Mike Tyson, Top Ten Worthy?

calm down, you say i have no right but yet you are doing the same with my ranking of rocky. so i don't have the right but you do? either way you look at it all of these posts are subjective. you definatly made a great point about the rock's resume.

 

I think Witherspoon was eliminated by a means other than just the incredible fighting abilities of James Smith

 

I look at Tyson's win over Holmes very impressive, considering he went on to beat Mercer, give Holyfield and Mcall close fights. Tyson crushed him in 4 rounds.

 

i don't see it the same way. holmes was at the ass end of his career. thats like saying that holmes win over ali was notable.

 

although he did fight 23 to 24 fights after tyson and the defeat of a 18-0 ray mercer was impressive.i guess that is how good holmes was. still a prime holmes gives a different fight to tyson.

 

Top 5 Worthy.
Unified the Heavyweight championship.
Beat the best heavyweights of his day when in his prime.
Would do better head to head than ANY heavyweight in mythical prime for prime match ups.

 

Nah not the same. Ali didnt go onto any noteable wins. Holmes did. I think its a different fight too in his prime, but not much different. Tyson was very good at making mobile fighters stand and fight. Holmes never had the fire power to keep Tyson off.

 

Lets look at his raw statistics:

Prime
Obviously on his way to the title he was one of if not the most dominant of all the heavyweight champions.

He achieved more than anybody else at a younger age and probably had a slight lead over both Louis and Ali (at the same stage of their careers)going into the Douglas fight.

Opposition
The oponents he beat during his prime run were the best available at the time. While there were not many great fighters around there were a lot of verry good fighters as is the case with the title reigns of Louis and Marciano. The resumes of great champions are rarely built against other great fighters in their primes.

Title reign
His title reign was short and he only really managed two sucesfull title defences if we are comparing him to greats of the past. Yes I am sorry but if there had been split titles in Joe Louis's era he could have picked one up before he beat Jimmy Braddock. His lack of longevity is the biggest mark against his record.

Depth
The depth of his resume is deceptivley impresive. Although he had a short title reign he was beating ranked contenders for a long time after he lost the title. If you rank the heavyweight champions based on how many ranked oponents they beat Tyson is actualy one of the best.

Historical impact
In terms of historical impact he can be compared to fighters like Sullivan, Dempsey, Louis and Ali. If you have never heard of him you are probably living on Mars.

Head to head
You can argue it either way of course but if he was going to fight your No5 heavyweight or even your No1 heavyweight would you be confidant of the outcome. I dont think most of us would.

Conclusion
A top 10 ranking can be justified.

 

Nice summation. It would be interesting to see a ranking based on number of ranked opponents beaten and percentage of wins. If anyone would have the stats it would be Hhascup, I reckon.

 

Without reading the entire thread this is my thought as well. H2H I think an argument can be made that he's inside the top 5. But career achievement and lack of longivity on the top eshlon hurts him in my opinion.

 

OLD FOGEY atempted something similar once and Tyson came out better than expected.

 

You can rip anyone's career down, how about we make fair comparisons of his wins with other champs in terms of his opponents:

Holmes - equivilent of Louis-Marciano or Tyson-Lennox
Spinks - equivilent of a Moore/Charles-Marciano or Dempsey-Tunney
Thomas - equivilent of a Norton-Ali,
Bruno - equivilent of Louis-Max Baer
Rudduck-equivilent of Dempsey-Firpo
Douglas - equivilent of a Foreman-Young or Schmelling-Louis
Tucker - 35-0 part champ in his prime, equivilent of a Lastarza?
Berbick - 1 of Holmes better wins
Seldon - Equivilent of a Fulton

Tyson's comp was good and I doubt any other HW in history would have dominated as impressively. Ali would beat everyone but take longer dispatching them. Foreman would have possibly been outboxed by Holmes and maybe Thomas. I won't go on but you get the point

 

Good comparison. The only one I don't agree with is Douglas=Young/Schmeling. Young had an impressive win over Lyle and a very good perfomance, that many believe was a win, against Ali among other things. Schmeling was ex-undisputed champ. Douglas had nothing like that prior to Tyson. I think Tyson's loss to Douglas is quite a bit worse than Foreman's to Young or Louis' to Schmeling.