Did Holyfield deserve a shot at the title earlier against 80s Tyson?

Similar such premature happenings could be seen in the 80's. Holyfield would in no way on earth wanted to fight Tyson at this stage.

 

In 1988 I don't think Holyfield really wanted the Tyson fight not because he was scared or doubted he could win but Evander had only just moved up from Cruiser and wanted to gradually gain muscle mass and get used to fighting with that extra weight before getting in with Tyson.

 

Perfect response. I remember at the time thinking Holyfield was a very good fighter but not great like Mike Tyson. Holyfield was just another fighter they can build up as a worthy challenger. I was 11 years old and was a bigger fan of Hulk Hogan, The Road Warriors and the world of professional wrestling back then.

For some reason their missed opportunities before prison has me still believing those fights would've been scintillating.

 

I don't know why Bruno was a challenger ? He hadn't fought for a long time. Tyson seemed unbeatable back then certainly to me at 17 . Forman was a possible and Mercer was making statements about KO ing Mike . The Douglas loss was completely unbelievable !!!

 

I get the idea that Holyfield and his team did not want a title shot at the earliest possible juncture.

The idea was that he should get a few fights at heavyweight, and take on Tyson when he was ready.

 

It was talked about in 88-89.

Holyfield didn't have a HW fight until summer of 88 and beat shopworn Tillis and then shopworn Thomas. After he beat Dokes in a war there was much discussion of a Tyson-Holyfield fight but because Evander had a very hard time against Dokes and took much punishment the consensus was pretty much that Tyson would destroy him if they fought. And I think if he tried to war with Tyson at that juncture Tyson would have beaten him.

Tyson only fought twice in 89

At the time he fought Bruno Holyfield hadn't really established himself at HW.

His next opponent Carl Williams was the #1 contender having beaten Trevor Berbick in 1988

If Tyson had been as active as in 86 -88 then yes I think Holyfield would have been a legitimate opponent by the latter part of 1989 and I think he deserved a title shot at least as much or moreso than Buster Douglas at the beginning of 1990.

Could he have beaten that undertrained and overconfident Tyson? Perhaps

He would have been a huge underdog.

 

Holyfield wasn't Tyson's mandatory in 1987.

 

First, the RING doesn't designate mandatory contenders. The sanctioning bodies do.

And, second, you pulled up ratings when RING had gotten fed up with all the new weight divisions and decided on its own to go back to the original eight weight divisions.

So, if you look at the other Ring ratings for that year, you'll see they only rate fighters in the original eight divisions ... the other divisions are excluded. And if fighters were champions or highly rated in divisions they decided not to recognize anymore, they'd plug them into one of the original eight divisions (whether they fought in those divisions or not).

Which is why you'll find Evander Holyfield, the cruiserweight champ, rated in the heavyweight division. And Leonard, the super middleweight champ, rated at light heavy. And Rene Jacquot, the super welter champ, rated at middleweight. And on and on.

After a couple years, their ratings just seemed silly. As they were rating guys in divisions they weren't even competing in. It was a failed experiment. Their ratings just became less relevent during this period. So they stopped.

None of the sanctioning bodies had Holyfield as Mike Tyson's mandatory in 1987 or 1988. It wasn't until 1989.

Tyson's mandatories were Frank Bruno (WBC and WBA) and Carl Williams (IBF). That's why he fought them first when he came back after being out following the Spinks win.

 

Thanks for the info...you opened my eyes!

 

I'm glad you typed this out so I didn't have to. Seriously, thank you Dubblechin.
One thing... Yes, it (only using original 8 divisions) was a failed experiment. However, Ring went out of business in early 1989 and was brought back when Stanley Weston bought it in late 89 - I want to say his first issue was Jan 90, but I could be wrong - it was Weston's "new" Ring that brought back the cruiser and jr. divisions.

 

Since Holy recently had moved to HW and Bruno and Williams were mandatories, it seems Holy at the earliest could have gotten his shot in early 1990. Tyson faced Douglas instead, but I don't think Holy was too bothered about that at the time since Mikes was supposed to make easy work of Douglas.

He was there at ringside, building up their fight that was supposed to be next. It all seemed well planned, but Douglas apparently hadn't read the script.

 

I think that Evander Holyfield would have deserved a shot at a prime Mike Tyson, but I think it would have been best if he would have fought a tune up against a true heavyweight to test the waters,

 

Yep it was Jan 1990 available at news stands around 1 Nov. 1989. I still have the copy I hought at a news stand.

 

No....are you ******ed?