Ya, Tyson smoke and mirrorsed his way to heavyweight unification and destruction of people who had never before or after been stopped.
Most of them were bums - his best wins were against Larry Holmes, who was way over the hill, and Frank Bruno - who hated the big stage. His aura got him through - but against the genuine elite names such as Holyfield and Lewis he fell way short. Don't forget, people were saying Evander was shot prior to fighting Tyson rather than the other way round, whilst Lennox was the older man in there.
Muhammad Ali Oscar De La Hoya Lennox Lewis Mike Tyson Roy Jones Jnr Shane Mosely Nigel Benn Ricky Hatton Prince Naseem Hamed Chris Eubank IMO.
Ali Jones Jr. Lewis De La Hoya Tyson Mosley Eubank Benn Hamed Hatton You could swap Oscar and Lennox if you wanted.
right sweet pea,you're one of the best on here ranking boxers and their achievements but how do you have tyson ahead of mosley?
Mosley beat a better fighter in De La Hoya than Tyson ever beat when you take into account what state Holmes and Spinks were in, but aside from that, prime for prime (which is primarily what I'm basing this off of) I thought Tyson was the superior fighter by a clear margin. I don't take only resume into account when ranking fighters of the same general era.
cool cool, there's the difference i'd have from you now,i wouyldn't rank from prime to prime,if that was the case then rjj could possibly be top of the list and de la hoya further down it with mosley overtaking him and hamed going way up in the rankings, but i think you need to look at a career over a long period of fights, i hate what if scenarios but what if a total journeyman beats 2 atg great fighters in a row, does this deem it his prime and move him into an atg list, i sincerely doubt it!
In that case the likes of Sal Sanchez and Wilfred Benitez couldn't be considered ATG's either because their body of work in their primes didn't last long enough. You can't pick up a couple of good wins and otherwise have a bum career and be considered great, you have to at least have a consistent prime, and if you want to be considered for ATG status, that has to be one hell of a period, and there have been few in the history of the sport with as dominant a prime as Tyson. Not to mention it's not as if he fell off the map post-1990, he still accomplished quite a bit and rang up some very good wins afterward.
Ali RJJ Tyson Lewis DLH Mosley eubank Benn Hatton Hamed if anyone doesn't have Ali first they need they're head checked