Can Tyson Be Ranked Above Holyfield?

No one has said that Tyson was perfectly prepared for that fight. But it's nothing really unusual for a dominating champion to take a journeyman contender lightly. What is unusual is that the champion takes a beating from said journeyman and receives a boxing lesson in the process. There is no way around this.

 

This is a very flawed and biased way of looking at it.

 

Only problem is, that guy wasn't champ...

 

Sure he was and he even had the title which is worth more than any Alphabet crap.

 

Points are valid and worthy of mention but the argument still doesn't stand up.

You either think the titles mean something or they don't... Holmes remaining champ after losing the WBC belt proves they didn't mean anything to boxing people. The IBF was manufactured but so were the other two...

Then Spinks may have won a contentious decision but that was the decision. You may not agree with it but you can't take a guy's title away on the basis of that.

How paterson won it is immaterial. the fact that Tyson was cleaning up the division whilst Spinks waited his payday is unfair in many, many ways, but that's the history of the sport. You can't just make up a new rule and apply it to one man.

Tyson, like Johnson, Liston, Louis, Dempsey was obviously the best fighter in the world before becoming linear champion. They didn't have alphabet belts to contend for though and that's the only difference.

 

Agreed... Tyson came back (eventually), looked indestructible again and then lost again.

 

No he didn't.

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Ahem, and what exactly did Spinks have?
The recently fabricated IBF piece of alpha crap, which was awarded to Holmes after he ducked a mandatory.............
A piece of alpha crap which Spinks should have lost in their rematch...............
A piece of alpha crap that was taken away becuase he wouldn't fight a #1 challenger who Tyson then defeated..............
A piece of alpha crap that Tyson unifed with two other peices of alpha crap that Spinks never held...........

 

And being stripped of a title for failure to defend it, while another fighter comes along and beats that titlist has no meaning?

No but if we look at everything collectively such as Holmes being stripped, Spinks winning the rematch controversially, Spinks being stripped, and Tyson cleaning out the division of its top talent, it significantly weakens Spink's entitlement as a lineal claimant. you have to put it all together, and not just focus on one technicality.

Precisely where the double standard lies here. Patterson never beat the man, and Tyson did not beat the so called man until a bit later, but Marciano retiring and Spinks dodging contenders were both to no fault of Tyson's or Patterson's, therfore they should be awarded the same courtesy of being called champ...

No its not the only difference. They also didn't have to beat 3 champions in order to become THE MAN... It works both ways..

 

Exactly how I see it too. Spinks was no longer the lineal champion when he fought Tyson and people try to say beating Berbick simply meant he won a meaningless ABC belt. They conveniently overlook the fact that Tyson unified every belt at a younger age than Patterson was when he beat moore

 

Spinks beat the man in Holmes. Yeah he should have lost the ramatch but he has not. Therefore he was the man to beat. We could go on like that forever. Does not make any sense, does it?

 

No it has not because we all know how corrupt the governing bodies are. Or would you rather see Pavlik fight Rubio instead of Abraham who is his real number one challenger?

Beltholders are not champs but top contenders. Those guys also beat the top contenders of their era just like Tyson and it still did not mean that they were the champ.

 

Tyson was even dropped in sparring by Greg Page, he simply wasn't anywhere near the wrecking ball he was a few years prior. The Tyson that fought Holyfield was perhaps even better than the Tokyo version.

And Douglas wasn't an ordinary journeymen, either. He displayed all the attributes of an ATG against Tyson, speed, killer instinct, heart to get up after being dropped. That Douglas perhaps could of dethroned ANY Heavweight Chamions had they not prepared for it enough.

 

Here's the double standard that you're applying mate:

Patterson won the title in vacant fashion

Tyson won the title(s) from men who were ACTUALLY HOLDING THEM..

Marciano retired, without a single loss, but was still the man

Spinks was STRIPPED of his belt, which means HE IS NO LONGER CHAMP..

How the **** can someone be stripped of their title and still be the champ? Its like a CEO being fired from his job, then still showing up for work to give people orders.....Doesn't work that way....

 

You overlook Spinks ditching his belt to avoid real contenders and fighting absolute shells or journeymen for years after beating Holmes.

Had he dropped the belt in order to have a fight with significant meaning because his mandatory was a joke, that's one thing and I'd commend him for it. But he ducked his number one contender, unbeaten Tony Tucker to fight a very, very faded Gerry Cooney and Steffan Tangsted. Not exactly legacy fights and doing that takes away his claim to being champion.

 

Perhaps being the operative word here. The thing is no other ATG has suffered such a embarrasing and one sided loss while still so close to his peak. That's just facts. I'm so tired of people trying to get around this. The loss to Douglas is BAD, saying anything else is just biased BS.

Compare that perfomance to Ali's when he lost to Norton, six years past his prime. Such a comparison really puts Tyson on the map, as does his two losses to Holyfield.

Thing is, more than 10 years after his loss to Douglas he continued to look awesome against decent competition (Golota for example), but when he stepped up he got his ass handed to him.