Prime Tyson V Prime Joe Louis

Disagree. If you call Rooney good, what adjectives would describe Blackburn and his assistant Seamon?

As for the Schmeling loss, that fight sure was awful awful early in the career of an up and comer. Not many guys are taking on that live of an opponent that early in their career. Plus, go look at what that Joe Louis corner did > that defeat.

 

Some of the pro-tyson crowd are doing a great disservice to Louis.


A chin is a chin -- and a punch is a punch. Louis punched hard, short, and thus often caught people hard coming in with shorter punches.

I have a hard time thinking that all the accolades Louis was bestowed in his time were due to mass hysteria.

He hits Mike, Mike is hurt. Drop the notion this is a mis-match. This isn't the Big League against the Lower League. Louis is a frightening fighter to be up against.

I think Tyson stops Louis in the middle rounds. Incidentally, I believe he loses a decision to Walcott.

 

Blackburn may well have been better than Rooney, but you claimed that Tyson's help from the corner was more or less non-existent, and that was just not the case during Rooney's time. If you can't accept this I'm not going to wast anymore time on you.

 

Well, the concencus has clearly favored Louis and by a long shot. I myself voted for Tyson, but I am well aware that it can go the other way.

 

Mike Tyson and Kevin Rooney may have been one of the best boxer/trainer combo's in boxing.

 

To be fair to Blackburn:

He warned Louis that Schmeling would try to use his overhand right to counter him.

He told Louis not to try to reduce weight for the Conn fight. Then when everything was going to rat**** he told Louis exactly wich punch to catch Conn with.

He was dead when Louis fought Walcott.

Louis didnt always listen to his corner and he ocasionaly got stung as a result.

 

My point was that you can't attribute one bad perfomance to the trainer, and not that Blackburn was a bad trainer. He clearly was anything but.

 

Louis TKO 9.

Louis' punches were more consistently compact & straight than Tyson's. Louis would plan and time his more compact punches to counter Tyson. With this, he'd keep beating Tyson to the punch despite not having an advantage in handspeed (just like Holyfield). Yes, Louis didn't have a chin as good as Mike Tyson's but don't count on a few punches to win the fight against Joe Louis.

 

Everyone has a style that is bad for them, Tyson `might` have had the style & attributes to beat Louis, one of my dream matches as anything could happen.

Joe may have went down a few times in his career but he recovered very well - even vs Schmelling he was done a few rds before he actually stayed down - but prime Tyson aint no Schmelling & thats why I lean ever so slightly towards Mike Tyson.

 

exactly. schmelling would have put up a better fight against evander holyfield. has mike tyson ever consistently countered a contender level fighter? no. too many people consider mike tyson's physical talents but overlook his lack of strategy in the ring to beat ATG fighters like louis.

it's OK if tyson lost to douglas and holyfield. i won't go into the "every decent fighter he faced he lost" ROFL. what's not ok is that tyson showed very little progress to change strategy and stand up to the challenge against douglas or holyfield. he just confusedly took a beating for the most part. that's a serious question mark when going against ATGs.

 

Actually, it was a play of words on a similar phrase of the time, which i have forgotten for the moment. The meaning behind it was that he disposed of his opponents so quickly, not that they were "bums".