Patterson is greater than Tyson

From New York to California when you get there remember I warned ya!

 

Archie Moore was washed

 

He was past his best, but still very good.

 

Of course it does .. the debate of career accomplishments vs H2H is the biggest battle of opinion in rating all time greatness .. How many dozens of Marciano posts do we see and it always gets down to his accomplishments in a career vs how he'd to H2H in rating him all time ... Putting aside the initial opening post on the thread which I disagree with on many points I feel making a case for Patterson as a greater heavyweight than Tyson is absurd .. maybe reposition it as Patterson a better P4P fighter and it's a debate.

 

I disagree but respect your opinion ... as far as great career accomplishments, Tyson defeated much, much better opposition than Floyd did at heavyweight .. Floyd was possibly the most protected heavyweight champion and ended up to his credit fighting and defeating or fighting on even ground with far better opposition then Cus let him fight as champion ... that said, Floyd hung on way too long and suffered all the tragic aliments of a fighter who took too much punishment .. as far as accomplishments or H2H I view Tyson as far superior ... Floyd was a far more decent human being though without question ..

 

B O O H O O . . .
48-8...your comment backfired!!

 

Interesting, perhaps you missed both his Liston fights , the only matches of his career where he fought a top world class big, strong, fast starting, murderous punching heavyweight .. I repeat with no malice that Patterson would not last one round against a prime Tyson .. a terrible stylistic match up for him.

 

• H2H is not terrible , all respect ... they were both heavyweight champions .. they both defended their titles multiple times. They both fought and established their legacies at heavyweight .. since we are not comparing greatness between fighters of different weight classes where H2H is obvious most of the time I think it is totally relevant to your thread .. there are so many circumstances that determine a fighters career , especially in the case of a world wide phenom like a young Tyson that if youre asking who was a greater heavyweight fighter between two heavyweight champions what criteria is better ? I'll repeat, Tyson fought and defeated much, much better fighters than Patterson ever did. Tyson was much stronger, took a far better shot, was near equal in hand speed, was a much better two handed puncher as well .. I don't agree with your argument because I find it a surgical representation of actual facts to build a thread that is amusing but ultimately silly ... I can make a claim in this model that would prove John L. was better than Joe Louis but I'd never put a nickel on the Strongboy in such a mythical match ..

 

extremely interesting discussion fellows. some comments:

The only heavyweight champion Patterson defeated was Ingo who was only champion because he beat Patterson. Tyson's best victims were up there because of what they did against the field, not against Tyson.

Patterson reversed a loss only with Johansson. He lost his rematches with Liston and Ali and Quarry, and did not fight a second fight with Maxim or Ellis. Tyson didn't lose enough until he was almost 36 to have many chances to reverse losses. Was it his fault that Douglas fought Holyfield rather than giving him a rematch like Patterson got with Johansson?

Tyson never got off the floor to win? He was also rarely knocked down compared to Patterson, again until he was aging. Is it really a positive to have to get off the floor against punchers of the quality of Rademacher and Harris to win?

I don't think some of Patterson's close decision losses were "robberies" as some have posted. Patterson had a style of often dawdling around for much of a round and then fighting in spurts. Of the fights I have seen relatively recently, both Maxim and Ellis outworked him and I think these decisions fair. For balance it should be noted that the Bonavena fight was also close with Bonavena scoring the only knockdown and with a majority of ringside reporters voting Bonavena the winner. This one was a UD for Patterson.

I think some perspective is needed on Patterson's pre championship and post championship runs. Until he was slotted in an elimination for the heavyweight title against Jackson, his top victim was Jimmy Slade. The post championship guys were second-tier, at least by the time Patterson got to them. Machen was on the cusp of a severe decline following a mental breakdown. Beating Chuvalo was a feat Folley and Corletti accomplished with more ease. Cooper was also second-tier by this time, if he was ever better than that. Quarry, Ellis, Bonavena? None could be viewed as better than the #3 heavyweight out there, if that high. Quarry and Ellis were way behind Ali and Frazier, and Sonny Liston was also around in 1967 and 1968. Bonavena certainly ranks behind Ali and Frazier, plus Foreman and Norton in 1972, at the least. So Patterson was fighting contenders, not champions.

Just as someone who lived through both careers--many questioned if Patterson was even a worthy champion. It was widely noted he didn't fight his way through the top heavies on the way up. No Valdes, Baker, or Satterfield. And he didn't defend against Machen and Folley, considered his top challengers until Ingo popped up. And then he somehow missed Williams. He did defend against Liston, but how could he have done worse than two first round KO losses. In comparison, in the late eighties Tyson was viewed as a peer of Ali and Louis, before the loss to Douglas. He had blown out most of the best heavyweights out there.

Tyson may have been and perhaps still is overrated, but I don't see this as a close call.

 

Um what?

Outside of his idiotic fanboys, not many tbh. Most have Marciano in their top ten (most in their top five) but concede he'd lose to men like Fury, Wilder, Klitschko, Joshua, etc. Does that make any of the aformentioned men better? Absolutely not (with the possible exception of Klitschko)!

I think it's very debatable tbh I think Patterson is the most underrated heavy here!

 

53-8...getting closer

 

I was going to write a post, but more time efficient to just point to this.

 

He did lose twice to Quarry and to Ellis as well. Close fights, though, and maybe all of them could have gone the other way.

He was probably something like 1-5 against top 5 ranked opposition after he lost his title, which isn't that great, but three of those losses were very close, as mentioned. And he beat some in the lower top 10 like Cooper, Chuvalo and Machen. Or maybe Machen actually was top 5 ranked at that time, but on the other hand I'm not sure Bonavena was...

Anyhow, Floyd looked amazing at 37, not least for someone who had been in the business for almost 20 years.

 

Yes, he was one of those fighters who never gained a pound of fat it would seem throughout his entire career.

 

I voted Tyson, but I think these trainer excuses that Tyson gets are kind of silly. If you're that dependent on a trainer you're just not that great.

Mental stability and toughness is a key ingredient to being a great pro athlete. If you fall apart when you don't have exactly the right people around, you aren't that mentally strong and hence not that great.

A lot of times a lack of discipline and/or mental fortitude are used as excuses on this forum, and I think that's kind of bizarre. You might as well use a lack of power/speed/stamina/durability as an excuse.