Mike Tyson and adversity

If someone were to give Tyson $100 million today, i guarantee you he will go back to the old vices. He will attract vultures and leeches again.

 

You’re probably right. His mentor Cus said “people who are born round don’t die square.”

 

it was booty that killed the beast

 

He fired back immediately every time he got tagged by a big shot. And there is not many HWs in history that could have taken that smash he ducked into without seeing it at the end of the 6th round of the rematch. That was a fully loaded up "smash" with macimum possible leverage that tyson ducked into without seeing it, it hit him right on the button and knocked his mouthpiece out.

If he had anything less than a cast iron chin and Had gone to sleep or even just got knocked down from that same shot then people here would be calling it one of the hardest punches ever thrown and it would be compared to the right hand shavers put down holmes with or the marciano walcott KO.

 

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Mike_Tyson_vs._Donovan_Ruddock_(2nd_meeting)

Tyson had one point deducted in the 4th, 9th, and 10th rounds for fouls.

Hmm so i guess its all a conspiracy and mills had it out for tyson? You do realize he was LUCKY to not be disqualified? Did u even watch this fight? The ref, the commentators, EVERYONE but you somehow saw the low blows.

This content is protected

No one said tyson "never" overcame adversity. You lack reading comprehension.

Overcoming adversity against a c level journeyman like tillis is NOT AS CHALLENGING as overcoming adversity against GEORGE FOREMAN like Ali did. Now do you get it? SOMETIMES tyson overcame adversity, oftentimes he DIDNT.

The "odds" were that Tyson would beat douglas 42-1. No other champion needs the bologna excuses you make.

NOBODY was favored to beat Tyson after he won the belt from berbick. He was the favorite against the long line of tomato cans on his way to the title and thats why the odds were so high by the time he was undisputed genius! Thet thought spinx could at least trouble him with his tricky outboxing skills and nobody doubted him after that. Even the goddamn post prison tyson was favored over freaking holyfield, thats how much hype he had. I was actuallu alive at the time (about 7) and watched the ppv and literally the whole rooms jaws were wide open in disbelief.

You keep talking about tyson being short but NOBODY could match tyson in athleticism, speed, youth, defense, or power. Bruno was the first big guy who could hit hard but the guy wouldnt open up and was just trying to survive, not actually trying to ko or decision tyson. Ruddock was the only guy in mikes prime who could match him in strength, power, toughness, etc. Most of tysons opposition were either past their prime lanky outboxers (holmes, tillis, spinx, etc) or chubby inconsistent lazy guys from the 80's (fatass tony tubbs, drug addict pinklon thomas, lazy gunshy smith, etc).

The only in shape prime ranked opponents who actually showed up and did their absolute best to win were

-berbick
-tucker
-ruddock
-williams
-biggs
-stewart

6 people out of 37 opponents in tysons prime who were worth a damn, were athletic, in their prime, and tried to actually win. Everyone else was outmatched in youth, speed, power, chin, ring iq, defense, etc or were doing just enough to survive. I understand its not Tysons fault if the opponent wont bring their A game but were talking about OVERCOMING A.D.V.E.R.S.I.T.Y. The level of opposition he had to overcome was not that great compared to other champions and the vast majority of boxing historians agree on this.

Im noy saying tyson was glass jawed or even average, obviously he could take a punch. But 5 stoppage losses and not ever getting off the floor to win or avenge a defeat means he clearly didnt have an ATG chin and especially not ATG heart and determination. You can make all the excuses you want, the facts wont change.

You cant praise him for "overcoming adversity" if he LOST. THE. FIGHT. That doesnt even make logical sense because he never overcame the adversity.

 

He wouldn't have made it as far as he did - undisputed HW champion - without some grit.

It wasn't like Tyson was completely untested and then fell apart the first time someone stood up to him.

v. Tillis:

A green Tyson had to find a way to win against a very competent, experienced and in-shape Tllis.

Tyson worked the body, landed the bigger shots and paced himself well in this fight.

v. Boneclutcher Smith:

Smith had an iron chin and grabbed Tyson like he was his woman at every opportunity.
Tyson accepted that it would be a long fight and used his superior speed to easily outpoint the tough, powerful Smith.

v. Tony Tucker

Tucker showed no fear and hit Tyson with a tremendous left uppercut in the first round. Tyson calmly accepted the blow and outworked Tucker even outjabbing the 6'5 opponent for a comprehensive UD.

v. Frank Bruno (first fight)

Tyson, his first fight without Kevin Rooney, looked vulnerable. He accepted more punishment than in any previous fight from a guy who had very good power. Tyson eventually overwhelmed Frank. He relied too much on his power in this fight and failed to move his head as well as in previous fights, but showed grit in walking through Bruno.

v. Buster Douglas

An apparently undertrained and ill -prepared Tyson took a shellacking from a super motivated Douglas who put in a once in a career type of performance. Tyson didn't quit. Well behind on the cards, he dropped Douglas, but was unable to finish him. Buster resumed domination and Tyson went out on his shield after getting blasted with a series of punches in the 10th round. He easily could have stayed down, but tried to rise while obviously completedly out of it and the referee rightly rescued him from futher punishment.

v. Razor Ruddock (both fights)

Tyson regrouped from the Douglas loss and re-established himself as a viable challenger to Holyfield with two wins over a game and powerful Razor Ruddock. Tyson took some punishment in both fights, especially the second fight, which was a rather entertaining give and take war. After the second victory over Ruddock, the boxing world awaited a Superfight against Evander Holyfield in late '91, but sadly what would have been a competitive war failed to materialize.

 

I appreciate your honest post and agree with most of what you said.

I believe Tyson left prison with good intentions based on his reading of the great philosophers. The problem is he reverted back to his old ways of being a PHONY (Atlas’s words, not mine) once he accepted the Yes Men back into his inner circle.

I have never disputed the fact that Tyson has a helluva chin, levels better than Lewis’s proved to be. However, I believe Tyson’s durability works against him from a psychological standpoint. Again, I believe an intimidating fighter like Tyson aka a bully struggles to psychologically recover from a 10th round, 11th round, 8th round knockout loss that occurred after a largely one way beating. On the other hand, Lewis could always convince himself that he got caught by a lucky punch.

Tyson’s favorite fighter, Roberto Duran, is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Let’s look back on his LKO2 against Hearns. Although he was largely ineffective for the entire fight, Hearns’s ability to knock him out as quickly as he did enabled Duran to move past the defeat and persevere through a hard fought win against the same Iran Barkley, who twice conquered Hearns, in 1989’s Fight of The Year.

I already mentioned Jeff Lacy as an example of a fearsome fighter who never recovered from a prolonged beating.

 

I agree 100%. In fact, I remember Foreman’s response to a question about his vaunted power when he said he always looked to knock his opponent out as quickly as possible out of fear that he could get caught and knocked out himself.

 

The Tyson camp had complained to the officials from the previous bout with regards to Ruddocks trunks and that he wore them higher than usual. Mills Lane was the referee on the second Holyfield fight as well so there is no coincidence there. I have every reason to suspect the low blows were accidental, it wasn't as bad as Golata-Bowe.

The subject matter of the thread and the Tyson hate club has said like a broken record that Tyson never overcame adversity at all and when evidence has been pointed to the contrary, they have made all sorts of excuses "oh those fighters were rubbish, it doesn't count". Fact of the matter is that Tyson overcame adversity and that is the end of the matter and the thread.

Upsets happen in the sport, that is what is great about this sport of Boxing. Upsets have happened against Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Holyfield, Lewis on specific nights as well where they lost to fighters as well they were highly favored to win against.. But even in that defeat Tyson hung in there till the very end and even knocked Douglas out in the 8th round for 13 seconds and won the fight. He did overcome adversity that night but the corrupt referee had other ideas.

In any case Buster Douglas was a no nobody, a bum. His effort in the Holyfield fight was enough to tell me all about him. His decision to not rematch Tyson given that it was a highly demanded fight for which he would have earned large sums of money said all about him. He knew he was never going to get lucky again. In a book signing session where both Tyson and Douglas were present, everyone swarmed Tyson getting pictures clicked next to him, Autographs, discussions whereas Buster Douglas was sitting all alone on his desk with no even a fly on display. Everyone knows that the best version of Tyson will beat the best version of Douglas 10 times out of 10.

The same could be said about Lewis's resume as well which is filled with washed up, damaged Tyson left overs, past prime fighters and a shot fighter and a defeat with a Tyson sparring partner. The 80's was the era of boxing movers and there was plenty of talent on display, it could equally be argued that Tyson was the singlehanded reason why everyone was wiped out and everyone's career was wiped out and there was one undisputed champion.

You cannot blame a fighter if 99% of the times he never has to face Adversity because he is that good, if 99% of the times he will not get floored. These things should and do add to your legendary appeal.

History is not that black and white. People who will dig deeper into the losses will realize that this was a guy who lost the vast majority of his fights when he was past his prime and shot, they will realize it took a mountain to floor him and that you would have to beat the living **** out of him to knock him down and that he could absorb tremendous punishment while still remaining on his feet and in the fight versus other opponents who would get knocked out with one punch to the face. These facts will be looked out and the losses will be looked in perspective.

 

Great post Cobra! Hopefully UFC2015 read it carefully and/or watched YouTube videos of some of the true heavyweight greats: Louis, Marciano, Ali, Holmes, Holyfield. Given his career accomplishments, I’d put Lewis in that category, but I know UFC2015 is only going to watch the 2 losses that he suffered against McCall and Rahman.

 

Don't overlook the fact that LL also did the toughest thing in the sport---fought as a road warrior. He could have insisted upon the opponents fighting exclusively in his backyard. He didn't. And he took on DKP fighters and came out with wins. Go ahead and name the guys who beat DKP fighters in cross promotions & you won't need one hand to do it.

That's the toughest road to take. And the guy did another very very difficult thing---he took on the pedigreed and groomed up and comers. And won. Most old heavies lose when it's their time to be the old guy facing young lions.

 

Lewis fought in the US because the bulk of the money was in the US, he would have made peanuts by continuing to fight in the UK. Similarly right now the bulk of the money is in the UK as far as heavyweight boxing is concerned, this is why Wilder will need to take the Joshua fight in the UK. This is why Shannon Briggs tried very hard to launch his comeback career in the UK.

 

god damn ruddock looked huge