¿Why does the public underestimate Mike Tyson's resume so much?

It’s funny (as in ironic) that you bring up one of my biggest gripes about Tyson himself — you can’t find a single loss that his supporters don’t contend really needs an asterisk and shouldn’t count:

* He lost his virginity in Tokyo and had sex before the fight, so really Buster didn’t beat a prime Tyson even thought he was, what, 23 years old? So we shouldn’t consider this a real loss.

* Evander was too rough with hiim and no fighter ever has had to overcome a head butt (saying Evander was dirty given Tyson’s penchant for elbows, arm-breaking, butts, etc, is laughable — somehow it’s different when Iron Mike is on the receiving end of something rather than dishing it out). So really how can we count this as a loss?

* He bit Evander’s ear because he got butted. Then was told if he did it again he’d be DQ’d and went straight for the ear again immediately upon resumption of the bout. But this is about Evander’s head, not Mike’s teeth. Doesn’t count.

* Every loss after this: Mike was old and disinterested. Asterisks all around.

On his way to the title, Mike didn’t do like Louis and clean out a division — his best wins were Marvis ‘KO by 1’ Frazier (old Larry had done the same thing) and James ‘Win 1, Lose 2’ Tilils (narrowly). Somehow this made him the No. 1 contender.

From there to Douglas (and even after), tell me which of those guys had anything going for them when they fought Tyson … and which ever did anything after? For the latter, it’s always ‘well of course they never did anything after, Tyson ruined every one of them.’ For what other fighter does this line of thinking work? But in most cases, they’d done precious little before … go look up the best wins for Tyrell Biggs, James Smith, even Tony Tucker and make a case that they were special. You really can’t.

Mike is in no way singular in this regard.

Read a thread about Rocky Marciano and see how all he fought were old men who were mostly light heavyweights.

Heck, look at the deconstructions of Ray Leonard’s career — Duran was a lightweight, Hearns was too spindly, Roberto didn’t train for the second fight (should have been postponed as if Duran would have trained seriously if it was 3 months later rather than gaining another 30 pounds), he waited for Hagler to get old, etc. Leonard’s loss to Terry Norris at a way-past-sell-by-date stage is thrown up as evidence of Ray’s ordinariness … yet Tyson’s past-prime losses are all forgiven with asterisks.

Ray was said to be cherry-picking and stacking the deck with stipulations when he fought Hagler, yet Mike brings Larry Holmes out of a 3-year retirement on a month’s notice with no tune-up — a ‘take it or leave it’ deal with a ton of money as bait — and yet not a peep about that deck being staked.

You have to assess each opponent singularly to see what they really were, and in Mike’s case you want to lump them together and say ‘former champs, look at the names’ without assessing where they were at that time. Biggs’ best wins? David Bey (2-4 last six fights) and Renaldo Snipes (3-3). Who did Tucker beat besides a disinterested James Douglas (take away his win over Mike and what did Buster ever do) in a fight where James was ahead and just checked out when he got hit on the chops once — and Tucker’s status as a champ is taking a vacant belt because Spinks give it up? You really think Spinks at this stage wasn’t ripe for the taking?

We’re supposed to ignore that Pinklon was a heroin addict who should have been in rehab rather than in the ring (but with Oliver McCall vs. Lewis, everyone wants to wave it off because Oliver was a druggie … take a look at the drug record of so many of Tyson’s best wins).

Oh, and there’s always Ruddock. Big, rugged guy. Who did he beat before OR after Tyson? If he ‘was never the same’ after Mike, what was he before? He beat well-past-it Bonecrusher in a fight where he got knocked down and the remains of Michael Dokes after Evander had already worked him over. What’s so special about Razor when looking at his resume?

I think it’s fair to dissect any fighter’s resume, and Mike’s isn’t that special when you really dig into who he fought (seems like most of them’s biggest win was over someone like McCall, who was considered a club fighter before he landed a lucky haymaker vs. Lewis and did f-all before or after) and when he fought them. You seem to want to just say ‘Mike was great, let’s not get into details.’

 

Amen. Tyson is one of the most appalling under-achievers, relative to his ability, I can think of.

 

What I mean is accomplishments. Lennox Lewis doesn't hold any real records or in terms of something that has been done before,he hasn't done. But he is an all time great in that he beat some great fighters like Evander Holyfield etc

 

I guess Tyrell Biggs and Henry Tillman's Olympic Gold Medals mean nothing and those are participation trophies

 

Leon Spinks was a gold medalist AND lineal HW champion. Doesn't mean that Holmes's win over him is seen as a great achievement.

 

They mean a lot … in amateur boxing.

Winning a gold medal or the National Golden Gloves or whatever isn’t something that carries over to a pro resume. It’s a different sport.

Being a great high school baseball pitcher or college football linebacker or AAU basketball national player of the year doesn’t buy you a cup of coffee in the pro ranks. Nor does an Olympic medal give your pro opponents a resume boost in professional boxing.

Tyson for instance wasn’t an Olympican at all, but that means zero when assessing what he did as a professional boxer.

If Tyson and Tillman had never fought as pros, would you rank Tillman above Tyson because of what happened in the amateurs, lol?

 

I believe that beating an olympic gold medalist accounts for something. Calling someone a trash fighter for winning an olympic gold medal is just stupid.

 

Of course. That's a wording that I don't think should be used for anyone.

But pointing out that Biggs wasn't the most disciplined, used drugs etc and never achieved much as a pro is fully valid, though.

Something that's hugely annoying with Tyson fans is that they use such that kind of context to dismiss Tyson's losses, but lose their minds when its's done for his opponents.

The fact is that there were quite a few HWs in this era who seemingly didn't realise their full potential because of their out of the ring issues.

 

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/mike-tyson-had-a-better-career-than-larry-holmes.669560/

 

Tyson's competition wasn't great. There's no real
argument that can be made to suggest it was.
He did clean out the division, and fought the
best fighters available. And was very impressive
against the opponents put in front of him.

Lewis and Louis competition wasn't great either.
And most of the competition Lewis fought and
beat early in his career and gets praise for
like Tucker, Bruno, Ruddick , and Biggs.
Tyson beat fresher versions of.
Which is a little disingenuous by some.
Lewis's competition during his championship
run when scrutinized
by the lenses usually reserved for Tyson
have the same questions.
Tua ? Lazy ,unmotivated , hadn't looked good
in yrs.
Morrison? A drug addict, also suffering from
hiv and all the aliments that comes with it.
Holyfield ? Old. Tyson? old, also on drugs.
Botha? Old, ko'ed many times before.
Plus Lewis was ko'ed twice by "Just a guy"
types in Rahman and McCall in what was
the prime of his career.
Which is worse than Tyson's loss
to Douglas because it happened to
him twice.
Their careers are not that different
from each other other than Tyson
stayed around much longer than
he should've and got more losses
because of it.
Both men are top ten ATG's because the
heavyweight division in general hasn't
been that great talent wise.

 

Yeah, he really shat the bed against Spinks, didn't he? And against Berbick, Smith and Tucker.

The fact is that Douglas and even Holy was seen as run of the mill defences at the time. There wasn't much pressure going into them. In fact Bruno 2 was more pressure if anything. Tyson hadn't impressed in his previous fight and Bruno was the first legit contender he faced in almost five years, a guy that had given him some trouble earlier to boot.

That was a bit of an acid test to see if there still was anything left in there and Tyson passed it with flying colours. Holy on the other hand was seen as easy money.

Lewis was the one big pressure fight which Tyson lost. But apart from that he did just fine.

 

I think what he did on the way up and in his early championship years was very, very impressive -- Pinklon, Tucker, Smith, Biggs, Holmes, Tubbs, Bruno, Berbick, Spinks. They weren't all at the top of their games, but they were the best around, and Tyson didn't avoid any of them. His opposition stands up well to the fighters many other champions met, including Patterson, Marciano, and Liston, IMO. The inconsistencies came later. His early record stands up well when compared with most anyone.

 

Reasons why he might get sold short by some?

Joe public has only heard of the men that he lost to.

The man in the street has heard of Evander Holyfield, and Lennox Lewis, but they haven't heard of Michael Spinks, or even Larry Holmes under a certain age.

He had a relatively short prime, and people assume that this means lack of depth in his resume.

In fact when you crunch the numbers, he compares favorably to other great heavyweights in terms of depth of resume.

Finally the way that he imploded in his post prison career doesn't help his case.

It makes it look like he was always a paper tiger waiting to be exposed, while in practice a closer look at the facts contradicts this.

 

Because he's hyped as if he's Kratos when in reality most of his resume consists of Holmes' aging leftovers.

Not a terrible resume by any means, but it's certainly not worthy of the hype

 

I think his resume was awesome