H2H,who beats a prime Tyson

Well, I think if a 23-year-old man a bit off his form gets beat badly by a C-level opponent, that suggests even at his best he'd be losing to a good few A- and B- level opponents.
But fair enough.

I don't see the Tyson who fought Tucker and Biggs going the distance with Ali, Liston, Foreman, Frazier, Louis, Holyfield, Holmes. They'd all beat him, they'd all stop him.
Prime Wlad might well take a decision with jab and grab, and to be fair to Lennox Lewis he had the size and the uppercut to put serious pain on any version of Tyson.
They would be others too, no doubt, who'd win on points.

 

Tyson Fury could win a decision against Mike Tyson. 26cm/14inch reach difference, would be a hard fight for Mike though I can see him winning too.

 

A bit off form? Dude, you're grouping yourself with the idiotic Tyson hater brigade. I guess you don't mind since you post on every Tyson thread with unwarranted statements like the one above.

Buddy, Liston doesn't have anything Tyson can't deal with. On the other hand, Tyson is someone who has a speed/power combination that Liston might be able to deal with but would have extreme trouble with. Saying Liston knocks out Tyson in 3 rounds is one of the worst predictions I've seen on ESB...General included.

The only reason I'm responding to you is, besides Tyson threads, you're not that bad a poster. But your posts on Tyson devalue your credibility.

 

Liston

Foreman

Frazier

Lewis

Holyfield

Douglas he already did :yep

Ali obviously.

Their's more but I'm tired.

 

You don't "figure" Tyson out. If you wait to "figure" him out you're probably already waking up from your 10 count on that canvas soft spot.

A 22 year old Tyson was 35-0 and unified the heavyweight championship of the world after steamrolling the elite fighters of his era. For not having experience he beat the s h i t out of a boat load of world level experienced fighters.

Who said anything about Tyson knocking out every fighter he faced? Are you suggesting he didn't live up to his potential because he didn't knock everybody out? With the work rate Tyson had, of course he's going to throw less as the fight wears on, but so did his opponents.

And why is going the distance against Green and Tillis knocks against Tyson? These bouts both occurred during his first year as a professional. Ali squeaked by Doug Jones and needed smelling salts to revive between rounds against henry Cooper. Are these held against him? SuperMuhammadman Ali had some kryptonite in his day as well :deal.

Who are you comparing Tyson to anyways? No he didn't fulfill his potential, but he did a helluva lot more during his peak than most fighters have done in their entire career.

 

It's a small list.

For one, the opponent needs to have bags of natural confidence, needs to be of sufficient size (215 plus I'd say) to be able to live with Tyson in close and to be able to take his punches, needs a great chin because Tyson at his best cannot be denied offensively completely, needs a great jab and uppercut, needs to be disciplined to stick to a gameplan, needs to punch hard enough to get his respect, needs to be able to handle roughouse tactics and fouling...

Heavies with all these qualities aren't exactly growing on trees.

 

But I do believe Tyson was a bit off form against Douglas. That's not hate, that's just an opinion. I do try to treat all fighters by the same standards. Tyson was still at his absolute peak on June 27, 1988 and he destroyed a top 2 ranked contender in July 1989, and he entered the Douglas fight on February 1990 at his best fighting weight and as an overwhelming favourite. He didn't seem to be nursing any injuries. He also looked devastating in his subsequent fights that year.
Therefore it's difficult to justify that he was strangely and dramatically outside of his prime ballpark on that night.
You don't have to agree, but I think that's sound reasoning.

No, I think styles make fights. Tyson was like a pumped-up Patterson. He's made for Liston, in my opinion.

I could say the same about you. But I don't know if anyone here has "credibility" anyway, it's all opinion.

We both know that you'd pick prime Tyson to beat everyone and anyone. I think your opinion is further from the consensus middle ground than mine, but you are entitled to it.
It's all good. :good

 

I think it's fair to say Tyson was still a work in progress at 22 years old.
His trainer Kevin Rooney believes so.
Tyson was gaining experience and learning from his fights. If the Spinks fight signals the cut off, and you believe he regressed afterwards, he didn't have an awful lot of rounds under his belt against elite experienced fighters at that point.
It's worth remembering that the likes of Biggs and Tucker were considered largely inexperienced at that level too.

 

That's it.

Other heavies are certainly capable of equalling those Tyson defenses. Hardly a murderers row. and lots of guys on the way down the ladder and very few contemporaries, aside from Biggs and to a lesser degree, Tucker.

And Biggs and especially Tucker hardly cleaned out the division to earn their title shots. Very limited experience against top 10 opposition. And Tony had that decision changed or he would not have been an undefeated fighter anyway. And w/o that, does anyone think he even gets an IBF title opportunity against Douglas anyway?

But that was no minefield to navigate for Mike Tyson at that time. Old names. Easy road. Things change when a guy faces top competition fight after fight & that wear and tear factor enters the picture.

 

Nonsense.

What other fighter defended his belts 9 times consecutively against ranked opposition, aside from Louis? There were no euro-bums on Tysons record that oh so many champions loved to defend against. Ali and Holmes had their fair share of soft touches, as did Lewis, Holyfield, both Klits, etc.

Only Tyson (and again, Louis) plowed through a division so quickly and in such devastating manner. Nobody won more than 2-3 rounds against him during his title reign. You can say he wasn't fighting a murderers row of fighters, but he was fighting world class challengers of varying styles and types.

Wlad Klitschko has been a champion since 2006 and never unified all the titles. Tyson unified them within a year.

It's not the opposition that defines Tysons reign, although his opponents are underappreciated. Aside from Tubbs, Holmes and maybe Thomas, most of the guys he fought in the 80s were at their absolute best. It's the consistent dominance and schedule.

 

Yeah, I think Tyson deserves credit for what he did. But no one at the time was saying the crop of heavyweights were any good. The division was generally ridiculed at the time. Berbick was seen as a mediocre and inconsistent fighter, an unlikely champion. Smith was little more than a journeyman. Thomas was considered to be visibly on the decline. Tucker had spent 6 years fighting in obscurity against tomato cans. Michael Spinks was the guy the media could promote as quality, and it was acknowledge that he was fighting precariously out of his weight class.

At the time, no one was thinking 1987-'88 would be seen as Tyson's prime glory years, they envisioned him getting better as the years passed and a new crop of fresh challengers emerging where he could prove himself more.
But, as it happened, Tyson ended up losing to one of the vaguely familiar "re-tread" contenders.

The revisionists have since re-written the story, as if Tyson cleaned out a division brimming with prime talents. Far from it.

On the other hand, what he actually did does stack up quite well in historical terms, regardless of the lack of quality in his opposition. So he deserves his due credit.

 

Isn't Bruno a "euro-bum" ?
Damiani was on the schedule, he was probably a better pro than Biggs.

Holmes wasn't "ranked opposition", he'd been out too long. Bruno wasn't ranked by RING magazine. He somehow was #1 with the WBC though.

Some of Tyson's opponents hadn't beaten any decent contenders in years. Holmes hadn't. Thomas hadn't. Tubbs hadn't. It's debatable whether Bruno or Biggs ever had, although Bruno had beaten a comebacking Bugner in his previous fight, 16 months earlier. Spinks's credentials were extremely flimsy.

Berbick, Smith and Tucker were all coming off some decent wins though. :good

 

That's just the kind of Tyson hype I'm talking about. Do you really think someone with ATG footwork and movement wouldn't survive early rounds Tyson?

He didn't beat any ATG level fighter so it's laughable to think that "no one" has a chance against "prime Tyson" which some posters here suggest.

He had just a bit better resume than Wilder at this point FFS.

2nd year as a professional, and when he was 22 he was in his 3rd or 4th year as a pro. What exactly is a "prime Tyson" anyway, did his prime last for 6 months or what? It's all a myth.

This thread is comparing him to ATGs.

Just from this era prime Wladimir Klitschko easily beats Tyson. He jabs and grabs him to a decision or knocks him out in the later rounds. Povetkin and Fury would have a decent chance too.

 

That's what I think too. He defended his title pretty regularly, especially in the early part of his reign. The dominance was pretty complete, even when he didn't look good, as in the Smith fight.
But, to get rid of competition like (old) Holmes, Tubbs and Spinks in a combined total of only 7 rounds, and in such dramatic fashion...who else in history could do that? It's damn impressive, even if Tyson was the firm favourite in all of those fights. (Spinks was given a good chance by many though.)

The big fly in the ointment is Tokyo. A win over Douglas, even a sloppy, rubbish performance but a win, would have been much, much kinder to his legacy.
Even if he met Holyfield after that fight, as scheduled, and lost, it would not have been such a disaster.

But losing to Douglas, even a Douglas at his very best, really really hurt his legacy in an all-time sense.