How i beat Mike Tyson: Lennox Lewis

If Golota would have hung around? He may have been paralyzed had he tried to continue. Do you not understand what happened in the first round with that right cross? Golota was taken to the emergency room after that fight heavily concussed with a broken cheek bone, bleeding in the brain and a herniated disc between his 4th and 5th vertebrae. Tyson hit that guy hard and he knew he was screwed up that's why he quit. They tried to interview him back stage after the fight and he was obviously concussed, stuttering his words and not making a lot of sense.

 

Boxing's a funny business. I would say when Lewis took step aside money and was then promised a fight against Tyson which never materialized, Tyson held most of the negotiating power. Fast forward to 2002 and Lewis had all the negotiating power, and Tyson was essentially looking for a payday, so essentially the cards had turned. But the fact that Lewis never gave Tyson the 2-3 warm up fights Tyson felt he needed, says one of two things. Either Lewis didn't want to risk fighting a more difficult version of Tyson than he had to, or Lewis knew he wasn't going to be fighting for much longer and wasn't prepared to wait another year or 15 months for this process to take place. Probably both factors were in play.

But I still maintain the strategy Lewis used, particular in the first round, would have given any version of Tyson fits. The upper cuts and the constant leaning, and the bullying the bully around would have frustrated the hell out of Tyson, and those uppercuts rocked Tyson in the first round.

 

Can't really argue that point much. As you said, the type of style Tyson was fighting doesn't age well, given that Dempsey, Marciano, Frazier etc, were all finished by the time they were in their early 30's.

 

I think Lewis wanted the money too !
I'm not a fan of Tyson, but it was a bit sad watching him get rolled out to be a cash cow sacrifice like that.

Yeah, it helped that Etienne had a glass chin, twisted his foot on the way down, and made no effort to get up too !

 

Good post. Absolute nonsense that he didn't deserve a shot.

 

Absolute nonsense that he was "top 3 heavyweight".

It wasn't genuine. It was a con job. It was a fraud.
There's a lot of dishonesty going on.
Lewis fanboys cling to it to make the win have some meaning, and a lot of Tyson fanboys also try to make out that Tyson would have beaten all the top fighters too, because they like to fantasise about him beating guys I guess.

Truth is, since Tyson lost to Holyfield in the bite fight he'd done barely anything to re-establish himself. In 5 years.
Not only that, he was acting demented, in and out of the ring.
Hardly deserving of a title shot.

 

Tyson's record 1999 - 2001

1999

January - Frans Botha KO5 .... coming back from being banned for the bite fight, a poor performance, trailing on points, fouling throughout, a cracking punch pulls out the win in the 5th.


---- Tyson goes to prison again for beating up a random guy in a road rage incident ----

December - Orlin Norris NC1 .... hits Norris clearly after the bell, probably accidental in all fairness. NO CONTEST. Proves nothing either way

2000

January - Julius Francis TKO2 .... meaningless win.

July - Lou Savarese TKO1 .... a fringe opponent, almost meaningless, Tyson clearly on cocaine for this fight, pushes the referee, already slapped the promoter of this fight earlier in the week. Clearly unhinged.

October - Andrejz Golota TKO3 ..... a decent performance against the serial quitter, who quits again. Golota is lower end of the top 10 contenders at best, if we're being generous.
Tyson states before and after the fight that he doesn't want to fight again.


2001

---- a year lay-off -----

October - Brian Nielsen TKO6 ..... Tyson, who weighed 222 against Golota and career heaviest of 225 against Savarese, comes in at 239 3/4 against the Danish pastry, after a year lay off, looks sloppy throughout.
Nielsen proves to be an exceptionally well-designed punch bag.

 

I think Lennox expected that if Tyson had 2-3 tune-up fights, he'd lose in one of these fights, and Lennox won't take his well deserved money :good

 

No Mike wasn't top 3 definitely at that point. By the way, after another year-layoff since Golota he came back in awful shape.

What results I'd expect if 2002 version of Tyson met top-fighters

Lewis W KO8
Wlad W KO (yes, Wlad had to survive 1st round, that's it)
Vitali W KO
Byrd W UD clearly (2000-2002 a prime Byrd who scored wins over Vitali, prime Tua and old Holy), Tyson won't catch him early, and since round 4 Byrd dominates
Ruiz? Hard to pick the winner, Ruiz by DQ maybe
Old Holy - I'd pick Holy in 2002, both were completely shot at that point
Tua - wins by KO. By the way, Tua had 100 times better stamina than 2002 Tyson, see Tua late KO wins over Izon, Maskaev, Oquendo and compare to 3-round stamina of 2002 Tyson
Rahman - Tyson a slight favourite because of Rahman suspect chin and lack of speed, if the fight goes to late rounds, Rahman wins.

Larry Donald, Jameel McCline and Kirk Johnson most likely would outbox that version of Tyson, too

Lennox thoroughly dominated him since 2nd round till the end. Tyson was spent. Ha had no chance.

 

Nonsense, he was a ticking time bomb who did not want to fight at all....

If you google hard enough you will find his dedication, hard Spartan training habits pictured smoking weed in Hawaii while looking obese or looking even fatter in a Hotel lobby in Cuba where he flipped out destroying furniture .......that was his preparation for Lennox Lewis's legacy fight.

Tyson was never ever the same after prison, maybe some very small highlights of past glory but he was totally done after Holyfield 1......thru his entire second career he was never ever in top shape to go a hard twelve , he stopped working on his craft and just walked straight in relying that his still formidable power and still very fast hands bail him out .

Boxing is 80% mental and 20% physical........and his mental game was never there after the can.

 

By 2002, Tyson had been beyond the 6th round only once since 1991 ..... when he got hammered in 11 rounds by Holyfield.

He'd looked a bit sluggish going 5 round with fat boy Botha (1999), and 6 with fat boy Nielsen (2001).

Not sure how Tua could be said to have had worse stamina, seeing as he went 12 rounds a few times, and scored several late round KOs, including a 9th round KO against Oquendo two months before Lewis-Tyson.

People will say anything, I guess.