how could tyson have fought differently to beat holy & douglas

Buster Douglas was not a D-level fighter.

And I'd point out he'd been top ten Ring rated for three of the past four years, going into the Tyson fight around #7.

Yes it was a massive upset but that was because it was Tyson; Douglas was not some kind of fumbling journeyman not worthy of a title shot.

 

Yeah, Douglas had been on a roll just prior to the Tyson fight and beat some good fighters. It's the reason he was given the title shot, but the media likes to say that Douglas was a nobody because it makes the upset look even bigger.

 

Douglas was a top tier fighter at the time and was in excellent shape for the fight, he had beaten some good fighters leading up to the Tyson fight he was no bum. There is a interview with McCall where he talks about how he told the Tyson camp when he was sparring Tyson that Douglas was a much better fighter than he was given credit for, its on youtube some where.

 

If Tyson had fought both men with the same calibre of physical ability that he displayed in his 80's heyday...BUT...with a better mental toughness and character under fire that a Marciano or Frazier possessed..and if Mike had that same dogged persistence and didn't "agree to be" submitted to the will of a determined opponent, as Teddy Atlas often accused him of doing, then he may have very well overcome the challenges of these two men...but then, that would mean as Itrimariti said, him being "a better fighter than he was".

 

Yes he was well-conditioned. Just look at his weight at the weigh-in, or his physical condition - not any blubber on him (unlike Douglas vs Holyfield for example).

But, there's more to training than conditioning. All the moves, evasiveness, and speed he trained and used with Rooney probably weren't worked on as much by his new crowd, that's why we saw him not the same Mike as before.

 

This is the key and I don't understand what people don't understand about this. Obviously he was in decent shape, but he wasn't working on technique nearly enough.

 

Douglas was a great fighter that night, the tape proves it. here was a big man with a jab, ring smarts, timing and combinations who could do all the things others tried to do against Tyson but failed. Tyson wasn’t poor. Douglas was a great fighter who fought a great fight that night.
Douglas never got the breaks. Tyson was the "house fighter" his whole career. that means he got the match making, sparring and training camps all the way through. Douglas did not.
remember Tyson had Mickey duff supplying Bruno victims in the match making and jimmy Jacobs writing cheques and talking history etc on the way up. overmatched guys were intimidated, hell even matched guys were intimidated!
Other heavyweights however were getting 50-50 match making all the way through and Douglas was one of them.
maybe Douglas was not fired up every night too, that’s a fair point. In Tokyo he was. In Tokyo Douglas fought to his potential. He was never as good before or again.

 

frazier had a beter temperment, he kept trying and never got frustrated. when he was frustrated tyson would stop trying and start thinking. frazier didnt need to think about what he needed to do, he knew. douglas just punished tyson when he ran out of ideas. tyson could not slide through the jab because of douglas's feints. even to go to the body tyson needed to draw jabs from buster. each time he got punished from buying the feint he stopped to think. tyson IMO was not an instinctive fighter in a slugfest SITUATION. rather he was great when it was one way trafic.

 

Any number of fighters could have beaten Tyson that night. He really was flat. I used those other examples in Ken Nortons post because he said Tyson never faced and beat a boxer. Tyson beat plenty of mobile skilled boxers as good or better than Douglas. Douglas was the same type of fighter, he just looked special on that night. It could have been Tubbs, Tucker, Smith, Biggs, or even Holmes that night. You only need to see Douglas against some of his other competition, to know Tyson's lack of effort had something to do with Douglas performance.
Tyson still managed to drop Douglas and had there been another 60 seconds in that round he most likely would have stopped Douglas, because thats when Douglas fell apart and got discouraged, when he got hurt or the fight got ugly. For the most part the fight went entirely his way. He managed to get himself together between rounds and pull off probably the biggest upset in boxing.

 

I remember him going on to beat Ray Mercer, challenge Evander Holyfield, as well as Oliver Mcall in two good competitive title fights. I would say Holmes was far from done as a top level fighter.

Your first post was that Tyson never faced and beat a boxer. Nothing further from the truth. Tucker, Biggs, old Holmes, Williams were all pretty good boxers. Douglas was not far superior to any of them.

 

Tyson may have been in bad shape mentally for Douglas, and undertrained, but I think Douglas fought better than anyone Tyson had ever faced, and fought 100% the right way to beat Tyson - boxing him and moving but standing his ground and being first with punches.

Tyson was a decent intelligent attacking fighter, he had a lot of assets, but he only really had one dimension to his game. He couldn't fight of the back foot, he couldn't soak up the punishment, adjusts and flow back in charge like an Ali, a Holyfield or a Holmes would. He was a bit one-track.