Is Tyson's Top 10 HW Ranking Justifiable?

Agree with much of that. Good post. :good

 

But how well do those skill sets work against fighters they didn't fight? How do we know how effective, for example, Holmes' jab would be against a Lewis or Frazier?
Sure you can look at past fights, compare them to fighters of similar style etc, but there is still a good deal of guesswork involved. There is no certainty.

What I'm trying to say is that for example, we can look at Ali's record, his quality of opposition, his significance to his era and other factors etc. These can be accurately determined. Even then there is a bit of subjectivety involved in it, but there are facts that can't be ignored or guessed upon.

But match him up with Dempsey and we're left with a whole pile of questions that can't be answered, but only speculated upon, even by the most knowledgeable of people. To me this holds especially true the further away the respective eras are from each other, time-wise.

 

Foreman only beat about 4 top10 ranked fighters in his career and is ultimately unproven, although he didn't do well at all against boxer types. If he stayed around into Holmes era and faced Holmes it seems likely Holmes would have beaten him.

His comeback is ultimately floored and his best win and the only ranked fighter he beat was Moorer, who was a natural LHW and chinny. Still he was outboxed for much of the fight. Holmes win over Mercer has to rank above Foreman's win.

Th Ali that beat him was well past his prime (but still not too much shame). He also didn't do well at all against boxer types and is ultimately unproven

The Frazier and Norton wins are monumental 1s (the Frazier 1 more so but Schmelling/Douglas/McCall/Tunney have massive wins and arent top 10

 

Thanks mate. You get my last pm? The one about Newcastle?

 

If you are comparing him to Jack Dempsey then he only has two title defences.

Harsh perhaps but consistant.

You can't go chalking up alphabet title defences against lineal title defences. If you do then you would have to start taking into acount defences of the coloured heavyweight title, various title claims that were widely recognised etc etc.

 

McGrain, I just want to clarify that I do place a great deal of emphasis on skill sets, but I can only gauge and appreciate them relative to the era concerned, or to similar eras.

How effective a certain attribute or skill set is, relative to other eras, especially those well removed on the time scale, is something I can only guess on, even if it's an educated guess based on certain facts.

 

all great points!

outside of all of mike tysons achievements, he was also had the best all around ability for a heavy weight with the exception of maybe larry holmes.

a prime mike tyson had,

great power, great hand speed, great foot speed, great chin, great strength, great offense, great defense, great body punching, great punch arsenal, great stamina, great resiliance to cuts, great starter and great finisher.

if someone could think for and motivate tyson, then tyson could do all the rest, he was that perfect a fighting machine.

 

Maybe you should as the coloured champion was certainly better than Willard, and Wills in turn may have been better than Dempsey himself.

The bottom line is Tyson beat everyone in the 80s bar Witherspoon and Witherspoon just didnt get back into contention. Dempsey fought in a lesser era and didn't fight many of the top contenders. Tyson simply has a far far better list of wins than Dempsey

 

great point. he was a part time champ who avoided the best of his time and arguably cheated his way into the title

 

i think that tyson proved his character in the title fights that he lost (lewis, douglas and Holy). he showed that he can take and beating still keep on coming. he nearly turned douglas fight around

 

Well yeah, but let's not go too far in the other direction either.

 

Tyson in the Top 10? Yeah, could be.

He is not in my personal Top 10, but I placed him as 11th after deciding between him and Frazier. So, in my opinion, Tyson is at least, borderline Top10.

Thus, I can live with a list where Tyson is placed 10th - 7th. Placing him higher than that is questionable, I think.

However, having Holyfield out of the Top 10 is pure madness atsch

 

The connsus seems to be definitely maybe which is about right.