Prime Wladimir Klitschko vs. prime Mike Tyson

But Wladimir is a monster. A massive man with knockout power in both fists who had dominated the division for years.

The idea of heavyweights as "beasts" to other all-time great or very accomplished heavyweights in excess, somehow, of how intimidating a featherweight can be to a featherweight is a fantasy IMO. And it's hard to think of anything more irrelevant than how Foreman looks to a citizen, but yes, certainly, i'd be more likely to feel intimidated by big George than Roman Gonzalez

I disagree. Fighters of quality who have experience live in the ring. They've spent years fighting and preparing to fight men who are trained to injure them with fists. The idea that one that is 5'9 and fast comes along and terrifies with his "intimidation factor" doesn't seem that likely, and even if it happened, it's unlikely to matter, as I said.

Very accomplished champions so rarely lose because they are intimidated against fighters their own size or smaller. Frankly, I think it is more likley that Tyson would be intimidated in a way that mattered. IMO he was intimidated by both Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield (II) in a way that summarily affected the result in a real way. Mike might, in fact, be the best example of an arguably great champion who lost because he was intimidated, in part.

 

I'm sorry to harp on: I just don't think you understand, which is a **** thing to say, but it's hard to proceed without saying so.

Fighters, highly qualified professional fighters who are very accomplished, don't generally get intimidated by "black trunks" and "demeanour." I think Spinks was intimidated, but he was the smaller man in the ring and pretty much ready to chuck it. What intimidates fighters most are technical and physical mismatches. Tyson could have been a really lovely man who wore white shorts, and Spinks still would have been in that dressing room trance. Similarly, Hoyfield sang songs of praise in his dressing room before the bite-fight, but Mike watned out of there because he knew he was going to get a hiding. Same thing with Lewis, quit in a different way, on his feet.

These illustrations of actually occasions when a fighter was really intimidated not by a bad-guy in black shorts but by being forced to contest a physical/technical mis-match.

Most of the rest of the "heavyweight intimidation" is just fan jerk-circle IMHO. That's why a flyweight can be just as intimidating as a heavyweight, but why people here don't tend to talk about it.

 

Ugh, it's so awful these "You can't be serious?" posts. Probably the wosrt posts on the forum.

It's a conversation. It meanders. If you start your own thread, and want to try to force an absolute lockstep to the OP subject matter, be my guest. But everyone will ignore you. When it comes to someone elses thread, and you quoting me to tell me what I can and can't talk about, I'm happy to tell you to shut the **** up.

But, for the record, you did manage to misread the post. Are YOU serious? I didn't say "Prime Mike Tyson would be intimidated by Wladimir Klitschko". I said that Mike Tyson was an a rare example of a divisional number one who at some point in his career lost in small part because he was intimidated. The rest, you just added, probably because you got upset at percieved criticism of your favourite heavyweight.

It's one of the reasons heavyweights are so unpleasent to discuss on this forum, just so many "You can't be serious?" posters around.