Mason was quite slow and ponderous. But I watched a young Lewis bounce some very heavy shots off his noggin and Mason barely blinked. Fantastic chin. For me, I think it may play out a bit like the Mercer-Morrison fight: Morrison doing well early and scoring with some nice shots, building up a lead on the cards and looking good for the win. Mason would continue to plod forward and eventually starts making inroads, hurting Morrison to the body. He gets an exhausted Morrison out of there around the 7th or 8th round.
Morrison by KO, in a competitive fight. I Just see Morrison getting off first too often for Mason and busting him up. Would of been a good match up tho.
Tried to give this one to Morrison, but going to have to go with Mason, who in addition to his stout chin, punched more than hard enough to dispose of Tommy.
Both men fought abysmal opposition. But Mason's win list was decisively worse.. Tyrell Biggs may well be the best man he beat which is fine.. Except Tyrell had only fought once in two years, was off for twelve months and had lost his last two fights. Not to mention having been dumped by the Duvas and living a less than favorable lifestyle for a fighter. James Pritchard still had a respectable record at the time and was keeping busy, but never became anything special. And the version of Lewis who handily beat him had 14 fights and was years away from reaching his pinnacle... And Gary also had a hell of a time with mark wills and Bigfoot Martin. I still believe he could crack though.. You can't stop 34 of 37 victims if you're feather fisted. And he did take some hard shots from Lewis ( albeit a green one ) implying some durability... But his resume makes morrisons look like Muhammad Ali's by comparison.. At least tommy has George Foreman, a declined yet fit and motivated Carl Williams, a fringe worthy Joe Hipp, and while men like Thomas and ruddock were shot they were still better than the hughroy curries of the world.. Morrison's chin and overly careless tendency to trade with dangerous men is the only Hangup I have.. But on occasion he showed toughness as he did against Hipp when he fought through a broken jaw to win by TKO and some ring smarts to box as he did against foreman. Or to rise off the canvas to beat an unusually tenacious Carl Williams.. As far as I know ( and I could be wrong ) Mason never fought through adversity to beat a competitive foe. That's not to say that he couldn't. But if we're honest he had one of the more padded records of his generation.. He was basically Alex Stewart with an English accent.
Alright. You have repositioned me. What we know of Mason is that he could punch and take a punch but wasn't near in the league of a nascent Lewis. He could have been more, potentially, but was already well on in years. I am going to be a better man today. I am going to say that Tommy Morrison, the pride of Cribdeath, Oklahoma, would beat Gary Mason. That felt really good.
