Is Tyson's Top 10 HW Ranking Justifiable?

Berbick champion
Thomas former champion
Holmes former champion
Tucker champion
Smith champion
Tubbs former champion
Spinks former champion
Bruno champion
Seldon champion

How many current, future, or past champions did Lewis and Holyfield defeat?

 

I love your passion for Holyfield

You can definitely justify rating 10 heavyweights ahead of Tyson. Remember that subjectivity can creep in. But really, you can be reasonable while having him outside that top 10. However, anything top 5 is much harder to justify in my opinion. That's just me...

Are you seriously trying to say Tyson has a better resume than Holyfield? Those names just say a lot about his era. Where Tyson should get more credit is for his wins with Spinks. Holmes is an awesome name but he had bad timing from being off. Holmes of even later was arguably better. But he had to get that money.

 

great points. they also never beat champions in the fashion that tyson did

 

Some of them were decent, others **** weak.

I'd say his best wins were over Ruddock and Holmes.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Tyson by any means, but feel he gets a lot of plaudits for not a lot of substance.

As do many fighters.

 

Why anyone who use Seldon to justify someone's comp is a mystery to me.

As for Tyson I personally have him just outside the top 10 but I have absolutely no problem with those who rank him higher. The whole exercise is subjective anyway, and at least in my generation (I'm about the same age as Tyson) there's certainly no other fighter who won in such a dominating fashion. And at his peak he certainly who be included in most peoples top 5 H2H, so he had the ability to be likely top 3. Unfortunately he self destructed and never realized his full potential but even when he lost, he demonstrated a remarkable ability to take a punch.

 

Any fighter who wins the title and defends it is a champion in my book. Seldon falls under that category, and although he became a total pu**y in the Tyson fight, he had decent skills. Put up this same graph with Lewis' competition, and you will find the few former and current champs he beat and its about 50/50 domination and struggles.

 

Resume or wins against competition? Wins its probably close. Holyfield could have easily not gotten the decision in the second Bowe fight and the Mercer fight and it woudlnt have gone down as a travesity. There was no close calls with Tyson in his prime. It was total dominance. The part about Holmes timing being off is total crap by the way and a poor attempt to discount Tysons win.

 

Well Im just pointing out when you look at Lennox Lewis resume, he did not beat a lot of seasoned fighters. Most were young and strongly flawed, and he really hammered his legacy out on those type of fighters. Enter the fighters on the level of fighters which I believe most resembled Tysons competition, and you have a lot of inconsistency. Mercer, Bruno, Mcall, Tucker, were fighters that easily fall into the category of good solid late 80's early 90's fighters. Tyson beat comparable fighters and some of these much quicker and in more dominating fashion. The same cannot be said for Lewis, who many rate higher than Tyson for his longevity in my opinion.
Also taking into consideration what a half speed Tyson did to fairly comparable competition in the mid to late 90's shows you how bad those guys really were.

 

PART OF GREATNESS IS HOW ONE DOES WHEN EVERYTHING IS NOT GOING THERE WAY.

Sure, Tyson was great in his "prime", but as soon as he didn't have all that, he was a very, very flawed fighter with a week mind. The great thing about Lewis and Holyfield are how they came back after losses and tough fights, even when they were not in their "prime".

 

In my earlier post I put him at #10.

So, I've spent the last hour compiling my definitive list.

#1 - Ali
#2 - Marciano
#3 - Louis
#4 - Liston
#5 - Schmelling
#6 - Baer
#7 - Walcott
#8 - Lewis
#9 - Dempsey
#10 - Tyson

 

LoL. So you're saying being totally destructive ultimately enhances your legacy? To me it makes it look worse when you dominate but fair bad against the best of the era. So you discredit Holyfield's resume for potential travesty decisions that could have happened since he didn't KO them?

And really Holmes being off is total crap? How can you say that if you know anything about boxing, especially a fighter like Holmes who relied on timing and catching people while coming in. The 2 years definitely affected him. Saying otherwise OVER-credits Tyson.

Which is why it's perfectly justifiable having Tyson out of your top 10 list. If he would have retired young it might have helped him in this odd way.

Interesting list to say the least. No Holmes, no Foreman, no Frazier? Baer makes the list? Schmelling that high? I like it's uniqueness and boldness I must say, though...

 

just a little excersise.

Tyson 15 best opponents in no order:

Spinks (KO1)
Ruddock (TKO7, UD12)
Berbick (TKO2)
P. Thomas (KO6)
Holmes (KO4)
Botha (KO5)
Smith (UD12)
Tucker (UD12)
Bruno (TKO5, TKO3)
C. Williams (KO1)
Biggs (TKO7)
Tubbs (KO2)
Stewart (KO1)
Savarese (KO1)
Seldon (KO1)
Golota* (TKO3 or in case you get technical NC3)

Try doing the same with Foreman, Frazier, Liston and Dempsey by the time you reach the 7-10 range you'll find yourself struggling to add in opponents that are quality. In fact you may even aggrandize some of the opponents to prop up the magnitude of the win.

Tyson doesn't have the signature win that Frazier has in Ali, or Foreman has in Frazier but he has alot of depth that cannot be discounted. Considering 10 of them were champions or former champions at the time he faced them it says alot about his record vs. top 10 contenders.

 

i think lewis beat alot too,

tyson
holyfeild
weaver
briggs
bruno
klitschko
tucker
rahman
mccall
morrison
akinwande
mercer

but i cant argue with impressive fashion that tyson won his fights.

 

Another hidden poll atsch

 

My reasoning is far from science, that's for sure.:rofl

Holmes just wasn't for me. I tried to appreciate him for what he could do, but something just didn't appeal - no matter how I looked at him as a boxer. I tried again tonight, but I just couldn't find the factor I was looking for.

Of the 3 you mention, I'd say Foreman came closest to joining the list. In fact he'd have been at #11.

My way of looking at the Top 10 is a little different. I have always tried to pick fighters who, for periods of more than 4-5 fights, no matter who they faced (but they had to be credible)- looked completely and utterly invincible. In my list I think all of them had periods where they dominated in such a way that no-one could get anywhere close.

Schmelling qualified high on my list because I think he had that in buckets - and the shock Louis win (who of course was deemed invincible at the time) coupled with a very debatable rematch loss (the kidney punches loss) when he was perscuted for being a supposed part of the Nazi war machine (he was more a propaganda animal for them than anything else).