Anyone here alive & remember 80's Tyson's reign and...

No way did i pick Buster...I thought Tyson would destriy him.

Yeah I was at secondary school during late 80s, and Tyson was all we seemed talked about...say what you want about him but at the time he was an absolute sporting phenom

Mike Tysons Punchout...aww that brings back some memories :good

I also agree.. I think we all thought he was going to be the greatest heavyweight ever.

 

when tyson was champion I was 15, I had a second hand video recorder and we would tape evryone of his fights on a tape pausing out the adverts in order as they hapened. We knew it was history in the making. I refused to lend that tape to anyone!! Thats how big TYSON was then!

I enjoyed being more knowledgable than my freinds who just accepted tyson was a god. I was a fan too but I liked to give his opponents a chance. It got so that Tyson was so favoured you had to. I remember giving Holmes a big chance, even bruno but that was more to do with the car crash. I gave tubbs, tucker and wiliams no chance.
Douglas was the first fight that was not on free tv. sky had it. I was gutted that I had tysons regn on tape and that sky ruined all that for me! I was drinking by then and it was some hangover to find tyson lost in the night! I knew douglas from the tucker fight and thought he should have beat tucker, I always felt tucker only won because douglas imploded. Im not saying I thought douglas had a chance just more of a chance than I gave tucker.

 

It was actually Jeff Sims' fault that Tyson fought Douglas. The Tokyo date was pencilled in as Tyson/RibaltaII, but Jose looked so bad beating a motivated Sims, on the Tyson/Williams undercard, that King decided to give Douglas the shot after he looked more impressive beating his opponent (Oliver McCall), on the same bill.

 

Anyone here alive ...... !!!

You really think Classic posters are that old?

 

Your right there mate. The Douglas fight was the first fight i never seen live and when i woke up on the sunday morning with a bad hangover and heard he was beaten, i didnt beleive it. Had to phone home in ireland to ask my father if it was true. I may be getting mixed up here but i seem to remember trying to get the news on the tv (4 channels only) and it was the same day as Mandela was released, consequentially the news was saturated with this and it took what seemed an eternity (maybe a few hours just) to get it confirmed

 

yup, sure was a shocker that he lost nevermind getting KO'd.

The KO was even more shocking...

 

I loved Tyson back in the 80s...

I didn't think Holyfield stood a chance. he was past it and Tyson looked to be getting back to his best.

Tyson could never have maintained that style for long even without the mental issues - which by the way were always there.

 

Tyson in his prime would have beaten anyone ever. To be fair though a thief from the ghetto was never gunna stay on the rails with $100million in their bank account.

If the whole Jacobs/Rooney/King saga didnt happen he would have gone down at the best ever but prime vs prime hand to hand i still have tyson as number one!

 

:good Theres been a few fights in the last 15yrs or so that most Esb posters here would have dropped all their plans for i know i have!

 

Problem is he lost in his prime.

He may not have been fully focused but then talk to any pro-fighter...it happens all the time. Michael Spinks sat in his dressing room blubbing with his daughter over the loss of his wife and then went out to beat Qawi in a unification fight.

And the other extreme... Trevor Berbick claims he was gassed in his hotel room prior to the Tyson fight!

Tyson looked the business for a while but then so did 100s of other fighters.

 

Despite any and all signs and omens regarding Tyson "slipping", you still felt that he had more than enough in him to decimate anyone who was foolish enough to get into the ring with him, and most of the contenders back then felt so too and were mentally defeated before they even go into the ring with him....except for Buster..who's life had been sucking so bad and he had nothing to lose..and in one of the greatest "makeovers" in boxing history, gave us all something special on 2/10/90 in Tokyo.

 

I recall team Tyson looking hard at Razor Ruddock for Tokyo in 1990, but team Ruddock wasn't ready yet..... Also, Michael Dokes coming back from his '89 KO loss to Holy was being considered too....... Somehow Buster Douglas got the job by chance.....

MR.BILL:hat

 

King was always trying to get Ribalta in with Tyson again, but Ribalta couldn't prove himself credible enough. I suspect King was fleecing Ribalta worse than anyone else, the way he'd always try to squeeze Ribalta in there.

Actually, after Tyson-Williams, Tyson was rumoured to be up against Dokes first, but then they set up a Tyson-Ruddock fight for November 1989, in Halifax, Canada I think. It was a done deal, but Tyson pulled out "sick" or "injured". A more believable story, and one that appears in the excellent Montieth Illingworth Tyson biography written in the early-mid-90s - is that Tyson was out nightclubbing then a few weeks out from fight date he had a look at a tape of Ruddock and decided he didn't fancy it.
Next thing we knew he had been lined up for a Tokyo date with Douglas.

 

I'll probably get flamed for this, but oh well, ya ain't gettin' no virgin!

I grew up during the Ali era. I actually picked Clay over Liston, and argued over it on the schoolbus and playground.

I knew from day one that Tyson was not the same calibre of human being that Ali, Frazier, Formeman, et al, were. I was surprised he lasted as long as he did.