Mike Tyson's amazing NEGATIVE records

The first WBC/WBO Unification fight was in 1989. Leonard-Hearns II.

A year later - 1990 - Bob Arum spent the entire year trying to make a Light Heavyweight Unification featuring the FOUR light heavyweight champions at that time - WBA champ Virgil Hill, WBO champ Michael Moorer, IBF champ Charles Williams and WBC champ Dennis Andries.

Moorer and Williams even co-headlined a card in Michigan that year on the USA network and all four champs gathered to discuss their hopes for a unification on live television in the U.S. But Arum couldn't finalize it. The point being, the WBO champ was not only included, he was the one out of the four none of the others wanted to fight. (He ended up finishing his light heavy run having knocked out everyone he faced in the division.)

This nonsense that the WBO wasn't a 'major' belt until 15 years later is just that. Nonsense.

That was all roughly 15 years before 2004.

Hell, when Riddick Bowe won the WBO heavyweight title in 1995, he was rated the #1 heavyweight in the World by Ring. Remained there until the first Golota fight. None of the other heavyweight beltholders were rated as high as the WBO heavyweight champion, not even Foreman - who was the lineal champ. Bowe even knocked out one of those fellow champs (Seldon) in less than a round when they actually fought earlier.

 

I'm going to go on a rant here, but I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as possible without being insulting.

Basically FOREVER, you were considered the UNDISPUTED heavyweight champion when you won the title and no one else had legitimate claim that they were, in fact, the world champion and you were not.

You were undisputedly the champion.

All this nonsense that you need to hold ALL these specific belts to be undisputed is NEW ... And fans who believe that are the ones who are confused.

It's not about having a collection of specific belts, and if you miss one you aren't.

It's about being recognized as the best in your division.

Regarding Ali-Terrell, Ali beat the World Champ Liston. Ali didn't lose. Terrell wasn't owed a shot. Terrell hadn't beaten Liston. Terrell hadn't beaten Ali. Terrell had no claim to Ali's title. The WBA just changed a rule and wouldn't allow immediate rematches and they got mad when Ali agreed to give Liston a rematch. People thought Terrell calling himself champ was a joke. Ali was still the undisputed champ.

If Wikipedia doesn't agree, that's because some confused clown is looking at it from a perspective 57 years later and "counting" belts, and not how it was viewed at the time.

And to all those confused fans who are retroactively going back and asking why Lennox Lewis was considered the Undisputed Champion when he beat Holyfield... the answer is simple, and it has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the WBO or whether it "counted" or not.

Lennox Lewis vs. Evander Holyfield was a fight for the Undisputed World Heavyweight Title because Lewis and Holyfield were considered the two best heavyweights in the sport. Lewis had already knocked out Briggs, who had a claim to the lineal title. And no other man in the sport of boxing had a legitimate claim that HE was actually the rightful champ ... and Lewis and Holyfield were not.

Now, decades later, CONFUSED folks try to rationalize it by saying well, I heard the WBO wasn't "that big of a deal" back then ... but they neglect to point out that the WBC belt wasn't that big of a deal when Bowe threw it in the garbage. And the IBF belt wasn't "that big of a deal" when Botha and Shulz fought for it. And the WBA belt wasn't "that big of a deal" back when Seldon beat Tucker for it. The belts fall in and out of favor all the time depending on who holds them.

That fight had nothing to do with which specific belts were up for grabs.

Everyone at the time knew that Lewis-Holyfield was a fight for the Undisputed World Heavyweight Title because they were the two best. No one else had a legit claim (Lewis had already knocked the only other guy). No one was confused. The winner was the undisputed champion.

Undisputed was always about WHO UNDISPUTEDLY WAS THE BEST FIGHTER in the division ... not how big your belt collection was.

Same with Holmes. When Mike Weaver won the WBA belt from Tate months after Weaver lost to Holmes, Holmes became the UNDISPUTED champion.

Holmes and Tate were the top two heavyweights. Holmes stopped Weaver. Months later, Weaver beat Tate and then Holmes and Weaver were the top two.

Nobody at that time could point to Weaver and say Mike Weaver is the REAL heavyweight champion and Larry Holmes is not. Weaver lost to a lot of guys, including Holmes in a title fight only a few months earlier.

If there was any doubt about Holmes, when Muhammad Ali, the former World Champion, came out of retirement and Holmes stopped him ... Holmes had wins over Weaver and the former World Champion Muhammad Ali.

No one in the world of boxing had a legitimate claim that they were REALLY the world heavyweight champion, and Larry wasn't.

Larry Holmes was the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion ... one belt and all.

He didn't need to win any other belts. He was the man. You had to beat Holmes to become the MAN. We all recognized that.

That's it.

Fans, 40 years later, who say Holmes wasn't "undisputed" because he didn't win all the belts sound like morons to anyone who was around when Larry Holmes was considered by all the UNDISPUTED Heavyweight Champion.

Just because an org strips an Undisputed World Champion, or an Undisputed Champion dumps a belt and someone else grabs it, that doesn't mean there's "doubt" who the champion is. It just means the sanctioning bodies are screwing around yet again and some guy who didn't beat the undisputed champ was awarded yet another belt.

People used to know that. Now, it seems, more and more people DO NOT.

You can have all the belts. One belt. No belt. Boxers have been recognized as the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion under every scenario.

Undisputed is about WHO IS UNDISPUTEDLY THE BEST FIGHTER in the division ... not the number of belts in your collection.

Rant over.

 

Interesting, but I think it's meaningless in terms of his all time ranking.

1 and 2 are more about the state of the division, and the lack of unified or undisputed champions immediately before him.

3 and 4 is mostly just a combination of the division before him, and him keeping fighting, and challenging top fighters, when he was past his best.

5, the fact you have to arbitrarily exclude Ingo and Lewis shows how arbitrary this is.

6 is just absurdly arbitrary, with the qualification of no losses on points

 

That's not true, far less attention is paid to the earlier belts, there was the NYSAC belts for example.

No one really cares about the Police Gazette championship either. The rules made it too easy to get someone stripped, since all you needed was some money to back you.

 

Not a bad idea for some perspective.

Larry Holmes, 1-0
Michael Spinks 1-0
Evander Holyfield 0-2
Lennox Lewis 0-1

So 2-3

For comparison Larry Holmes's record against HoFers

Ken Norton 1-0
Muhammad Ali 1-0
Michael Spinks 0-2
Mike Tyson 0-1
Evander Holyfiled 0-1

So 2-4

Other than maybe possibly Ken Norton Vs Larry Holmes, neither list contains a single fight where both parties were in their prime.

For fun, lets also go with people that held a major world heavyweight title during their career

Trevor Berbick 1-0
Bonecrusher Smith 1-0
Pinklon Thomas 1-0
Tony Tucker 1-0
Larry Holmes 1-0
Tony Tubbs 1-0
Michael Spinks 1-0
Frank Bruno 2-0
Buster Douglas 0-1
Bruce Seldon 1-0
Evander Holyfield 0-2
Lennox Lewis 0-1

So 10-4

(I'll add any in if anyone points out I missed some)

 

Dempsey lost to Tunney in lopside fassion in their first (and second fight), he has an official win over Sharkey. but he shouldn't. He was losing the fight, and was throwing low blows, before suckerpunching Sharkey when he got a reaction from the low blows. His fouls were far worse than what Harry Wills got DQ'd against Sharkey for, and had he been DQ'd there would have been no argument against it.

Ali had some great wins past his prime, he's also at worst the second greatest heavyweight ever, and the greatest in the eyes of most.

Moorer never had a successful title defence, and his reign happened when Tyson was in prison. Within two years of his comeback he fought two world champions, then had two fights with Evander Holyfield. Certainly far better competition than Foreman was fighting at that point.

The point that he could have made those fights is pretty meaningless. His career wasn't based around checking arbitrary boxes someone came up with many years later. Fighting guys whow ere unified champions at some point, is not how fighters are ever typically assessed. It's not like it was clear at all at that point just how much Wlad would go onto achieve either, so that's an odd one to bring up.

 

Plucking criteria out of the air is just meaningless. Fighters aren't, and shouldn't be judged off of convulted stats.

Larry Holmes has a worse record Vs HoFers than Tyson does. That's a far more solid stat to go on than many you cited, and even that is a terrible way to judge a fighter.

Muhammad Ali's record against current world champions (that is world champions going into the fight):
Sonny Liston 1-0
Joe Frazier 0-1
George Foreman 1-0
Leon Spinks 1-0
Larry Holmes 0-1

So 3-2

Mike Tyson's record against current world champions:
Trevor Berbick 1-0
Bonecrusher Smith 1-0
Tony Tucker 1-0
Michael Spinks 1-0
Frank Bruno 1-0
Bruce Seldon 1-0
Evander Holyfield 0-1
Lennox Lewis 0-1

So 6-2

Does that make Mike Tyson better than Muhammad Ali? No, it just illustrates how worthless these sorts of stats are in judging a fighter.

 

I mean it's fine if it's just an excercise in boxing trivia, but these "negative records", and even positive world records, are generally an absymal way to assess a fighter.

I don't see how you can argue that the stats I cited aren't meaningfull in comparing fighters, but these records are, when all that is is a comparison involving more fighters.

 

You can totally contrive the criteria to get any answer you want too.

Lets say I want to argue Tyson's 6-2 is the best record of any fighter.
But Gene Tunney is 1-0, so we can say they have to have atleast 2 fights against current champions.
Oh, but Jack Johnson was 2-0, so lets make it atleast 3.
Or Lennox Lewis was 3-0-1, well **** it, we can make it atleast 5 fights.

You find an alphabet champion with more, and I can say only lineal champions count.

And that's only for one initial stat, or which there are countless you can choose, with enough time patience, and ability to fill in captchas, you can create whatever criteria you want to make the guy you want the best or worst.