MIKE TYSON...What COULD HAVE BEEN

Agreed. Tyson had the best combination of speed and power, Dempsey is close though and Patterson had faster hands but not the power.

Yeah, Tyson maybe the best ever against 2nd raters but he fell short of expectations when he stepped up.

Cooney was shot when Spinks beat him and Spinks lost the second Holmes fight. So, actually Spinks had one meaningful fight at hw. So, while this is a good win for Tyson, it isn´t better than wins over other contenders.
Holmes wasn´t the same than the years before and he hadn´t fought for years. That´s just fact. How can this win count more than the wins over the usual Tyson victims? Please put this into the right perspective. If Holmes would have been in his prime that would be a tremendous achievement but, well, he wasn´t.

He lost the essence even before he went to prison imo. The Douglas fight just exposed it. But that´s part of greatness and he proved he isn´t up there with guys like Louis, Ali, Marciano and so on.

I agree with this, also I don´t rate him as high as you do.

You brought up the comparison with Ali not me.

I don´t pick any fighter who while he looked great against 2nd raters but never proved it against greats. I just can´t.

 

We all agree Tyson looked spectacular. As an armchair psychologist, I simply see Tyson was flawed from childhood by deprivation and abuse. Had he had loving support, he might have broken Rocky's record. But with the death of his manager Jim Jacobs, his last true father figure, IMHO it became extremely unrealistic for a rags-to-extreme-riches-and-worldwide-fame youth to keep focus as undisputed world champion and do much more than he actually did.

Something intangible is hardly glaring when you are romping thru a division en route to unifying the title. And if knocking out an "escapologist" Holmes inside 4 rounds after two knockdowns and a searing right hand that reduced Holmes to a carcass for 45 seconds is not solving Holmes relatively easily, I would say you're pretty tough to please.

It was not Tyson's soft-spoken lisping that intimidated seasoned men nor the shorty's nonchalant walk-up for prefight instructions. It was the way he hit men that struck fear in their hearts.

Had Douglas wobbled just a bit more and Meyran counted just a bit faster, Tyson might have gotten past Tokyo. But, yes, he was on a path to professional self-destruction and a still cruiser-like lean Holy might have pulled off the miracle shortly thereafter. But I still favor Tyson to bomb out any version of Holyfield, 'roids and all, both at their peak.

The Tucker fight proved movement, height, a jab and spoiling were good for escaping a Tyson blast-out over 12. It proved Tucker capable and durable, and Tyson a quality workman of the ring with more than enough poise and patience to pound out a lopsided, drawn-out victory when the stakes are highest.

Ali could beat Tyson thanks to his amazing movement; Holmes falls to the right hand.

Good analysis of what happened under those Tokyo lights. I said Tyson was 40% to illustrate the obvious: he was not nearly the same fighter who won the title; he was sluggish, predictable, used little head movement and threw few combinations. For practical purposes, hardly half the fighter he was known to be. With every fight after Spinks, after which I seem to recall he even mentioned retirement at the postfight conference, he was more and more removed from the spartan training that had made him unique. His fault? Absolutely. Is there more than meets the eye regarding his apparently defenseless squandering? Absolutely.

As has been mentioned here by others before, the eighth round against Douglas showcased Mike Tyson having that proverbial heart of a warrior. He had little left, eye almost swelled shut, yet was still looking for that opening, still believing in himself, and delivered a spectacular shot to send Douglas crashing to the canvas. That was, in Lampley's words, high drama -that was a glimpse of MIKE TYSON...WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

This is why Tyson is no Ali. I only brought Ali in because everyone marveled at his successful comeback, not from being imprisoned like Tyson, but in a word from life as a free citizen. BIG difference. Yet Tyson, already 4 years removed from his peak, was sent to prison, emerged 3 years later, regained a title, and fought tooth-and-nail against another great -albeit 'roided- fighter in Holyfield. That in its own right is an accomplishment by a fighter IMO who lacked something essential, yes.

By Ali's own account, his first amateur fight was at 12 as a scrawny 90-pounder. En route to the ring, he saw his opponent, a kid a little bigger and older than himself. Here are his words in "Soul of a Butterfly": "I was scared to death. I looked up at my dad and said, 'Cash, do you see who I'm fighting?' Cash looked me in the eye. 'Yes, and we're going to whup him.' Hearing my father say that inspired me. Suddenly I felt good, I had my dad in my corner and I won my first fight.'"

This is what Tyson lacked.

 

Because no one did to Holmes, before or after, what Tyson did to him. When ranking fighters head-to-head, I believe an exhibit such as this is important.

Hardly any great beat another great in his prime. We must make do with what there is.

 

But then why does a Mike Tyson get a get out of jail free card and go directly to go for $200 when nobody else does?

When he was the youthful guy in there fighting the guys on the other side of the mountain, he got the results. The greats win for long durations and different conditions. What happened when the shoe was on the other foot w/ Tyson? Well nothing because a 35 year old Tyson never even fought a 25 year old can't miss guy. Tyson fought his contemporaries in age and lost in Lewis and Holyfield. And badly. It wasn't as if they were 27 years old in there, they were older. Then he fought moderate talent guys in Williams and McBride when he was giving up the advantages of youth & lost badly. But those were hardly losses against greats.

And personally, I don't hold an 86 version of Trevor Berbick all that high in my estimation. Or Bonecrusher Smith. Or Tony Tucker. Or an 87 version of Pinklon Thomas. Basically, any of those guys Tyson defended his title against lose to lots of other champs & I guess some folks think these opponents had a ton of tools and would've done very well against a Dempsey or Louis or Ali or Marciano or Liston and so on. I don't.

 

John, I don't neccesarily rate all those guys above him. Just rattling off the usual suspects and saying why or why not they make the cut.

Tyson was a top, top fighter but all this could have been is like saying if Dempsey had beat Wills and fought 4 challengers a year he'd be the greatest ever... Truth is he could have done that BUT he didn't. Same with Tyson... Only Tyson's mindset was who he was. His brittle ego was just as much a part of the man as his blistering pin-point combinations. And that's what many don't/won't appreciate.

 

You have to remember that Holmes had become frustrating... He was no longer taking the biggest challenges and was allowing everyone else to fight one another for splintered titles, whilst he picked credible but beatable opponents. As fans we never got Holmes-Spoon II; Holmes-Page; Holmes-Thomas, Holmes-Weaver II... Also many of the fights Page-Tubbs etc... were woeful.

Tyson came along, made the top fights and swept through guys who had always seemed durable. Looking back I sometimes think that this made him seem more formidable than he was. This helped to make him all the more intimidating.

many of those guys had seen better times but even so they were not shot fighters at all...

 

great thread though I do rate Holmes very highly even though he dodged guys at the end

Prime Tyson never beat an ATG HW but he beat good fighters in spectacular style. thats what made him great

from 1985 to 89, in every fight bar the smith hugfest (which wasn't mikes fault), tyson amazed and excited like very few in history. You can watch him forevor without getting bored

The wins before prison where all spectacular also