Is Mike Tyson the greatest heavyweight KO artist

Not sure what this proves because anyone's offense can be frustrated if the other guy clinches literally every 30 seconds and offers zero offense himself.

Tyson was a 19-year-old going the distance for the first time against a more experienced former contender. I've never heard that the decision was controversial. The announcers had Tyson winning. How do you think the 19-year-old version of any other heavyweight champ would fare against Tillis? Tubbs, Williams, Biggs and Tucker all tried to recycle the Tillis plan of jabbing and lateral movement and they all lost handily.

I think you're clutching at straws here. Thomas had a good jab. Holmes had a good jab, Truth Williams had a good jab. Tubbs had a good jab. They all got knocked out. Tucker had a good jab and lost a wide decision. So another guy with a good jab finally beats Tyson and that proves a good jab is the key to beating Tyson?

I never said you said they were dominating. I just fight it absurd cherrypicking occasional good moments for the opponent in fights where Tyson dominated the scoring and either won by KO or a clear decision.

 

I have already explained this and I'm tired of repeating myself. Was Tyson good in the clinch yes or no? Was he difficult to tie up, yes or no? Was he a great boxer on the inside, yes or no?

"Some said Tyson won the Fight, Some said Tillis won, it was quite controversial"

From boxrec.

There are Also posters on this site and even on this thread who thought Tyson lost. The score card for 2 of the judges was 6-4, wouldn't you agree thats fairly close in a 10 round fight? Especially given Tyson managed to score a flash knockdown which basically saved him from getting a majority draw?

I could see 19 year old Ali or Frazier stopping Tillis, but I also think he could frustrate or beat an inexperienced Dempsey or Mercer. It's about the styles.

Yes those guys lost trying Tillis plan. Look at who you're talking about. Biggs, an inexperienced drug addict who was rushed toward a match with Tyson so his handlers could cash out. He was not ready for that fight. Tucker had a broken hand yet managed to also go the distance with that style. Tubbs clearly didn't give a flying you know what and showed up overweight and out of shape on purpose.

Douglas was the first prime, in shape fighter to put it all together and what happened? He knocked Tyson out. He had no answer for Douglas' snappy jab, movement, clinching, or brutal uppercuts. Do you think that's a coincidence? Imagine if that had been a prime Lennox Lewis in Tokyo, it would have been brutal.

Douglas and Lewis both had long solid snappy jabs and he lost to both. A prime version of Tyson got his head snapped back by a coke head Pinklon Thomas for 6 rounds. But to you that's just a coincidence. How do you think a prime Liston does against Tyson? Does he effortlessly bob and weave past that sledgehammer jab without taking damage and stops Liston in 1-2 rounds like he did to a fat Tony Tubbs or Carl Williams?

Holmes was 38 coming off of a layoff and 2 losses. I already explained why the other boxers you mentioned failed. Many of Tyson's best opponents had drug problems/lacked motivation and/or weren't in the best shape. Not his fault, but it's reality. There's a reason the 70's and 90's are considered better eras than the 80's.

Do You think it would be "cherry picking" if I made a similar post saying sonny banks and cooper dropping Ali foreshadowed his downfall to Frazier? How am I reaching here? Ali got off the floor and whooped both their asses so most people didn't think too much of those fights and many people felt he would beat Frazier too, so they were shocked by the loss and knock down. Cooper and Banks did not KO Ali or win many rounds, but if a reporter used those fights to make his case that Frazier might win and you disagreed, you'd have to eat your words. I think you're focusing on one tree and not the forest.

 

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on Seldon and Golota. Did you include Botha and/or Etienne?

Anyhow, how does this stack up with Louis over his whole career? I'm pretty sure Tyson has Foreman beat both by your count and mine.

 

Now you're changing the argument. You were saying they neutralised his offense. Anyone's offense can be neutralised by a negative opponent who just clinches. Lennox Lewis was tied up and had his offense neutralised by Akinwande, just like Smith and Green did with Tyson.

You talk as if Tyson just got tied up whenever he came inside. For every occasion he was tied up, there was another where Tyson worked his way out of a clinch and landed, though he did get lazier later on, like against Bruno. He was after all a terrific body puncher, which can't exactly be done from the outside. Nor could his hook to the body/uppercut combination.

I'm aware it's become vogue to re-imagine this fight as some sort of gift for Tyson, but it wasn't seen that way at the time. And again, Tyson was 19, going ten rounds for the first time. The 8-2 scorecard was a closer reflection of what was going on the ring. How many rounds did you give Tillis?

The fight was scored on rounds, not points, so Tyson scoring a knockdown wouldn't have made a difference, unless you think he was losing that round.

21-year-old Clay barely scraped past 180lb Doug Jones. At 19 he was going the distance with Duke Sabedong and Alonzo Johnson. And you think he would stop Tillis? Can't see that myself.

19-year-old Frazier was still an amateur fighting three rounders, one year away from winning Olympic gold. And you think he would not only beat, but stop, a 6'1 210lb seasoned professional and former title challenger? That's ridiculous.

"Coke head", "drug addict", "out of shape", "broken hand", "fat", blah blah etc etc. You know I could go through Ali, Holyfield or Lewis' opponents and make similar excuses.

Funny how there's a ready made excuse why Tyson doesn't deserve credit for any win, yet you're going to pretend that Tyson was at the peak of fitness and preparation going into the Douglas fight?

Douglas brought nothing to the table that Tyson didn't already deal with. Tall rangy fighter, good long jab and movement, good right hand. That describes most of the guys he faced in the 80s, except you have some absurd excuse why none of them count.

And now Pinklon Thomas was jabbing Tyson's head off for seven rounds? Have you even seen the fight? You obviously missed what was going on in between, namely that Tyson was beating the living daylights out of Thomas. As I said, not exactly a blueprint for success.

Why are you bringing up Liston? I daresay you wouldn't give Tyson a pass for some of Liston's less stellar moments. Like losing to a little 180lb journeyman Marty Marshall, who also knocked him down. Being taken the distance by Bert Whitehurst twice. Not to mention that tank job against Ali.

Holmes also came back in his 40s, beat Mercer and got two more title shots. He was still rated in the top 10 in the mid-90s. He fought past the age of 50 and no one ever got to him the way Tyson did.

And all these fights you're bringing up either ended in a Tyson KO or wide unanimous decision. They didn't drop him, stagger him, cut him, win many rounds or manage to mount much credible offense. The closest you can get is Quick Tillis maybe taking three or four rounds off a teenage Tyson who had never been past round 5 before. I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

 

Foreman's best opponents

Wepner, Peralta, Chuvalo, Kirkman, Peralta, Frazier, Roman, Norton, Ali, Lyle, Frazier, Ledoux, Young, Qawi, Cooper, Cooney, Rodrigues, Holyfield, Stewart, Morrison, Moorer, Briggs.

22 fights (15 KO's) 68% KO ratio.

Joe Louis

Carnera, Baer, Uzcudun, Retzlaff, Schmeling, Sharkey, Ettore, Pastor, Braddock, Mann, Schmeling, Lewis, Galento, Pastor, Godoy, Godoy, Simon, B. Baer, Conn, Nova, B. Baer, Simon, Conn, Walcott, Walcott, Charles, Savold, Marciano

28 fights (22 KO's) 78% KO ratio

 

No. Very serious.

 

Ok, if we're talking best opponents and leaving Schultz, Savarese and Grimsley out as well as Brion x 2 and Agramonte x 2, Tilllis and Green are certainly out for Tyson.

And maybe Wepner (who was stopped on cuts, not a clean KO), Kirkman Roman, Qawi, Cooper, Cooney and Rodriquez are among Foreman's best opponents, but I don't think any of them were ranked when he met them (and don't think Peralta was ranked on both occasions) so that says more about his opposition than about them in that case.

I think ranked opposition is a better metric, or otherwise just do a total of their fights. It get's too arbitrary otherwise.

And I also don't see why Chuvalo, who was never down and who wanted to continue, is included, but not Golota who was down and had his face broken and couldn't possibly continue.

 

I'm not changing my argument at all. Nowhere in my post did I say green and Smith completely neutralized Tyson's offense by simply clinching over and over. I was pointing out that he was weak to clinching and he is. You have to be smart and mix it up though, like what Holyfield did. It can't be your entire game plan.

Can you stop putting words in my mouth? I never said Tiyson got "gift", I simply pointed out just how close the fight was. Tyson won fair and Square. He won more rounds and the knock down was no fluke, it was actually brilliant the way he set it up when Tillis was off balance.

So the like judge who scored the fight 8-2 was the only competent one? That's awfully convenient and biased of you! Do you think the judge who scored Canelo vs Mayweather was the only competent judge there? You also completely ignored the part where I mentioned that some people at the time the fight occurred thought Tillis won.

You keep mentioning Tyson was "only 19" yet he became heavyweight champion KOing Berbick 6 months later. So which is it? Was Tyson a green kid who should be coddled for struggling with a journeyman, or was he already close to being the finished product and had problems in this fight due to a clash of styles?

Ali would basically be a younger, harder hitting less shopworn version of Tillis. Add in the speed and height/reach advantage and it isn't too far fetched. When two guys have a similar style, the younger more athletic one has a major advantage. For the record I meant that he would win a decision, not stop him.

I do think Frazier would stop him. It's a horrible matchup.

Was Thomas on coke and had injured his shoulder, yes or no? Was Biggs green and rushed into the fight while also struggling with drugs, yes or no? Did Tubbs get offered a bonus for being in shape and showed up out of shape on purpose, yes or no?

Excuses are only invalid if they aren't true or can't be verified. They are called the lost generation of heavyweights for a reason and all of their issues are publicly available and well documented. Douglas would have been just another mediocre boxer who wastes his talent if the fire in his belly didn't get lit and he came prepared to win. The difference was he took the fight dead serious and trained his ass off. You are basically trying to write him off as being nothing special to pretend like it was "luck" solely because Tyson wasn't as focused.

I gave Tyson FULL credit for beating Berbick, Spinks, Bruno, Williams, etc fair and Square, all very good skilled opponents.

I don't give Ali much credit for the 3rd Norton fight, or the bogus 2nd Liston fight. I don't give Lennox any credit at all for the the 2nd McCall fight due to his bizarre antics and mental health issues. I am not biased, I'm just calling it like I see it. If a fighter is in bad shape, underweight, on drugs etc of course im going to factor that in.

And I GAVE HIM CREDIT FOR THAT. No one had ever stopped Holmes before or after, so yes, that is noteworthy.

It DOESN'T change the FACT he was coming off a layoff and 2 losses. The context of why I brought it up is because you kept asking "HoW cOmE oThEr BoXeRs LiKe HoLmEs CoUlDnT jAb AnD MoVe AnD cLiNcH tO bEaT tYsOn?" ignoring the fact Holmes was old and rusty implying Douglas simply got lucky.

Try to keep up.

Yes I've seen the fight. The ****ing commentators noticed Tyson struggling to get past Thomas' jab. Have YOU seen the fight?

Thomas himself disagrees with You:

"Mike was a real good fighter, but I also think at that time, he was vulnerable to get beat with the style that Buster Douglas ultimately used in beating him, which I thought I had as well. Before our fight, I was working with 'Scrap Iron' Johnson and during sparring I exchanged right hands with my sparring partner and my right shoulder popped. I went to a chiropractor and they didn’t do much there for me. A few weeks before the fight, Angelo Dundee my trainer, told me not to take the fight, but I figured I could beat him with my jab which was pretty good. But, I found out in the fight, I could not stick and move which caused me to get caught and that was the end of the fight." Pinklon Thomas during a 2003 interview with Brad Berkwitt of Ringside Report [7]

But of course, despite Thomas making a direct reference to Buster Douglas and comparing their styles, are you going to just say this was all a big coincidence? Nobody was studying Tyson's fights and coming up with similar game plans, the most famous boxer in the world with a guaranteed huge payday and a shot at glory?

Why are you ducking a simple question? Do you think Tyson breezes past Liston's jab and stops him in 1-2 rounds like he did to Tubbs and Williams, yes or no?

Marshal never knocked Liston down. Get your facts straight next time before shifting the goal posts.

No I don't give Liston a pass for quitting against Ali. The fact you assumed I'm picking on Tyson and that I just gloss over everyone else says a lot more about you than me.

The same can be said about Ali struggling with banks and Cooper for less than 1 round a piece, or Frazier getting dropped early vs Bonavena foreshadowing his eventual KO loss. These sorts of things happen all the time in sports, but because they're "star" athletes, everyone overlooks them and then gets the shock of the century.

I called Wilder KOing Brezeale early, but I didn't know it would be that fast. I called Pacquiao losing to Mayweather after seeing the Marquez and Bradley fights but none of my coworkers would listen.

 

I was picking opponents based on their record, overall skill, ranking, and age. I just had a lengthy debate with janitor in the Wilder vs Jefferies' thread about why ONLY focusing on rank is flawed as it can easily be swayed by favoritism, the whim of the board, bribery/corruption, sheer stupidity, and or bumping guys up or down a notch who have done nothing all year or who beat a tomato can to stay active. It's not the worst way to figure out how good a fighter is ina given year, but it isn't the end all be all either.

For example, stopping a skilled undefeated guy whose 25 years old whose ranked #12 is more impressive to me than stopping a guy ranked #5 whose 35 years old with 8 losses and has been brutally stopped multiple times.

Or stopping a guy who was active fighting 4x in 1 year ranked #8 yet for some reason the sanctioning bodies have lower than a guy ranked #3 whose done nothing all year but beat a guy with 20 losses to stay active. How does that work?

Roman and Rodriguez were ranked when Foreman KO'd them.

Any fighter can say they want to continue. Chuvalo looked like a kid being disciplined by an angry dad. He offered no resistance and wqs getting hammered on at will by a very heavy handed aggresive opponent.

Golota was not counted out nor was he stopped by the red. He simply walked out of the arena. I don't see how a fighter quitting counts as a knockout.

I have no problem just looking at overall career, but you Do realize Foreman has a higher KO% than Tyson and that Joe Louis is dead even with him?

And if You only look at rated/ranked opponents, the numbers look weird. For example, guys in Dempsey and Joe Louis time didn't always keep track of the everyone's fights or rankings so their stars could end up looking too low or too high. Someone like Ali who is quite clearly not the hardest puncher of all time could end up having an inflated KO%. Same thing for Vitali whose stats look impressive at first, until you notice some of his best opponents were not only older and shopworn, but several were stopped on their feet due to an accumulation of shots and weren't even dropped let alone counted out.

 

If you were picking opponents on overall skill, ranking and age I can't for the life of me see what that version of Cooney was doing there. Or Wepner for that matter, even though he snuck into the ratings one year.

And if there's examples of The Ring ratings being arbitrary guys like Gonzales and Roman would fit pretty well in. Peralta was also a fringe contender. Tyson's ranked opponents were often of the more solid kind. No one could dispute that Berbick, Thomas, Tucker, Williams, Spinks, Ruddock and Bruno etc weren't worthy of being ranked.

Berbick, Thomas, Holmes and Spinks were difficult guys to KO as well, not matter their ranking. Holmes and Spinks were only KO'd by Tyson.

And what does it effeing matter if Golota walked out of the stadium or not. His face was broken. I'd give Chuvalo a better shot of continuing against Foreman every day of the week. When he had his face broken by Frazier he turned away and quit directly. Nothing even slightly ambiguos about that.

But for me if I going to rank best KO artist, I do the eye test. Who just had the most impressive looking KO's in terms of accuracy, speed, combination punching and power against good opposition that was hard to KO? I think Tyson is a good answer to that question.

 

I think Tyson would have declined even without his personal problems. His style just wasn't made for longevity.

 

Strange that the haters come out in droves to argue **** that has nothing to do with the thread. Like, it's never, ever happened before.

Anyways, I don't see how there's anyone who can compete with Tyson being #1. Joe Louis is a long shot but he's #2. #3 is up for grabs: Liston, Foreman, Dempsey, Marciano can all fight for that spot. Maybe even Lennox Lewis.

Mike Tyson should be #1 without any contention.

 

Looked to me that Golota was fine after the Tyson fight, just rattled. I believe you when you say his face was broken, but put it this way: his cornermen would not have been screaming and begging at him to not quit if they thought he couldn't continue.

The ref also was encouraging Golota to start the round...not sure why how that means he "couldn't continue".

 

He came out of the gate nothing that has ever been seen before