How good was Tokyo Douglas

I didn't say bull type moron.

 

You said something along the lines that he only knew how to fight one way, going straight forward. That's what bulls do.

 

I said he comes forward throwing big punches.
Not "straight forward". He used angles and slipped and crouched and weaved.
But.yes, with his short arms he had no choice but to get inside the taller fighters' range, and he was devastating looking to score KOs.
It was his only style really.

 

He had a man in front of him who was powerful with either hand, could take a punch and had good hand and foot speed.

It was miles from the best version of Tyson but it was, with the attributes I listed, a much better fighter than the Frazier defeated by Foreman in Kingston, the Maxes (Baer or Schmeling) beaten by Louis in Joe's signature wins, the Firpo that Dempsey beat in his most famous win (unless you think that was Willard who Tokyo Tyson was miles better than), the 30 something light-heavyweights beaten by Marciano, the limited Cooney that Larry Holmes beat, anybody that Jack Johnson ever beat. He may have had more than the Liston that Ali, as Cassius Clay, beat.

There you go. That's a list of the top wins of staples in an all-time heavyweight top ten. I think that despite his problems, Tyson was still better than any of the opponents. If you put an asterisk against Buster's win based on the opponent, you have to go through history and do the same for an awful lot of the recognised heavyweight elite.

 

You have to be in pretty good shape to **** half the women in Japan. That's a lot of ****ing.

 

I strongly doubt that but it's been a while (33 years) since I saw that fight. I should watch it again if he was better than he was in Tokyo. Before I do, perhaps you could post how you felt he was better so I know what to look out for?

 

People say that because he lost, mainly.

 

Tyson was in better shape to fight Douglas than he was to fight Tucker (a guy who beat Douglas). Yet because Tyson lost people say “it’s only because Tyson wasn’t in fighting shape for Douglas that he lost”. It isn’t.

Tyson lost to Douglas because Douglas was able to feint him more successfully. He was able to make Tyson do what what he wanted him to do. All night.

It is easy to beat a guy if you decide what he is going to do next. He can be better than you. He can lose to all the guys you already beat. But if you know what he’s going to do all the time,, well. He may as well be tied to a chair.

And that’s all that happened. It was all that needed to happen. People need to understand that.

 

A little bit of both imo

 

I can think of quite a few who'd likely go undefeated against that lot (in one-offs of course).

 

Excellent post. My thoughts are very similar. I am in the camp of those who dislike Tyson and find him very overrated. That being said, I do think he would've won had he took Douglas seriously instead of ****ing japanese hookers. That being said, he has nobody to blame but himself. Nobody locked him in a room and forced him to have sex with those hookers instead of training. He made that choice knowing he had a title defense coming up and still neglected to train. To me that is a far bigger stain on his legacy, than if he was at his best and simply ran into a fighter who statistically had his number.

 

I agree, but not if they have to go against them fight in, fight out.

 

Wow, I thought this was obvious in hindsight My apologies!