Could any 20-year old fighter beat the Tyson who beat Berbick?

"Wrong" should perhaps only be reserved for the realm of facts, not opinions like ours on 20-year-old Tyson. My opinion is Tyson's dismantling in 5 minutes of a 31-year-old, 218-pound, durable champion such as Berbick (in the end with one punch that knocked him down three times!) is just as awesome as the hallowed and very impressive crushing victory of Louis over a 32-year-old, 193-pound, more worn, ex-champion in Schmeling.

As much as I love Ali's showing against Williams, it is still true Ali failed to keep the literally shot Big Cat on the canvas, the fight being stopped in fact with Williams on his feet, so, again, Tyson's exhibition holds up pretty well against your other option.

And Tyson was officially announced at the close of the Berbick fight as the youngest heavyweight champion, and was the consensus most formidable among all the belt holders at that moment, as he would soon prove.

 

Okay, here we can agree to have a different view of things.

It doesn´t matter what was announced. Fact is, Tyson didn´t become hw champion till he beat Spinks and at that time he was older than Patterson.

 

I doubt it, no other 20 year old heavyweight was as both well schooled and as powerful and quick as that Tyson. Ali as 20yo possibly could pull it off, but this is a pre-prime Ali who made more mistakes and wasnt physically mature.

Most top modern heavyweights hadnt started their pro careers at the age of 20 so it is a slightly scewed, not like with like question

 

By your definition, Larry Holmes was never the heavyweight champion, Alexis Arguello challenged Aaron Pryor for a million dollars worth of blue sky, and of course right now we have no heavyweight champion.

This has been discussed here before; my take is, at the time Tyson was a huge, exciting prospect who, if successful against Berbick, would most likely be good enough to unify the belts soon at a moment when the boxing world was just as hungry as it is today for a unified heavy champ.

The way he defeated Berbick left no doubt Mike Tyson was the real thing and he soon proved it when he unified against Tucker. After this fight, incidentally, Tyson himself said he felt like the champ when he beat Berbick. By the way, Berbick held the WBC version, arguably the most prestigious of the three belts at the time.

So: Tyson is the youngest heavyweight ever to hold a belt; and, yes, Patterson is still the youngest unified champ.

 

On paper he is.

If you ranked the all time great heavyweights, by the number of (curently ranked fighters) they beat, Tyson would do prety well.

He would not match Louis, Ali, Langford or even Harry Wills for number and quality of bodies beaten.

He would however pass the likes of Dempsey, Marciano, Hollyfield, and yes Sharkey (just).

Tyson was not a flash in the pan.

He blazed his trail, but after he fell, he continued to beat ranked contenders at a stage of his career where most heavyweights were enjoying the easy life/fighting bums.

 

How do you define "currently ranked fighters" ? Which rankings do you use ?

 

He was certainly impressive ,but Berbick fought a stupid fight,I prefer Tyson against Thomas ,his combos were devastating that night.

 

Probably not.

 

The man who beat the man, huh? Agreed. But one caveat: Holmes' legitimacy was not dependent at all on his beating up on a comfortably retired, fat, terribly diminished Ali, who made the mistake of coming back and challenging the young WBC champ. Very few, if any, said when Dundee wig-wagged his hands at the close of the Last Hurrah that NOW Holmes is the real champion.

My point was a guy can hold a belt and be considered the real champion, the best fighter in the world, the baddest man on the planet, even if he doesn't or hasn't unified.

 

So, Klitschko now is the champ, right?

 

He's the man.

 

Yeah, everybody considers him that but i ask you if you think he´s the champ right nox. By your definition he is.