Mike Tyson, monster or myth, Ill say it here now, he was the best of a bad bunch and VERY overrated, especially in my opinion by British fans who had been starved of any decent heavyweight action and fed the likes of Henry Cooper, Joe Bugner, and in the 1980s Frank Bruno, anyone who came along ironing people out with speed and power was always going to capture the publics imagination who were looking for a hero, especially as good as Larry Holmes was he didn’t really capture the publics imagination coming along after the legend that was Ali, and beating him up in a mismatch against Alis ghost. Lets look at Tysons career, 18 straight KOS against non entities and in fight 19 along comes James Quick Tillis who had been knocked out by Greg Page and Pinklon Thomas in 8 rounds and Tim Witherspoon in 1 round, he took the unstoppable Tyson 10 rounds before losing on points, next up Mitch Blood Green, whos only loss was to Trevor Berbick on points, Tyson won by UD, well give him that as a credible win, Reggie Gross, Williams Hosea, Lorenzo Boyd and Marvis Frazier came and went quickly, next came seasoned campaigner Jose Ribalta who was stopped in 10, but had previously lost to one Ricardo Richards in 7 rounds in his 3rd fight. Alfonso Ratcliff a household name in only his own house was trashed in 2 rounds this was now 26 unbeaten and a world title shot was round the corner against 32 yr old Trevor Berbick, another of the lost 1980s world champions who were instantly forgetten except for the comedy dance he performed when his old ass was handed to him by a guy 12 years his junior, however time tells us Trevor was bombed out in 1 round many moons before by the legendary Bernado Mercano . As champion Tysons first defence was a unification with the wonderfully named Bonecrusher Smith who came to survive and changed his name to Bonehugger Smith for 12 rounds, no one ever looked good against him so Mike gets a pass here for doing what he could, the very skilled Pinklon Thomas was despatched after 6 rounds, at this point I make that Tysons best win, next was the WBC WBA IBF unification against 34 fight unbeaten Tony Tucker who I personally rated, Tyson won almost every round, but ate a little bit of incoming to secure all 3 belts no issue with this win, 2 solid if unspectacular wins back to back, the world was at his feet. Tyrell Biggs a 15 fight novice or unbeaten Olympic champion however you want to dress it up shouldn’t have been near Tyson and was despatched in 7, the ghost of Larry Holmes in 4, Tony Tubbs in 2 was a credible win but routine for an undisputed champion, Micheal Spinks was a blown up light heavy who shouldn’t have been near Tyson despite beating Larry Holmes in 2 tight decisions, Spinks was blown away in a minute and half, and was totally and utterly petrified and Tyson seized on this and ruined him. Frank Bruno Englands favourite son came next and was the first opponent to have Tyson in big trouble, Bruno down early in round one, shook Tyson big time but didn’t follow up and was stopped in round 5, Brunos only defeats thus far had been Witherspoon and Bonecrusher in 10 and 11 rounds so in my opinion, doing Big Frank in 5 was a very good performance but Tyson was getting hit easier than before, was he preparing properly, questions were being asked. Carl the truth Williams turned out to be a lie and was spanked in one round, previous defeats only to a prime Larry Holmes and Mike Weaver with 11 defeats to his name, so we can dress this as good or as bad as we like. The whole world knows the Buster Douglas story, forget the dodgy count, Douglas was faster, jabbed better and wanted it more and shook the world up. Henry Tillman and Alex Stewart never saw the first round out, Razor Ruddock was stopped in a good fight in 7 rounds and on points in a rematch Id put the first Ruddock fight in Tysons top 5 as Ruddock was always a tough fighter and stopping him was impressive. 4 years out of the ring and a soft warm up fight against Peter Mc Neeley was over in a minute and half Buster Mathis junior was unbeaten after 20 fights lasted 2 and half rounds, Frank VBruno meekly surrendered his WBC belt in 3 rounds to Tyson, Bruno was a shadow of the man who troubled Tyson years before and seemed to be here for the payday, the dominat force of this era Lennox Lewis was paid $4m dollars to step aside to allow Tyson to challenge for the WBA title Bruce Seldon froze and keeled over in a round giving Tyson a portion a of the world title carve up., a far better fight occurred that night between Tysons friend Tupac Shakur and his entourage with some gangbangers in the foyer of the MGM Next he was outboxed, out thought, and beaten up by Evander Holyfield, and lost in 10 rounds, a feat that would have happened even quicker second time round, had be not started eating the Holy Man inside the ring in round 3. Frans Botha was beating Tyson after Tyson tried to break his arm early on until Tyson rolled back the years and sparked him with one punch, a no contect with Orlin Norris wasn’t worth talking about, two UK beatings of Julius Francis, and Lou Savarese. Serial Choker Andrej Golota was ironed out in 2 rounds before Tyson failed a drug test, Brian Neilsen was despatched in 6 rounds, next was a proper beating from Lennox Lewis in 8 rounds which was one sided and totally dominant by Lewis , Cliff Ettienne lasted one round before humiliating defeats to Danny Williams and Kevin McBride. People look back on Mike Tyson with rose tinted spectacles, I remember the man who lost to the two best men he fought, who bombed nobodies out, sometimes not as fast as they had been sparked before, when all is said and done, his best wins were Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tucker, Frank Bruno 1, Tony Tubbs and Razor Ruddock , none of who will appear in anyones top 20 of all time heavyweights. In my opinion Mike Tyson was an over rated bully with no plan B, who was lucky to be around in a bad era and shone brightly for 3 to 4 years. Hardly the stuff of legend.
One can do a similar, or more successful and believable, review of any champs' opponents. It's almost a rite of passage for newbies to do such to one of the legends. For now, I will skip your predictable and flawed analysis and get right to the point quoted above. How many years did Sullivan shine for? What about Corbett? If you cancel out the years of inactivity, how many did Dempsey shine for? How many years did Marciano fight at the elite level? Joe Frazier? Are they the stuff of legend?
Nobody consistently beat the caliber of fighters Tyson was fighting in the 80s with such ease. That's the bottom line here. You can try to make all the excuses that you want, and the facts in the ground still don't change. Didn't Holmes greatly trouble Holyfield years after Tyson stretched him out? Wasn't Frank Bruno giving a prime Lewis fits? Didn't Smith knock Witherspoon around like a ragdoll a few months before fighting Tyson? Didn't Williams arguably beat Holmes? Didn't Spinks actually beat Holmes twice? Hell, even some of the lesser fighters like Biggs and Tubbs greatly troubled a young Bowe. The 80s guys are terribly underrated. I'm willing to stack up Tysons accomplishments in these few years against just about anyones.
All that writing and the biggest fact that really matters is he did that all in 3 years under Rooney. Its not only who you beat is how he beat them,these mickey mouse theories don't work...Bruno gave Lewis a run at it,Tucker as well..tubs made Bowe look foolish at times and went 10 rnds with him, Hlmes was never k.od at any age except for 1987/1988 and Ruddock WHEN Tyson fought him was on a 15/16 fight win streak. Even without Roony he crushed Bruno and Williams who himself had a close fight with Homles Tillis....... was in the best shape of his life which is irrelevant anyway because Tyson was 2 years in his pro career and obviously coasted for obvious reasons. did you see the exhibition match a year later? Tyson dominated very good fighters and ruined a lot of careers,do you think anyone wanted to fight Tyson again when he was with Rooney?
I disagree with your thesis. If a fighter is consistently beating the best available opposition, let alone dominating them, you simply have to give them credit for it. There are only a handful of heavyweights, who have legitimately dominated an era, however weak that era might have been. Tyson’s numbers stack up very favourably against the other greats of the sport.
Yep. I think it's to hard overestimate his dominance against a decent crop. And this was a dominance that continued after the Douglas loss. People tend to forget since it doesn't play that well with the narrative of Tyson's declining post Rooney, but destroying a decent gatekeeper in Stewart (R.I.P), who gave both Holy and Foreman tough fights, and ruining Ruddock, who really looked like a threat going into the fight, wasn't bad either. So that's about 10 ranked opponents (and that's not even counting Holmes and Tubbs) that he destroyed or at least dominated. Three first round KO's, five within the first two. As Janitor said, name the HWs that did something similar within 5 years time in any era?
Tyson is even strong on some areas where he might initially appear to be weak. For example he had a short period of dominance, but he was beating ranked contenders very late into his career. If you compare the number of ranked contenders that he beat to other all-time greats, it actually stacks up pretty favourably. How many ranked contenders did Dempsey, or Liston, or Frazier beat after they lost the lineal title?
I'd agree with that. He had blistering speed, a hyper-aggressive style, KO power, awesome defence, very sound fundamentals, a granite chin, reasonable feet, awesome leverage, and a style that was perfectly suited to his physical gifts. And was a great student of boxing. Far as the mental game goes, he was a brilliant intimidator, but very mentally porous as an individual. Didn't have longevity, and the flipside of his prodigious physicality was that he got old (physically) very early. Nor was he able to delve into a deep well of plan B's when plan A failed. All in all, he was an awesome force in boxing for about 4 years, and mostly a tabloid sensation thereafter. I think he's rated about right these days, the dust having settled, as a blazing shooting star - great, but not top 10 heavyweights of all time. If he'd never fought again after Douglas or even never made it to Tokyo for that fight (very much a possibility due to the manic arc of his life at the time), I think his ranking would be artificially and erroneously high.
Yes, but he retired for a reason. He could still have made good money fighting ranked contenders, and he worked out fairly quickly that this would not be good for his health. Tyson never regained the lineal title after he lost it, but he kept splattering top ten guys for years on end.