Mike Tyson

In my opinion Frazier was always too small and didnt have the chin to ever defeat Foreman, especially considering how that fight would always play out stylistically.

 

I dont think the excuses for Douglas can be anymore valid then the ones for Tyson. Douglas was consistently inconsistent, Tyson was not, and Tyson had defeated fighters that not only beat Douglas but resembled his style quite similarly.

 

I'm not here claiming that a "Tokyo" Douglas would beat Holyfield or anything. Which opponent did Tyson beat from 1990 onwards that resembled Douglas?

 

I'd say that there are a lot less people who don't think Foreman had Frazier's number though. I'm not saying Douglas had Tyson's necessarily, but he did have it post-1988 atleast.

Frazier's actual physical decline is as well documented as Tyson's mental decline. He had weak sight in one eye, high blood pressure and a bad back, not to mention that he wasn't training as hard and spent time traveling around with his music band.

That's life though. Frazier went into the Ali fight with many of these same difficulties, except with greater motivation and focus of course. It takes some belief in his ability to say that he would have turned around what was a 2 round massacre into a win. One could say the same about Tyson-Douglas, except he is said to have been able to pull off the feat post-Douglas. Even the Frazier believers don't think there's a chance of Smokin' Joe after 1971.

 

I wasnt really referring to after, but he did beat Carl Williams, the fight before, and Williams at the time was considered better than Douglas.

 

Frazier was asked in an interview, when exactly he went completely blind in that one eye, and he said that it was around 1965.. Assuming that he hasn't lost all perception of time, then he went through basically his whole career without site in it.

 

True,

But Carl Williams had such a soft spot for the left hook that he couldn't stand in the same room with anyone who had one, without having an allergic reaction to it. Douglas didn't have this problem to the same extent that Williams did.. Also, there was a wee bit of controversy about Randy Neuman stopping that fight early, but frankly I think he looked pretty buzzed to me.

 

Williams had success in sparring with Tyson. He entered the fight with a better record over comparable opposition and was a very good boxer mover just like Douglas.

Douglas on the other hand, had been stopped three times in prior fights and lost to Jesse Ferguson on points.

Point being, Williams openess for the lefthook wasnt any worse than Douglas' weak chin or heart when he faced resistance.

 

Perhaps.. But given Douglas' great turn out and Tyson's poor performance, I think Williams soft spot for the left was a bigger issue on the respective nights when those fights took place... As for Williams looking good in sparring, that was around 1983, when Tyson was maybe 16 and williams was like 23??? Carl had already comprised a professional record of like 11-0 and Tyson was still in the middle of the amateurs..

 

Williams was in many of Tysons camps when he was champ. :good

Again the main point being that Tysons lack of interest in the Douglas fight had a big part of why the fight went down like it did.

 

I have the Tyson vs Williams fight on VHS somewhere in a box.. I've seen it several times over the years.. In the prefight hoopla on HBO they made reference to one occasion where Williams went down to the catskill gym around 1983 and gave tyson problems... No other reference was made of them ever sparring again, though who knows...

I think it was a combination of Tyson's change in management, his lack of focus, and of course Douglas having the right blend of boxing skills, physical size, and desire. Had the Mike Tyson of 1986-1988 shown up, I think he would have beaten even the best rendering of Douglas.. But I can still see James giving him more problems than Tubbs, Williams or Biggs did..

 

I did actually post the video of Williams/Tyson sparring, its on here somewhere

 

Ok, my apologies, it was a close fight. Which he gave up in, but he was competitive with a guy who gave a Prime tyson one of his best fights, Douglas would always be tough for Tyson.

But the question i asked was, If Tyson turns up as he normally did, intense and with bad intentions and Douglas turns up as he normally did, fat and lazy....would Douglas crumble? IMO he would

 

Trying to get back on the topic of Tyson and where he ranks with the greats. As far as performances are concerned I give him credit as the youngest person to win the Title. Michael Spinks was pretty underrated and Tyson crushed him 91 seconds and put him into retirement. I agree with the statement earlier by someone that said Tyson prime was 3 or 4 years, then the Douglas loss, finished by another 3 years in prison.

Some people do think Mike was one the greatest of all time... he wasn't. To me, Mike was lost his entire career after Cus died. When that happened, he became the poster child for untapped potential and bad decisions. If you listen to Mike speak about boxing when he lived in Catskill under the tutelage of Cus and Rooney, he was a real student of it. He spent hours in Cus' film room watching the legends before him. And believe it or not, there was a time when Iron Mike's defense was unbelievable. The Mike that so many of us are accustomed to is the brawler and that is so tragic because Mike was a boxer before that! And although he lost to the best of his generation, i.e. Holyfield and Lewis (never fought Riddick Bowe), he fought those guys when his loyalty to Boxing had far declined. To support this I refer to an article in Sports Illustrated that chronicles a short training stint by Freddie Roach where Tyson is obviously in shambles. It was far later in his career but it is proof to me that after Don King stuck his hooks in Tyson, he never respected another trainer more than he respected Rooney or Cus.

Where I do give Tyson credit is when he was fighting seemingly lesser competition and disposing of them quickly, he was still meticulously technical and never resorted to the 2 punch brawling that doomed him later versus Holyfield. Also, and most importantly to me is his contribution to the sport in regards to the publics attraction. I was born in '84 and grew up in the '90's, so to me Tyson was the face of boxing during my upbringing. The mystique around him drew many casual boxing fans to become diehard followers of the sport. Obviously, this contribution does not apply when I rank him with other fighters, it only increases my respect for Mike as a fighter and a member of the sports elite.

Having said this, I firmly believe that if Cus D'amato could have been in Mike's corner for his entire career, Iron Mike would have undoubtedly been the best fighter of all time.

 

My oh my why don't Tyson fans embrace Tokyo Douglas for having been something special just once in his pugilistic career. It makes it more excusable for Tyson to have lost if you think Douglas performed brilliantly. I guess, it's far more natural to focus more on what Tyson wasn't then what Douglas was. The fight was an absolute whitewash. A schooling. The truth may probably be somewhere in the middle. I guess embracing Douglas doesn't help reinforce the myth of the invincibility of "88 Tyson." Tyson fans will go so far to prop up Tyson (And devalue the Tyson against Douglas, and thus Douglas) that they'll even throw the Tyson that fought Ruddock to beat Douglas. Whatever helps their Tyson-view.

As for the OP's original question. The highest that you can rank Tyson I believe is #5. On a P4P list somewhere between 60-100 I suppose.