Mike Katz article, 1996 Holyfield-Tyson, including thoughts from EDDIE FUTCH

Tucker's opposition was awful. He was hardly known before Don King got him an IBF title eliminator against the utterly awful James Broad.

Nah, but do keep posting here. You're not bad.
Except this strange turn towards over-stating the Tuckers and Tubbses.

Agreed.
And Tyson came along when the vast majority of them had proven to be busts, corrupted by factors such as drugs, laziness, contractual dispute, cocaine, hot dogs, and more drugs.

Tyson beat a load of black stiffs to get his titles, defended against the mediocre, the unfit and the aged and got owned by a heavyweight journeyman.

Yeah, I've heard all this before. He "decimated" and "cleaned out" the division. But people seem to ignore the reality that really good heavyweights don't come along too often, and Tyson's 3-year "reign of domination" was amidst a stale crop of mediocre heavyweights - not his fault at all - and was ended when he lost to one of them by way of brutal KO loss !
It's a worthy thing to do, to be active and take on the best men regularly, but the supply of outstanding fighters is simply not there at the best of times in a 2-3 year window, and Tyson hit the scene at a particular low point, when the "lost generation" had been all but lost, and Holmes had long gone to seed.
Tyson's big super-fight rival was to be Mike Spinks apparently, a guy with 4 heavyweight fights in total.

Holyfield was greater.

The glaring difference is that Joe Louis followed his loss against Schmeling by re-establishing himself and winning the championship and defending it 25 times over 12 years, including a layoff just as long as Tyson's incarceration.
Look at what Louis did before and after the Schmeling loss and combined it clearly overshadows all that Tyson did by quite a margin. I mean, it's a huge difference.
Even then, I would never deny that the Schmeling loss is a blemish on Louis's legacy.

Feel free to explain "career arcs" to me.

 

Another good Mike Katz article, after Tyson's comeback win over Botha :

All Tyson Set For Is Next Stiff

BY MICHAEL KATZ
Monday, January 18, 1999


LAS VEGAS It was a "Trevor Berbick punch," reminiscent of the knockout that made Mike Tyson the youngest heavyweight champion in history. Francois Botha, like Berbick in 1986, was knocked down three times from the same punch, this one a straight right hand. Botha, like Berbick, kept almost getting up, only to fall back to the canvas three times.
One punch does not a Tyson make. But breaking a two-bout losing streak should keep the once-fearsome fighter, a laughable relic most of Saturday night, going until summer.
He said, "My timing was off." Maybe by a decade. The once-Iron Mike, now 32, said he was "rusty." He remained Dirty Mike, grabbing Botha's left arm at the elbow and trying to rearrange it at the end of the first round, causing a near riot.
"He was trying to break my arm," Botha said.
"He's correct," said Tyson, who was penalized a point by referee Richard Steele in the second round for trying the same dirty trick "unnecessary roughness," said Steele, who was praised by Marc Ratner, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, for gaining control of the bout.
This was Tyson's first fight since biting Holyfield's ears 19 months ago, his first victory since frightening Bruce Seldon more than two years ago.
He did not frighten Botha, even though he said he told him, "White boy, I'm going to kill you."
Botha talked back, admitting later, "I was trying to bait him." He told Tyson, "All America's watching you. You better start boxing. You're losing."
Shelly Finkel, looking a lot older since he became Tyson's latest adviser last spring, mentioned Vaughn Bean, Lou Savarese and Shannon Briggs as possible next opponents. Forget even a 50-year-old George Foreman. He might be too dangerous for an unsure fighter who kept asking his new trainer, Tommy Brooks, "How'm I doing, Coach?"
Not very well. He threw few jabs, fewer body punches and no combinations. He came out timidly, throwing half a jab and quickly stepping back from an imaginary counterpunch. He was so tentative he allowed the slow Botha to beat him to the punch.
Botha did not lose a round on any official card. It took the South African getting arrogant, dropping his hands and taunting and laughing at Tyson, for the self-proclaimed "baddest man on the planet" to survive.
It was a classic right hand, but Botha had his eyes closed after throwing a tentative right himself and walked right into it.
"I started fooling around too much," admitted Botha, whose biggest victory remains a questionable 1995 decision over Axel Schulz. "I let my guard down and he's a good puncher."
Was it one of the best knockout punches he's thrown?
"I don't know," said Tyson. "I didn't even know I threw it. I just saw him on the floor and I thought, 'This guy's quitting.' "
He went to pick up Botha before the South African fell out of the ring because "he's a brother and this (nonsense) isn't that serious. It's just a boxing match."
"There are some people," he added, "I'd let go through the ropes. They're not fighters."
He sounded sometimes as if he wanted to fight the media: "They're trying to assassinate my character, talking to judges in Indiana and Maryland (where he still has legal problems)."
Instead, next probably will be Schulz, the feathery-punching German, April 24 back at the MGM Grand, which should do better than Saturday's padded tally of 12,519 customers, many of them employees with cut-rate tickets. Schulz, at ringside, said, "Tyson fought poorly."
Schulz, Nielsen, maybe a faded Andrew Golota that's the league Tyson's in now.
"He's a punched ticket," said HBO senior vice president Lou DiBella. "He made Botha look like Evander Holyfield."

 

The revisionism is the idea that Holyfield had a lot more left than Tyson.
Holyfield looked dreadfully damaged goods against both Moorer ('94) and in the third Bowe fight where he was knocked out('95), and showed no sharpness against Czyz.
After the Tyson fights, Holyfield looked an aging fighter again against Moorer in their second fight ('97).
He wasn't just having tough fights, he was looking old and easily worn out with it.

It's fair to say both Tyson and Holyfield were significantly off their best form, and past their primes.
To claim a serious difference in how far they were off or past their best is incorrect and an uneven judment.

 

True, Holyfield proved to have more accomplishments and motivation left. But then again, he might still be fighting and beating people when he's 60. So, I guess in that sense, he has "more left" than anyone ever.

On a fight-by-fight basis, relative to his own peak ability though, he's shown to have had very little left of himself since about 1994.
Since about 2002 he's been running at about 30% or less and decreasing.

 

I agree with almost everything Eddie Futch says in the article, not because it's Futch though. I just see things the same on this issue - and many other issues. I do respect his opinion even on things I don't agree with.
I know there are Tyson fans on this forum who would accuse me of being a "hater" or some **** just for holding some opinions, ones that Futch seems to hold and express even more strongly than I have.
It's all just a matter of opinion though. On that we should all agree. :good

I think the most interesting thing about the article is how highly Futch rated the likes of Liston, Louis, Ali and Frazier, even in the aftermath and glow of Holyfield's height of recognition.

(I think Mike Katz was a pretty good writer in those days too)

 

:good

Yeah, it don't get much better than the thoughts of Futch and Arcel. Wise men, wise words.

 

Another way of saying it is, Holyfield looked pretty bad against Moorer (who himself was out of shape and past his best too, in truth) - and had to rely on powering his way through an opponent who was known to have durability issues.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOT4F9bBOsU&feature=related[/ame]

^ That's a very old looking Holyfield.

Holyfield was very noticeably past his prime and weary after '92 or '93. Everyone can see it. It's no big thing, until someone makes out Tyson's relative ability was clearly far more declined than Holyfield's - which isn't true.
It seems the fair position to take would be to accept that they both were off their best by comparable degrees.