Is Mike Tyson a top 10 ATG heavyweight?

Mike Tyson is easily one of the top 5 best heavyweights of all time. Besides Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Jack Johnson, and Rocky Marciano I can't think of any other heavyweights to put ahead of him.

Tyson beat the WBC, WBA, and IBF champs in less than a year.

As the undisputed champ he beat
# 3 Pinklon Thomas
# 10 Tyrell Biggs
# 5 Tony Tubbs
# 2 Carl Williams

No champion after him came close to accomplishing the same.

 

I'm not sure about resumes but I think he'd be about #10 in a H2H ranking.

 

Just inside my Top 10...

 

No.

You have to judge on resume not on what ifs and fantasy match ups.

He was great to watch, but his resume isn't brilliant.

 

Yeah he's in my top 10, I have him 7th. Youngest heavyweight champion ever, undisputed champion, utterly dominant during his reign, one of the most iconic heavyweight champions in history along with Ali and Louis, head to head beast.

I don't rate him as highly as some, he didn't achieve enough to break the top 5. But I find it weird when some have Marciano in their top 10 and not Tyson. Tyson had a 3 year reign like Rocky, he had 3 more defences, he beat a 38 year old Holmes while Rocky beat a 38 year old Walcott, both beat an ATG light heavyweight in Spinks and Moore. Only real difference is Rocky retired at 32 after only 8 years as a pro, before he could lose after his short reign, giving him that elusive 0. Wonder if Tyson retired at 37-0 would people rate him alongside Marciano just because he got out early with the 0.

 

I would say yes, he just makes it inside my top ten. What pulls him down is obviously his post-prison career, especially by the turn of the Millennium.

But prime Tyson was a beast of a fighter, and would have been a handfull for anyone. But I cannot rate him much higher because of the shortness of his prime.

 

H2H top 10, yes, ATG top 10, no

 

What does age have to do with it though?

Say someone is 16 when he becomes lineal champion of the world. How does that improve his rating over someone who became lineal champ at 26 years old? Also, what if someone became lineal champ at 46 years old? Would that add any bonus points?

IMO age has nothing to do with it. Boxing achievements are to be looked regardless of how old/heavy/tall someone is.

 

I don't know about top 10 but in my book, Iron Mike will always will be the baddest man on the planet.

 

It’s subjective. Each to their own. Perhaps he doesn’t make many people’s top 10. Some, he will. I think we’re at a point now where we are perhaps looking for the extraordinary, as we’ve had a lot of great champions. Ali is regarded by many as the greatest because of the adversity he had to overcome outside the ring, as well as in it. When there are so many great champions it is perhaps the other elements that make the difference. What Tyson achieved at such a young age was, and still is, extraordinary.

 

He's close, but he misses the cut. I think top 20 is more fitting. If going by absolute peak powers, he may be top 10.

 

I know who the senile old cigar-chumping wanker was , sonny-boy.

My post was a measure of what I thought of his frequent daft pronouncements, a legend in his own mind.


But of course, that went right over your head.

 

@Rumsfeld, where do you have Iron Mike ?

I have him in a cluster at 7/8/9 with Liston and Frazier.

The order changes from time to time, but I think Mike merits top ten status.