2024 AJ vs. 1996 Mike Tyson

I'd give the edge to AJ. The blue print on how to deal with Tyson was already made by Douglas and later Holyfield admitted using the same fight plan as Douglas. Pre-Douglas Tyson stops AJ. Tyson's aura was incredible. Would have been interesting to see how AJ dealt with that mentally.

 

I'm not one to overrate Tyson -- especially the post-prison version -- but I think he's kind of a bad matchup for Joshua. I give Joshua credit for emphasizing more skill and restraint than prior to Ruiz 1, but I don't think he has the boxing chops to keep Tyson off him and he doesn't have the inside game to avoid getting hammered with combos.

Competitive fight, tho. Would not be shocked if Joshua won.

 

AJ doesn't have a speed advantage over Tyson (even 96 version). His losses were also to men much smaller than him, and no, boxing has not come a long way in the last 30 years. Having said that this is a winnable fight for AJ but I wouldn't be confident in it.

 

Tyson dismantles him in comical fashion.

 

I,d go for 96 tyson. Boxings changed a lot since then tbh. Fighters learned to fight by actually boxing at a pace and ferocity of a real fight back then by hard sparring a much much more.

We,re a bit more educated now with it and avoid that for the safety and longetivity of the fighters. But no amount of drills....knowledge...tactical sparring are comparible to learning to fight by fighting.

Exactly what these guys we,re doing back then. Maybe not tyson 96. But he done that for so long under cus....he was built pretty well from it. Not too sure tyson really done heavy training around that point or really lived the life.
....but probably still enough in the tank to beat 2024 aj due to how much he once did.

 

Tyson was 44-1 in late 1996 and would never have lost to the likes of Ruiz.

Once Joshua got a taste of Tyson's power he would have wanted outa there, like he did against Ruiz.