If Mike Tyson had learned to throw his punches like Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis.......

Tyson was a better puncher than Dempsey..don;t know what you have been watching..He threw much shorter.More explosive.Faster.Sharper.Just better than Dempsey when it came to offense...The hell??

 

^ lol ya im not sure what the op is on. Tyson was one of the best punchers of all time, if not the best. His punching technique was flawless.

 

I thought Mike was at least the equal of Dempsey in the compactness of his punches.Where he lacked-at least compared to a Louis,Marciano or Holyfield-was the torque on the punches on the inside.When on the inside,I don't think he really loaded up his rhomboideus muscles(they are the muscles running down the centre of your back and which pull your lats and traps together) .So there was not the kind of explosive twist on these punches-unlike those of the three I just mentioned.

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I don't know whether this was a profound technical flaw or that is was just an aspect of his system or a combination of both...

 

Sorry Janitor, here's another that begs to differ. The hooks he threw against the likes of Berbick and Thomas were extremely compact and hard punches.
Ray Leonard was moved to say "They're short, powerful...devastating punches..." and they were. (During the Berbick fight.)

One punch he could have shortened was his right hand, which occasionally was thrown like a sort of looping shot, but that's it really.

 

Mike would have destroyed Dempsey..One thing i agree with Max Kellerman on is Dempsey was the most over glorified heavyweight champ

 

I never saw this one coming :adminnot from you. You sound like Haglerfans.

 

I totally disagree here. Tyson's offense is almost if not the greatest the Heavyweight world has ever seen.

I'd be more inclined to ponder what might have been if he had a decent amount of mental stability. It killed him more than any technical or physical shortcoming. Gosh, offense was the biggest name of his game. Incredible puncher.

 

I think Tyson's problem was that after he went off the rails he tried to take people out with one shot ,consciously loading up ,and forgot about his combos and head movement,I thought he showed excellent ability to throw short punches myself.

 

I have to agree with the consensus. As far as throwing short knockout punches, Tyson was unbelievable. He shattered more unbreakable chins than any other fighter i can think of. Michael Spinks had never been KOd before, but he didnt last a round. Trevor Berbick was never kod before or after, but he was KOd cleanly early. Holmes has an undisputed all time great chin that held up a long long time before and after the Tyson fight. But in the Tyson fight, Tyson cracked it with virtually the first decent shot he was able to handle. Big superheavys like bonecrusher smith or tony tucker may have lasted the distance but the could only do so by running and holding. I really cant think of a fighter who proved his knockout ability better than Tyson. His power wasnt long crushing power like a george foreman, it was sharp crisp short knockout power. I think in this sense his offence was better than Louis and Dempsey. Obviously he did have other shortcomings.

 

tysons form on all of his punches was great in his prime

 

Many things Mike Tyson was lacking in, BUT one thing he was GREAT at and that was punching. His ko of Botha, way past his peak is reminiscent of old Jack Dempsey handing one out to Jack Sharkey in the 7th round out of the blue. I don't think Mike was deficient in any way in his punching, I should say in the delivery of his punches that even the masters could have taught him any better. Another case in point was, again out of nowhere, in the 8th round against Buster Douglas, when he was getting the crap beat out of him and getting schooled and mastered by Buster, he nearly ends it with a short and sweet uppercut. Even in THAT fight, there is something to admire in Tyson's punching.

 

Good post ,one niggle ,Berbick was kod in 1979 by Bernado Mercado, 1st rd.

 

Tyson at his best was indeed a very sharp puncher who punched with much precision. The big "what if" would be what if Mike Tyson didn't stop doing the things that made him so awesome and "what if" he still surrounded himself with the people who helped him reach that level.