Modern Era Appreciation

Steve Cunningham dropped Fury.

 

I was slightly too young to at the time it was broadcast, catching only the highlights, but I actually re-watched it on Friday...

Lou Savarese, whose career highlights include losing to 48 year old George Foreman and a 45 year old Evander Holyfield. The guy was coming off a loss to Michael Grant before Tyson used him as a tune up.

No, I agree; you don't beat Tyson by being tall alone. But if you are a legitimate top contender, over 194cm and over 230lbs, your chances increase the bigger you get.

 

So did Wilder. Similarly he also mauled Wilder and the 6'3" Cunningham like a bear and stopped them both.

 

To beat Tyson you need to be like a Foreman or Liston type guy ... Big, strong, with freakish power and top durability who can throw the uppercut well

Or someone with excellent movement who can keep it up for 12 rounds with an iron chin and a potent jab and uppercut ...

You don't need to be 6'3"+

Nobody is unbeatable but prime Tyson is very high on the H2H rankings

 

Prime Ali could use movement to beat Tyson

Or a really huge unit with an iron chin perhaps.

 

Wilder and Cunnigham have no durability issues next to Tyson. Right champ?

 

Sure I recognize that H2H he does well against many of the top guys who were naturally smaller fighters compared to today's standards. And I agree you don't need to be over 6'3", but it sure helps. Of the guys Tyson fought over 6'3" and 220lbs worth mentioning:

• He stopped 2 of them cleanly
• He got stopped by 3 of them.
• Went the distance with 3 more.
• And had a NC against Golota.

If we increase the weight to 230lbs things only look worse.

It's unfortunate that the only guy Tyson got in the ring with that was over 6'3" and 220lbs in the 90s was Douglas. I guess that's why we speculate on what would have happened had he fought Bowe or Lewis during that period.

Personally, I can get behind him outpointing Joshua (but there is the risk he gets caught), stopping Wilder (if Wilder comes in light), but ultimately losing to Fury.

Sorry I don't understand what "no durability issues next to Tyson" means.

 

Tyson may struggle with-

Fury, AJ, Wlad, Parker

but he would take out Wilder

 

did you just suggest that a prime tyson struggles with parker?
i hope i'm reading that wrong.

 

Willard didn't have much natural talent but he was young, powerful and big enough to beat an old Jack Johnson. It's like speculating that Ali may not fight differently from some even smaller black flash-in-the-pan a few hundred years ago. Just as you can hypothetically erase the modern advantages in training, technology and access to boxing history, you could also assume that Fury would be 6'5 rather than 6'8 and 240 instead of 273 but it's all abstract and has no relation to reality.

In the super-heavyweight era now and moving forward you will get small (but progressively bigger: Usyk has similar dimensions to a young Foreman) guys upset the odds occasionally because they punch hard enough to hurt the big guys and can sometimes win a decision. But you won't see guys who are 6'2 or 6'3 dominate the heavyweight division like the used to. The dominant heavyweights for the last 20-30 years have been 6'5+, 240+ lbs and if we look at the younger or less experienced top contenders coming through (Joyce, Hrgovic, Yoka, Jalolov, Dubois, Makhmudov, Ajagba) this isn't showing any signs of changing.

 

Today's standards are tall, low skilled, uncoordinated, sloppy, slow, robotic guys. Nobody wants to go into boxing today, especially heavyweight boxing when you can make more money in other sports without having your brain scrambled. In America most athletes who are heavyweight size go into football or basketball or even baseball where they have lucrative contracts without the same risk of injury. This is why heavyweight boxing has steeply declined since the 90s.

Tyson lost to Douglas when he didn't train nor care much and Douglas trained harder and was more motivated than he ever was in his life. And he still almost won with a single punch in the 8th round. He literally sent the 6'4" 230 lbs+ Buster Douglas flying off the canvas with that uppercut. Douglas never fought Tyson again because he knows what he did was fate and he could never do it again.

He lost to Lewis when he was on drugs, overweight, and over a decade removed from his prime ... And it still took Lewis 8 rounds to put him away ... Actually this fight shows that Lewis had overrated power and Tyson had an iron chin if anything. Zombie Tyson lasted 8 full rounds with the best boxer in the world.

McBride ... Nobody rates that.

Do you know what kind of damage he did to Golota?

Andrew Golota sustained a concussion, a fractured left cheekbone and a slipped-disc neck injury in his heavyweight bout Friday night against Mike Tyson, according to a neurosurgeon treating him at a Chicago hospital.

[...]

"There was extreme danger of sustaining another severe blow to the head," the doctor said, and that posed a "threat of paralysis."

[url]https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-10-23-0010230154-story,amp.html[/url]

The guys he went the distance with either held on for dear life the entire fight and were scared to death or Tyson had decided to put on a 12 round show. Like with Mitch Green.

Your theory has no real weight behind it ... Tyson is dangerous to any boxer regardless of size ... To beat Tyson you need other attributes than height and weight

 

Fury got dropped by two bean poles. Mauling them isn't the same as mauling Tyson.

 

Okay, thank you, I think I understand where I went wrong: we have to disregard or play down all of Tyson's losses now against big men, but we should hold up his win against Mitch Green as an exemplar. Sure...

Regarding Buster Douglas, perhaps he would have been more open to fighting Tyson again down the line if he hadn't needed to take Don King to court because him and Tyson refused to accept the result for so long. I can't imagine Douglas was happy about King trying to stop him making money fighting Holyfield (in what was a long overdue title shot for Holy). Or it could be like you said, he believed it was a one time fate thing. Yeah, probably that...

Still I do wonder why Tyson didn't fight any of the taller heavyweights in the 90s.

I agree, Golota took a very heavy shot at the end of the first, but he was probably shot by the time he fought Tyson. He hadn't beaten anyone of note since his loss to Grant. I mean when Golota was 39 he did beat McBride, but yeah you're probably right:
"McBride ... nobody rates that."

 

Tua struggled with the giants.

So did Tyson to a degree....

 

Tyson struggle with Parker?


Give it a rest,lol Guy lost to Dillian Whyte for gods sake