How would you rate Mike Tyson as a fighter?

Most devastating, terrifying, champion.
Brutal power, blinding speed, impregnable
defense, iron chin, mad heart. I agree
with the tragic hero view, he was better
than just great though. Undefeated,
undisputed, unified, lineal champ at
22. He would destroy both Klitchkos.
Bowe would be 50/50 due to his
chin and inside game.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1140013/index.htm

The news broke last week in a flurry of headlines and hastily assembled composite photographs—a scowling Evander Holyfield pasted beside a glaring Mike Tyson. The big bout is on: Nov. 8, Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, heavyweight champion Holyfield versus No. 1 contender and former champ Tyson. The numbers are suitably colossal—a projected $100 million gross, with a guarantee of $30 million for Holyfield and $15 million for Tyson—and so is the anticipation. Already the papers are full of comparisons to Ali-Frazier I in 1971.

...

According to Duva, King asked for $25 million for Tyson. "He spoke for an hour on the history of the heavyweight division and on why Tyson deserved more money," says Duva. When King was done, Duva made his offer: Duva's Main Events promotions would pay Tyson $15 million for a November fight or $20 million for an April 1992 fight, with both Tyson and Holyfield allowed one bout in the interim.

King, Hirth and Home left the room for several minutes. When they returned, King said, "We'll take the $15 million," but he also asked for a share of the profits exceeding $45 million.

Duva, Finkel and English retired to nearby Mickey Mantle's restaurant to consider their response over pasta and salad. Duva was convinced that King would reject their counteroffer. But he knew that if King didn't reject it, and Holyfield instead accepted a Foreman fight, "the fallout in the press would be terrible." Holyfield would be accused of ducking Tyson and would almost certainly be stripped of the WBC title.

What Duva didn't know, though, was that at about the time he and his confederates were finishing dinner, Tyson, in King's East Side town house, was telling King to "forget the money." Tyson wanted a shot at Holyfield.

At midnight Finkel and Jesse Spikes, an attorney who also represents Holyfield, placed a conference call to the champion in Hawaii. They explained the situation. The final decision would be Holyfield's.

Though Tyson had been Holyfield's first choice all along—"You can't hide from the fact that Tyson's the man," he says—Holyfield was reluctant to brush aside Foreman, who he thought had stood up for him at a time when King had "disrespected" him. "I don't want to leave him out in the cold," Holyfield told Finkel. Holyfield said he would pass up Tyson for Foreman, unless King accepted the $15 million.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1140295/index.htm

When world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield got home after a hard day's work at a Houston gym last Friday night, he had a message on his answering machine from his manager, Shelly Finkel: Call me! Moments later, Holyfield learned that he had just lost, for the moment and possibly forever, a $30 million payday. " Tyson is injured. The fight is postponed," Finkel told him.

Fifteen hundred miles away, in Las Vegas, challenger Mike Tyson, trying to ignore the hot pain of cartilage torn away from one of his ribs, switched on a television set to watch World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Ray Mercer battle Tommy Morrison in Atlantic City (page 74). It had been a bad day for Tyson all around. That morning in Indianapolis, Marion County Superior Court Judge Patricia Gifford had denied a motion filed by Tyson's attorneys to delay the start of his **** trial, scheduled for Jan. 27.

Gerald Higgins, a Las Vegas orthopedic surgeon, offered a more technical analysis. On Oct. 8, said Higgins, Tyson sustained a costal condra separation—he separated a rib from the surrounding cartilage and muscle. Tyson was put on an anti-inflammatory drug and ordered to take it easy for a few days. On Oct. 16, after Tyson had resumed sparring, the injury became even more painful, and Tyson returned to Higgins's office.

At this second examination, Higgins could feel a breach caused by the separation of cartilage from rib. He urged Tyson to postpone the fight, but the challenger was defiant. "I can beat the guy," Tyson told King. "I'll spot him the injured ribs."

"You're out of your mind," said King. "The doctor says 'Mike, you can't fight.' "

 

1985-1989
About as good as anyone who ever entered a boxing ring

1990+
Overrated

 

Tyson always wanted to give the fans a great show! The greatest entertainer ever. Youngest heavyweight champ ever. Killed those champions like they were shits/bums. 15-0 15 KOs in the same year 1985. I'll never forget this mother****er is my hero. Patrick Roy is not even near him lol.

 

Great at beating up bums and cab drivers, not so great at beating up top notch fighters.

 

atsch

 

These two and the mother-in-law from hell completes the set.

 

Exciting fighter unified the belts in a bad era against the 'Lost Generation' of Heavyweights. Not a top 10 Heavyweight of all time, wasn't past his Prime at 24 like his nuthuggers say and is not a Head to Head beast either. He had trouble with taller fighters with actual skills.

Saved the Heavyweight Division from a low point and should get credit for that. :good

 

So I guess Larry Holmes has no "actual skills" gtfoh

 

This exactly. I hate that past his prime bull**** excuse for his later loses.Douglas beat a prime Tyson. Unmotivated maybe,but still in his physical prime.

 

Hi Rico Spacafora

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you can be in your physical prime all you want, but if you're mentally weak you're going down

 

Boxing is as much mental as it is physical, we all know that at the time of meeting Buster, Tyson was mentally ****ed.

Going over to Don King, the mess with Robin Givens, driving your car into a tree the way he did proves that he was in self destruct mode.

You might be prime physically but if your mentally unstable which he sure as **** was then your screwed.

A prime mentally and physically Tyson is a top 10 HW ATG.