Did Tyson come back markedly a different fighter after prison?

Tyson still looked very fast in the Danny Williams fight.

 

After he left Rooney, Tyson was still the same fighter but stopped improving.

and of course prison took a toll on him, it kept him out of shape and wasted years of his prime.

 

Pretty much, but the rot had set in years before.

Tyson was never quite the same after the Spinks fight. He never again quite captured that fury. Part of the problem was Rooney leaving. Part of the problem was that he was left with no more hills to climb. Spinks was the last man to really make a noise in the Tyson era; he was one of the few people thought might beat him.
Tyson himself said that when he reaches his goal, he loses interest.
The other part of the problem was the years of wild living, partying and general self-destruction. Christ, he was getting high on the night he won the title from Berbick.

So there is no easy, straight-forward answer as to why he declined. It was a combination of many things. In his next fight against Bruno, his performance had dropped a notch. Sure he was still a mean ******* and good enough to smash Bruno, but there was something just a little off about that fight, performance-wise.

He polished off Williams so quickly that we weren't given much time to see how he looked. Then came the Tokyo loss which struck a big blow against him mentally rather than physically.
His embarrasment was complete when Evander easily knocked out a disinterested Doulgas a few months later.

Tyson looked all the way back against Tillman and Stewart, but they provided little resistance. Still, he did recapture the meanness and fury of previous days.

It took the Ruddock fights to expose the *****s in Mike's armour. Tyson got hit - a lot. Far more than in his pomp. Writers like Bert Sugar, Steve Farhood, Jeff Ryan, Wallace Matthews and others all pointed to the fact that Tyson was slipping, that he was not quite the same guy as in the 80's.
He wasn't bobbing and weaving, he wasn't working his way inside, his head movement was gone. He no longer set up his punches. It was pretty much obvious to everybody.

That didn't mean Tyson was done - far from it. He was still good enough to beat just about everybody, but there was a noticeable shift in styles. He had become one-dimensional. And people knew it.
Most felt he could still beat Evander, a guy who blew hot and cold, but suddenly more and more people were saying "Hang on a second, this is going to be a tough fight." More than a few thought Evander could win.

If anyone wants to call me on this, I will gladly repeat verbatim the fight reports from Boxing Illustrated, The Ring, KO - name the publication. The word was out - Tyson wasn't the same guy anymore, but since he still retained that speed and power, he was still a very real threat to anyone.

The prison layoff did him no favours. I laugh when people say the three years off affected Ali, but turn the other cheek when Tyson's layoff comes up. Of course the 3 years off affected him. How could it not??
Tyson was not involved in a tough fight before winning part of the championship back. The flaws were less obvious because of it. Again, he was still a darn good fighter, but the same guy from his prime?
Not a chance.

 

Funny, I write "c.h.i.n.k.s. in Mike's armour " and the word gets edited.

 

The BIG and TALL fanboy know-nothing is back.

You must absolutely LOVE Valuev.

 

Put Holmes, Ali, Foreman, Lewis etc etc in the slammer for three years with no boxing training whatssoever and they will never ever reclaim their form before they went in . Period. Same for Tyson. He fought strictly on talent on his second career not on improving his skill set.

Tyson did several interviews while in the pen and almost every single one had him disinterested in boxing as a fighter. The fire was gone, the desire to be the "baddest man on the planet" declined radically, starting after the Spinks fight. He admitted that all the guys he fought after Spinks should have beaten him and was surprised that he actually lasted until he met Buster.

He also pretty much stopped doing roadwork after the Spinks fight, training was no longer an obsession, now it was a nuesance aka cannot be bothered with.

After prison we saw no longer Tyson the fighter but Tyson the master salesman and sell he did...............a bodybulders build , a milking from the past name and absolute craving for $$$$ with all the associated benefit, good and bad, were the main priorities .

On a sidenote, he trained approx three weeks for the first Holyfield fight, most of it on the east coast because he had to be present in court for the Rooney lawsuit plus the heavy partying at night.

He signed the second Ruddock fight in a stripclub with less than four weeks to go...............not the sign of a committed athlete............

I had the privilege to attend a sparring session between Tyson and Oliver Mccall in the 80's. Mc Call was big , strong, great chin and proud. He talked a big game too but went into survival mode after less than two rounds.......... I guess he did not want that chin to be tested if it is really iron.........Mike's combination of middleweight speed and elusiveness with superheavyweight power were simply on another planet and ringside longtime boxing experts and trainers were literally drooling over this kid with a lisp.....

 

No, I remember that too. I was following boxing at the time of course, I'm not saying no substance of course but the style (ie hype) was outstanding. King did a masterful job of projecting Tyson's image as a destroyer.

Yet the McNeeley fight was seen as a joke anyway, and there was even mild horror from some quarters at the sight of Peter repeatedly charging Mike and flurrying away, something near unthinkable in Tyson's pre-Douglas days. The Mathis Jr fight had a good finish but he made Mike miss a lot and caught him with several shots himself, just Buster's total lack of pop achieving little results.

More than anything, it was the Bruno II fight that got some of the doubters back on board. British heavyweights were still treated as a joke unfortunately, but Mike looked aggressive and landed in combination and that cheered some. It's possibly his best post-prison performance. Others just complained about Bruno's timidity and said Mike still hadn't been tested.

The Seldon fight, I don't think I need to go into. Tyson actually got very little flack himself though, it was Seldon and King that got the blame.

The Holyfield fight was seen as King cashing in on a shot fighter's name. Uh, mistake. The big fights for Mike in 1996 were considered to be Bowe, Lewis, Foreman and more recently Golota. Instead, Evander had other ideas...

That's exactly it. The key was that Mike's one dimension was still good enough to beat virtually every heavyweight out there. You needed the right combination of skills, confidence and gameplan to beat him.

 

i disagree with that.

before prison he was much quicker.

and his stamina was way way better.

no way would he have gassed out like he did against holyfield back in 91. :bart

 

he was done around the time of the spinks fight

 

He had slipped a fair bit

People were expecting the same Iron Mike - meaning he was even more overrated than before.

 

Actually he lost weight in prison. Some sources had him as low as 205 lbs.

As for the steroids accusations...well I don't think Mr. Holyfield had any right to point fingers, but he may have had a point. Nothing was ever proven, but it's just something I've suspected for a long time. Most heavyweights were on something or another at that period anyway. (In my opinion.)
Razor Ruddock claimed Tyson must have been doing something: "I hit him with some shots, but I don't know...how could he be that strong at 216 pounds?"

 

I understand what you mean when you say Tyson was finished, but I think that's al ittle exaggerated. If Tyson was finished, then he doen extremely well for a guy who was finished considering he returned to boxing after a four year absence & won two titles & made a obscene amount of money!

Indeed, Tyson was not the fighter he was in the late 1980's, but he was still too good for most of the top guys. Tyson was still a force post-prison.

 

That's probably true but look at this

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I thought Tyson had greater one-shot power,post prison at least upto 97.
But,no,I don't think he was a better fighter post prison.
With Rooney he developed into a mutli-dimensional fighter able to work off his jab,throw fast combination even after leading to the body and throw well timed counterpunches.
Mike tightened up his orthodox technique following the Douglas debacle under the supervision of Giachetti,but in doing so lost the variety in his attack.