed up by “Ghost Writers” - not something here but people calling Ali a civil rights hero??? That royally F’s me off and is hilariously false… basically every time Angelo Dundee speaks I get irritated - that there is no film of 147lbs Ray Robinson… anytime I hear how “RJJ dominated PRIME Toney” despite how visually apparent that is false “RJJ made him look weight drained” okay bro. As you mention OP anytime anyone bashes Tyson for no reason? Atlas is a dummy… oh when I hear all the amateur poetry and flowery prose on guys like Liston, that’s bizarre, the people doing it are probably the exact types he’d bully or mug lmao. Marvin Hagler is the juggernaut expect in real life, Marvin was great boxer but as far as Robinson, RJJ, Napoles, Armstrong Toney etc they’re a step above… like I’ve seen it written Hagler would beat everybody at one time or another. OH and Nelson having F-ing MALARIA vs Fenech… MALARIA no he did F-ing not.
Larry Holmes excuse for getting beat up by Mike Weaver by "having the flu" or some nonsense. Holmes was too smart to fight sick, I'd say. Weaver was a short notice replacement and had four weeks to train and still ran him to the edge.
Teddy Atlas has always spoke the truth about Mike Tyson. Tyson was just a very overrated bully in a very weak era He's one for the casuals to pretend was some unbeatable monster. When the reality is he mostly only beat bums or past it fighters. Could never turn around any fight he was losing. Lost to the best when he stepped up, and bums like Douglas. He's no Ali or Usyk put it that way.
I can’t vouch that he said it but I did read on another thread here that Atlas is still perpetuating the nonsense/myth of a long delay between rounds 4 and 5 in Ali - Cooper 1. If that’s true, he’s not doing himself any favours in terms of garnering respect for what he has to say otherwise. Another. Now while I think Liston likely had a few more years on him than detailed on his BC (excuse pun) there’s many so called experts who claim he was much older but who don’t provide any evidence to support their belief. One case in point. Jerry Izenberg. All I’ve ever heard/read him say is that “everyone” knew Liston was much older - never detailing the “who’s” or explaining how they came to that conclusion. Another case in point? Bert Sugar. Too many damming examples to mention. You can boost the sport with some flare in relating your knowledge - all good - but selling out on the actual facts in deference to a good “yarn” isn’t the way to go.
The claim that Billy Conn lost his Irish head and the fight when he elected to slug with Joe Louis. The more correct answer, at least imo, is that Joe Louis, who was closing the gap, simply caught up with Billy.
Ahhh… checkout the after bout interview, snotty and he’s basically sweating his trunks off his pants. I give it a bit of credibility.
That Usyk is only good because he fought in a weak era. That Wlad isn't a top ten HW because he fought in a "weak" era That 60s Ali was a H2H demigod That HW in the past who weren't even 200 lbs would be able to beat modern SHWs And in general how much people here overrate past greats and underrate modern greats.
The fight was signed on March 22, three months before they fought. Boxrec’s wiki links three newspaper accounts announcing the fight. So you’re way off her. I don’t have any reason to believe Larry didn’t have the flu during camp. You can choose not to believe it, but you can’t pretend Weaver was a late substitute who took the fight on a month’s notice when there’s absolute verification of it being signed three months earlier.
Some familiar refrains for me: I’m tired of hearing excuses for every Mike Tyson loss, but especially Buster Douglas. “He had sex in Tokyo” … you think he didn’t have sex before other fights that he won? Was he a virgin, lol? Likewise for every Roberto Duran defeat. If he didn’t train properly or let his weight go once between fights, I can accept that once — even though it’s not a valid excuse for a professional fighter not to prepare for a fight, given that it’s literally their job — but if he learned nothing from it and repeated the same behavior over and over again, just accept that’s who he was and stop giving him a pass. I’m also sick of people buying the false narrative about Marvin Hagler losing to Ray Leonard because he caved in negotiating on length of fight (12 rounds vs. 15, when he hadn’t fought a scheduled 15 in like 2 1/2 years), glove size (middleweight had long been a division where title fights could be contested with 10- or 8-ounce gloves, and I’ve never seen anyone establish that all of his previous fights were in 8-ounce gloves) and ring size (best information out there says it was 20 feet, which is pretty standard — Leonard wanted 22, Hagler wanted 18 and they met in the middle). In what other fight in history have people seized upon glove and ring size and number of scheduled rounds (as long as it was a length accepted at the time for a title fight, which 12 rounds was by that time) as the reason for the outcome, lol? Finally, that Mike Tyson was convicted of **** because he had a tax attorney (chosen by Don King) instead of a criminal defense attorney. Vincent Fuller had, indeed, gotten King off on a charge of tax evasion but you don’t use a tax attorney for a criminal tax evasion charge — a tax attorney is someone who helps you sort your books so you can get by with paying less taxes, not one who represents you in a criminal trial. Fuller had gotten John Hinckley off without a single day in prison for shooting Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States. He had also represented mob figures in high-profile trials. If you asked anyone in legal circles at the time, he’d be one of the top handful of criminal defense attorneys in the entire country. Mike Tyson got convicted because he was guilty.