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

I don’t post in every thread on Tyson, nor in most of them. It would be a full-time job, lol, as many Tyson threads as there are.

 

I'll point out that Holyfield was very easy to hit cleanly in the late 80s and early 90s.

I'll also point out that Tyson fought Ruddock twice and Ruddock was perceived as the most dangerous infighter other than Tyson on the planet.

 

That's why Ali is universally recognized as the best heavyweight of all time. The thread isn't asking if Tyson had a better resume than Ali. The question is if Ali was diminished after the layoff.

 

Maybe because Ali came back after 3 years and completely cleaned out the best heavyweight division in the history of the sport, while Mike came back after 4 years and didn't do much except beating some paper champions.

 

Ruddock was overrated. When I watched the ruddock fights there was nothing that impressed me. Holyfield's biggest strength was Tyson's biggest weakness. Mike could only do 1 thing on the inside, right hook to the body, uppercut.

If George couldn't knock out Evander, I don't see why Mike would.

I have a theory that maybe Mike actually ducked infighters in the 80s or if there were any,because he is absoloutly horrible at it, and Evander would eat him alive. Every single time someone was close at infighting range with Mike,he looked akward as hell because he can't fight that way.

And because Evander isn't going backwards, Mike isn't gonna be able to load up.

Tyson in 91 get destroyed by Evander. Which is funny, because I saw a snippet in his autobiography where he said "If I had fought Evander in 91, I would have knocked him out, he knows it, his camp knows it", I don't buy that.

 

Yes, now how many others did that? Ali is the biggest outlier in boxing history. He is not the norm ,he is the exception, which is why people take a dump on everyones resume because they are comparing it to his. if you put Louis, Tyson,Lewis, Holyfield's resume next to Ali,of course they are gonna look horrible, because he is the 1 outlier. Who else in history fought what he fought at heavyweight?

 

I have always thought Mike Tyson has an excellent resume. I know some people around here bash it, but that's nonsense.

Especially given how successful quite a few of fighters were "after" Mike Tyson beat them.

* Andrew Golota arguably deserved to win TWO heavyweight title fights (Byrd and Ruiz) after getting broken in half by Tyson.

* Frank Bruno won a heavyweight title after getting stopped by Tyson the first time.

* Larry Holmes won 23 fights, got two title shots and was never stopped again after getting demolished by Tyson.

* Tony Tucker won 23 fights and got three heavyweight title shots after losing his belt to Tyson.

* Bonecrusher Smith won more fights AFTER losing to Tyson than they had won before facing him. Smith won another 25 fights after losing his belt to Tyson.

* Tony Tubbs won another 23 fights and arguably should've gotten the win over Riddick Bowe when they fought years after Tyson one-punch-KOed Tubbs.

Mike Tyson's quality of opposition is better than just about any heavyweight champion who ever lived, outside of Ali and only a few others.

How many current, former or future heavyweight/cruiserweight champions did he face? Something like 15? Not including guys he blew out like Carl Williams and Andrew Golota, who both should've been announced as the winners of title fights themselves.

 

Regardless of where you rate him, Mike Tyson was one of the most exciting fighters ever to lace up gloves and like Ali, transcended sport.

 

Right...because of prison.

 

I don’t dismiss his resume, I actually have him Top 10 all time.

I just don’t think he was anywhere near the GOAT and the way folks go on about him I think some of them do. Because they base GOAT on excitement and raw power. Same as the baseball fans who think Nolan Ryan was the GOAT pitcher where he wasn’t in the same solar system as that.

 

1. It doesn’t matter if you think Ruddock was overrated. He was perceived as being very dangerous when Tyson fought him, which totally deflates your infighting theory.

2. Foreman failed to knock out Tommy Morrison and that no-name guy who Jimmy Thunder knocked out cold in about 20 seconds. Foreman and Tyson both fought Stewart; Mike put him away in a round and Foreman went life and death with him and was fortunate to get the decision. They both fought Savarese; Foreman went life and death and Tyson ended him in seconds. They would have more opponents in common, but Foreman was busy taking the easy route rather than even fighting someone like Golota or Bruno.

As for infighting, Tyson also threw left hooks to the body, left uppercuts, and left hooks to the head. Watch the end of Bruno II.

 

Tyson's resume is very good i don't care what anyone says.

During his reign of terror in the 80s he won 10 championship fights, unified the division, and become lineal Heavyweight champion. Along with beating 8 fighters ranked in the top 10, and stopping 8 out his 10 opponents in title fights. All this in a 4 year period show me another Heavyweight who has been as impressive as that and beaten as many ranked opponents as that in such a short time frame ? i think maybe only Muhammad Ali could rival that.

I know people like to discredit Tyson's wins over Holmes and Spinks but here's a fact, Spinks and Holmes in over 100 fights combined with over 30 title fights combined were only ever stopped by one man aka Mike Tyson.

As for Tyson's 2nd career wins over the likes of Golota, Bruno again, Botha, is not a bad list of names to add on to all his past achievements.

 

I'll tell you this much - some of his people, past and present, did not treat me well. We're told to never go up to him and ask for a pic, autograph, handshake, etc.

A bit discouraging since the fans are the ones financing his post fight career and keeping him alive. Needless to say, Tyson hates his fans.

Here's just one story of many: I designed some Tyson t-shirts to sell online that eventually sold out and while everyone loved them Tyson's former bodyguard Rudy Gonzalez called me up and gave me a verbal lashing and mob like shakedown.

 

I'm a big Holmes fan and he certainly had a better career than Holmes in the 80s.

Tyson destroyed common opponents like Berbick, Williams, Spinks, and went undefeated during the 80s.

 

My redactions (labelled R) are all meant respectfully.

1. He didn’t become lineal, nor unified, til he beat Spinks.

R But whom questioned his dominance? He fought the best of the late 80s, commandingly. Does anyone really believe the Mike of Spinks wouldn't crush Tokyo Douglas? No excuses, but the Mike in Tokyo 1990 was NOT the Spinks/Mike...far from it

2. I see your Frazier-on-steroids and raise you one Buster Douglas. I guess Big Bus, who did not btw land a lucky punch, but completely dominated almost the entirety of their fight, is one of those handful?

R Tokyo Douglas was near prime Holmes' level the night he beat Mike. He was ultra-motivated because of the sad death of his mom. MIke's motivation seemed to leave him at the time due to partying hard, living through a marriage to Givens and her mother, dumbly (imo) firing Rooney.

Ok, lets be completely cold: Buster beat the living yee-haw out of what proved to be a courageous Tyson that night in Tokyo. Maybe watch the fight again and compare Mike's fighting style to even his titular defense against Bruno (not long before).

3. Did not beat Buster. Nor Evander during his later reign. Could have fought Evander early but got himself thrown in prison, so his own doing there.

R To be completely forthright, I believe Holy (and Bowe, for that matter) would have beaten Mike 1991 on. I bank partly on styles: Holy was both unafraid and had ATG-level skills and intelligence.

So yeah, the early 90s were a low point for Mike, but I just don't accept that nullifies his amazing reign in the late 80s.

4. How does a guy go from unbeatable in late 1989 to getting beat from pillar to post by Buster in February of 1990? How does one fall off a cliff in two months?

R Allow me to give you a few seconds to start coming up with examples. They are abundant. People have fallen far faster than that.

Hey, he had a good run for a couple of years but he couldn’t sustain it. All those lessons Cus instilled in him lasted long enough to get him the titles, and in impressive fashion, but they didn’t prepare him for how to stay on top of the mountain, just to climb it. The true greats get to the top and stay there a while.

R Was Liston a great? Bowe? Holyfield? Norton? Patterson? Frazier (undisputed for 3 years)

In the case of Holyfield, he won the title four times. But he really didn't hold the titles for long before losing again. Of course, in his case we're talking about a greater ATG than Mike: Holy typically did well against other ATGs.