At 37-0 who did you think was going to beat Tyson

Let me start by apologizing for the length of this. [Unnecessarily wordy, I know, but I'm trying to get mentally engaged for the day after a lousy night-using this as mental caffeine.] I also was convinced it would have been Foreman. I'd seen Mike against Tillis, Green, Tucker and Bonecrusher, and didn't believe he had the necessary power to dispatch Foreman. Bonecrusher in particular concerned me. James used his size and strength defensively to repeatedly frustrate and neutralize Mike, whose squared up peek-a-boo would served him no favors in standing his ground and maintaining his balance against George. Foreman would not have been tying Tyson up like Holmes and Smith, he'd have been aggressively shoving Mike back repeatedly, too far away for Tyson to make effective use of his power. Mike would not be coming forward, or standing his ground.

Morrison [even roided up] couldn't hurt George, despite repeated monster hooks, while Cooney was only able to move him that one time late in round one.

At the tail end of Tyson-Smith, Bonecrusher finally unloaded and rocked Mike. Then, during training in Tokyo, Greg Page dropped him in sparring. To me, Douglas was then a loser and a quitter. Bey? [In David's debut, no less!] Jesse Ferguson? Mike White? A draw with Tangstad? MD wins against Cobb and Dave Johnson? And he's gonna somehow dethrone Tyson? In Japan, I suspect Buster made a deal with Satan. But I figured Big George had a real shot at shattering those cracks wide open which were starting to appear in Mike's carefully fabricated facade of invincibility. The composure Smith had compromised would have completely unraveled against Foreman, I figured.

Foreman's 6'4" with an 82 inch reach. Tyson's 5'10" with a 71 inch reach [if that]. Sure, Mike dealt successfully with plenty opponents of similar stature, but nobody with that kind of size and strength who used that strength with the illegal aggression George did, to effortlessly shove guys like Morrison repeatedly out to arm's length. Using the squared up peek-a-boo, Tyson would have felt like he was skating backwards on ice. Take a look at the opening moment of Foreman-Kirkman again. Mike's almost certainly getting bowled over like that multiple times. Watch the illegal kidney punch George drove Qawi so painfully to the floor with in March 1988. Yes, Foreman might get officially penalized for these tactics, but guess what? Kirkman and Qawi were ruined by them, so unless George gets disqualified for the first time in his career, he'll have the weak minded Tyson screwed up from the get-go. Sure, Foreman had the punching power to hurt Mike, but he may not even need a legal punch to make Tyson decide to quit.

While Mike had good defensive elusiveness from head shots at his best, does that help him avoid George's planting his big paws on the shorter man's broad shoulders and shoving away? Only Carlos Padilla was ever really able to manage Ali's draining neck mauling tactics in Manila, and only Waldemar Schmidt made Foreman pay in a costly way for his shoving tactics [with a shrewdly complaining Jimmy Young causing George to be deducted a point in round three for "unnecessary roughness", the margin by which Jimmy secured a UD win]. How does one slip a kidney punch when that part of the body gets exposed to a beast like Foreman?

The thought I had was that Foreman would have dusted off the London Prize Ring rules manual, and adapted it to the 1990s for Tyson. As great a historian as Mike is, the Jacobs-Cayton film library did not date back that far. This would have been a boy against a dinosaur.

Styles make fights. I didn't see anybody else who I thought could definitely beat Tyson. I thought beforehand that Smith might have been able to do it, if he unloaded like he finally did against Bruno, but I didn't expect the older and naturally smaller Holyfield to do it in 1996, and I would not have foreseen Evander pulling it off prior to Tokyo. Lennox was a rookie of seven fights in February 1990, and Bowe was also less than a year into his career, so they weren't on my radar. But Foreman had just stopped Cooney the previous month, made Cooper quit in June 1989, and gone the ten round distance in handily decisioning Bigfoot Martin [producing a then career latest eighth round knockdown in the process]. By Douglas-Tyson, George's comeback was no longer being laughed at.

Now, I cheated a bit in referring to Morrison in June 1993. Otherwise, I'm trying to confine myself to what I had seen, knew and believed, immediately prior to that upset in Tokyo, and I then expected that George had the best chance to aggressively manhandle, abuse and intimidate Tyson into submission. Foreman himself repeatedly expressed at the time that Mike wasn't used to being the stalked prey himself, and I don't think Tyson would have responded well to that situation. [George later said he wanted no part of Lennox, but he ALWAYS wanted Mike.]

 

It might sound strange but old Foreman had a better chin than young Foreman.

Reasons include
Better mentality, dealt with getting hit better
No longer dehydrated by his trainer
Thicker neck

 

I fully agree with this. I think old Foreman would have stood up to the shots Lyle dropped young Foreman with, and that Cooney's hook would have conversely dropped young Foreman, while old George only got moved a bit. Holyfield, Cooper, Morrison, Moorer, Briggs and Stewart [among others] couldn't land him. It could be argued that he fought more big punchers when older, and he certainly got hit more in the process of boxing longer distances.

Proper hydration is paramount for better punch resistance, that added cranial fluid providing crucial protective cushioning for better absorbing head shots

 

Bit late on this thread but I always picked Holyfield to beat Tyson even before he moved up to Heavy. Just had a gut feeling he would beat Tyson after reading bout their altercation about the pool table. Tyson just had one of them style's/career's that was gonna burn fast & bright but wouldn't last long on top.

Man he even got 2 belts back by his opponents (Seldon & Bruno) submitting without a fight but as soon as someone stood up to him he folded. In essence he had a bully mentality. Excellent excitement while he was on top of the division.

 

Not being smart my friend but i have never heard one person say this, certainly not at the time



EDIT; just reread my post and it comes across like im disagreeing with you when in fact im agreeing. I shoulda worded it better

 

Yeah, i think you are cheating a little using Morrison. Big george had just decision Big Foot Martin along the same timeline as tyson went 37-0. Although George had a few decent wins he wasnt really taken seriously (if i remember correctly) til after the Cooney fight about a year later (why? i dont know)

 

Completely fair play. Now that I'm more fully alert, I think I would have deleted the Morrison reference entirely, and stuck strictly to what I knew in February 1990.

Foreman's continued ability to take a shot was really only established with Cooney. Gerry did nail him with a helluva short inside hook though, and George's response solidly reestablished him among the ranks of serious contenders. [Has Cooney ever explicitly stated that this was the hardest punch of his career that anybody ever stood up to? Holmes said Gerry never really connected solidly on him the morning after their bout, so Larry's never been sure of Cooney's true power.]

Martin of course gave him something he hadn't obtained in nearly 20 years since Peralta I...a ten round decision win. Bigfoot had previously handed Smokin' Bert his third defeat, so Foreman should have been more widely regarded as more than an antique road show prior to Cooney. [George would have gotten some mileage out of Fuliangi, but Tony purposely tanked his career for an easy $30,000 payday. Being in Marshall, Texas, Fuliangi may have done the smart thing, but it's a good argument against guaranteed purses.]

Bert "My head is buzzing" Cooper was coked up, drunk and oversexed for George, so Foreman also gets little credit for that one. [Archie Moore, who set Bert up with those twin sisters and party favors, on the other hand, belongs in the IBHOF for that alone. I wonder how Reverend George feels about THAT episode?]

So really, when you look at Foreman's pre-Tokyo record closely, it boils down to Qawi, Martin and Cooney. That doesn't seem like much, but it did get him to Holyfield just over a year later. [I don't think that's cheating JM, simply a statement of fact, as George had no significant wins between Tokyo and Evander, but please feel free to correct me again if you disagree]. Thus, Cooney should have been enough to get him to Tyson, if Mike had gotten past Douglas in Tokyo. Foreman was old, but a legitimately durable and wiser heavyweight, while Holyfield was still seen by many as a CW who brawled too much, and got hit too easily, to withstand Mike. To everybody thinking of Marvis Frazier and Michael Spinks, Foreman-Tyson would have been the better sell in mid 1990. Holyfield hadn't absorbed a heavyweight shot like Cooney's hook yet, despite the torrid war with Dokes [who was not really a noted puncher].

 

Well thought out post.

I concur.The things that George brings to the table are things the rest of those title challengers Mike was facing just did not have. And you had some real pedigree with the upcoming Holyfield at heavy after a terrific cruiser run. Those 2 challenges were going to ask a lot more than Mike's previous opposition.

But if you follow the sport long enough, it's like these guys eventually lose by osmosis or simply just playing the numbers game. They show up with their B game and the other guy raises his game and the boxing landscape changes.

 

Ive gone back and forth on this subject so much, some times I think foreman
would always beat Mike. Foreman was so strong and used the shoving
and roughouse tactics combined with his punch repertoire to devastating
effect. I agree old George could walk through anything including those
lyle shots. But I believe Tyson can hurt Foreman with a left hook ala cooney
I tend to agree with Cus D'Amato's opinion that no swarming fighter could
ever beat Foreman (1973) for sure. Mike has a huge shot against old George,
Mike prob wins by tko or unanimous.

 

Well, I certainly don't want this to turn into yet another Foreman versus Tyson thread. I was simply expressing who I thought had the best chance of dethroning Mike prior to the Douglas upset in Tokyo, and why. To me, George had the best shot, based upon the events leading up to Douglas-Tyson, especially after what Foreman had just done to Cooney the month prior. You offer a perfectly reasonable conclusion, especially over the distance. Mike had established himself over the 12 round range, something George would not really do until Grimsley and Savarese, over half a dozen years later. [While I thought Foreman would beat Tyson, I was convinced he'd make the smaller man quit, as he'd done with Cooper and Qawi. He wasn't going to do it over the distance, despite his efficient jab, but I didn't think he'd have to. Tyson's composure had been compromised by Smith's frustrating tactics, so I was certain Foreman could finish what Bonecrusher started.]

Having no idea if you would have been old enough to have considered that question yourself going into February 1990, who would YOU have then thought the most viable contender to succeed at this?:think

Lacking benefit of hindsight, there's simply no way I could have envisioned Douglas doing what he did [even after Page dropped Tyson in sparring]. Ridiculous waste of talent. To me, he was a quitter and a bum going into Tokyo, and reverted to form for Holyfield. Like Marvin Hart and Leon Spinks, he seems destined to be one of the few undisputed heavyweight champions to never receive HOF status. [I think Carnera's eventually going to get to Canastota, especially w/out the likes of Bert Sugar continuing to besmirch Primo, whose Sharkey-Uzcudun-Loughran championship run was on the level, and executed in just eight months, the only time that happened between Jack Johnson in 1909 and Joe Louis in 1938. Carnera may not have been a great fighter, but he was an excellent active champion, who first defended against two conquerors of the contender who then dethroned him. He's earned the credit for taking that title out of mothballs.]

Give Buster and Leon Spinks the focus and discipline of a Marciano or young Frazier, and it would be a different story [especially with Douglas], but they're forever trapped among the classic underachievers in HW history. [Leon legitimately earned his shot at Holmes by taking out the huge and deadly punching Mercado, who was just then peaking. While limited, Leon could play with the big boys, if properly trained and motivated.]

So, once again, if not Foreman, then who? Or is Mike projected going into February 1990 as being able to dominate the heavyweight division as long as he cares to? Again, Lennox and Bowe were rookies. How many yet genuinely believed the older and smaller Holyfield, coming up from CW, would be the one to manage this, after what Tyson had done to Marvis [who was accomplished against big heavyweights not named Holmes] and Michael Spinks [who was accomplished against big heavyweights named Holmes and Cooney]? I do not doubt MagnaNasakki's sincerity and insight in stating he was reasonably certain Holyfield would [in post #46 of this thread], and I've enormous respect for him, but I didn't share his prescience, and didn't see it coming. I expected him to stop Evander prior to his conviction for **** after winning the Ruddock rematch [a bout which was shelved when Mike reportedly injured a rib in training], and expected him to do likewise to Holyfield in November 1996, after retiring Bruno and starching a streaking Seldon.

Donovan Ruddock was 21-1-1 at the time, and he'd knocked out Smith on Bonecrusher's North Carolina turf during July 1989, something Tyson had failed to do a couple years earlier. Broad [Razor's knockout victim immediately prior to Smith] had stopped Bonecrusher at the outset of both mens careers, and Holmes had halted Smith on cuts in their 1984 title fight, but only Ruddock had put Bonecrusher down for the count [and nobody else ever would]. With or without the title, Tyson was clearly on a collision course with Razor, and it now seems clear Donovan would have been his first professional rematch either way. But I personally didn't think Ruddock would succeed at dethroning Mike prior to Tokyo.