Rating Tyson ..

I feel Tyson had to fight really good to beat Tucker, I saw a vid of the adjustments he made after Rooney explained what was working for Tucker, like slip the jab and land the uppercut to the body, Tucker`s long jab would have bothered a lot of the heavyweight champs down the years and his chin was great.
Also Spinks was a good win, even though Spinks was scared he was still hard to hit and knew about defense, but Tyson`s offense in that fight was second to none, there are a lot of heavyweight champs that can`t boast of two good wins like that on their record, at all.

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Greatness proven, for me.

 

I don't think so.

But I do not throw around the word great either. Great means without peer. Perhaps Lewis is the only great heavyweight since Ali. Lots of really good and excellent fighters in that division, but great? not to me.

Tyson would be in the clump of Frazier/Foreman/Holyfield/Holmes/Klitschko's/Liston. All for different reasons of course, but they just had an ingredient or two in their game that prevented, me anyway, from using the word great.

Holyfield lost a lot of title bouts and did not have any sort of lengthy title defense run. And nobody was expecting him to either.

I don't think the Klitschko's or Tyson faced very good competition in their title defenses. Certainly other heavies could have made those title defenses. Frazier had Ali of course in his title defenses, but prior to that quite a few beatable guys. And > Ali, Daniels & Ronnie Stander weren't much.


Foreman did not have a long title reign but fought the elite competition--which leads to losses. Same almost with Liston--he fought the one style and talent he should not have.

Food for thought.....In the world of 4 titles & cherrypicking opponents, we the boxing fans would have never had an Ali-Liston fight. Sonny would have fought some 2nd tier guys and destroyed them. A guy like Foreman does not face Norton and Ali that close together. First off, Ali would have been a champion with one of the organizations & we'd be sitting and waiting for the promoters to agree to get a cross promotion bout together.

But back to Tyson, I thought his management team did a wonderful job of opponent selection. And there really were not any guys around at the time with the tools/style/and skills to bother him. So much depends on what's in front of you and I think none of the guys he faced where ever going to deal with his reflexes. And then the Douglas bout & anyway you want to twist it--a devastating loss. He was taken apart in there. We had seen other excellent heavies lose their titles of course, but A; ko'd. B; not by such a lowly ranked guy. Usually a highly pedigreed fighter does the job. C; Taken apart. When do the greats get taken apart anyway? They just do not suffer defeats that way. And I think Tyson was taken apart by 3 guys. Unheard of.

The other factor, to me anyway, is how a guy does wearing the other shoes. Like when it's his reflexes being slow compared to opponents and can he compensate or use different skills to win? So just because he's a little older you cannot dismiss the results. We can't eliminate results when he was fresh and the opponent was the old guy, can we?

 

Zad, I also think "greatness" is often bestowed on fighters too easily, and I respect your opinion. But, if you don't think that ANY of these fighters (Foreman, Frazier, Holmes, Tyson, or Holyfield) are "great", I believe you are setting the bar a bit too high.

For the record, I believe that Tyson was a great fighter. But, one with a shooting star trajectory. It was always going to crash sooner rather than later. He is certainly not unique in that regard. Many fighters crash and burn after starting with a blaze. Not all fighters have the discipline and mental fortitude to evolve like a Muhammad Ali.

 

Mike Tyson at his peak is one of the best h2h boxers.
You can make a case for him against anyone.

 

Never saw anyone with the speed, power, technical prowess and intensity that a young Mike Tyson possessed.

Best fighter I've ever seen...

 

Obviously fighters decline to different extents, so you can't just judge them at their best from he quick they declined. But it's really hard to rate someone when they are blowing away their competition, and one who can do that and show the will and ring IQ to keep winning when their body isn't what it was, shows how much higher they could have gone. Or another way to put it. If you have to two guys in eras that are just as good, and totally blew away their competition, but once he lost the physical gifts that put him so far ahead kept getting KOed easilly, whereas the others showed heart, and Ring IQ to keep competing. If you imagine putting them together, you have to pick the one who proved they were able to do well when physically matched. Hopefully that makes sense.

But in a lot of ways Tyson was still decent when past his best, he just couldn't live up to the standard he set himself, and I personally don't think quitting on your stool is really worse than when fighters don't try to win and just drag out the rounds.

I think one thing is some people still over hype Mike Tyson, and I think it has caused people, myself included, to underrate him, in truth I think you have to place him as a great, though not on the level of Ali or Louis.

 

Tyson was great just not for very long .His stile coupled with his private life was never going to lead to a long career. at his peak 86 _89 he was awesome even as he regressed post prison he still took some beating just slugging and using his power to grind out wins .Tyson burnt bright but not long.

 

Douglas was not lowly ranked. He was solid top ten at the time. He was a 42-1 underdog, and that had more to do with how highly Tyson was regarded as opposed to Douglas's resume, which had some good wins on it.

 

If 80s Tyson had never existed, we might consider post prison Tyson as a contender only a hair worse than Riddick Bowe.

 

He wasn't close to Holyfield of Lewis. Actually, he wasn't close to Douglas either on a fair scorecard.

Bruno had him rocked and hurt in his prime, prior to Douglas. Essentially Tyson was a fantastic front-runner, maybe the best of all time in blowing out tier two opposition, but if he faced a man with skills who wasn't afraid of him and could fire back, lasting past round five, we saw the results.

We never saw the Witherspoon or Bowe fights, both were team Tyson decisions.

For a 3 year window in the mid 1980's, Tyson was the best in the world. An explosive puncher with skills, and fast starter for sure. Tyson also had some really scared opponents.

 

Im a Lennox Lewis fan but he doesn't have the resume to be ranked ahead of Tyson or Holyfield in my opinion

 

Spinks and Seldon to me were scared.

Tubbs, fat and out of shape. Maybe he won round one.
Holmes, old and out of the ring for 2 years
Tucker, a very good win. Too bad he hurt his hand early in a distance fight
Smith, a good win, he too went the distance.
Thomas, maybe Tyson's best performance.
Bruno, a very good win, but Tyson was exposed here.

 

I think the Tyson conundrum is rooted in there being the Pre-and-Post-Prison versions to assess, with perhaps the need to either combine them or keep them separate and lean towards one rather than the other. Varied outcomes are inevitable.

Here’s a couple of coins worth…

Longevity? His time in top-flight boxing was actually quite lengthy, despite the prison sentence. But, as already alluded to, it spanned two quite different careers (Pre-and-Post-Prison). His longevity as the undisputed champ was relatively fleeting, albeit explosive. His latter career was far less impactful, going 2-3 in title fights. But, he carried the Tyson brand to keep himself saleable.

Dominance? Almost total in his first career, save Douglas. A championship run of just over three years, with half of that being as undisputed champ. However, no real dominance in his second career. Did not fight many of the top tier fighters of the '90s and '00s and those he did, beat him. The manner of his victories favors Tyson’s case strongly, with multiple early stoppages in the Pre-Prison version. The Post-Prison version finished a lot of his fights early too - but, arguably against much lesser opponents.

Quality of Opposition? Good, but not extraordinary, in his Pre-Prison career…

Top wins, I would suggest, are:

Larry Holmes
Pinklon Thomas
Donavan Ruddock
Tony Tucker
Michael Spinks
Trevor Berbick
Tony Tubbs


In terms of status, Holmes is probably his best win, but ignoring the phase of Holmes’ career, at this point, would be to put too much shine on the victory. Likewise, Spinks held the Ring Championship, at the time, but I really don’t place too much merit on this label. Neither Holmes nor Spinks were a particular threat, in my view.

I think Thomas, Tucker and Ruddock posed more of a threat and, as such, were better wins. Tubbs, for mine, whilst a clever boxer, was neither an offensive threat nor in the condition to survive Tyson.

Post-Prison, Tyson avoided a lot of the main players of the mid-to-late '90s, but he did fight Bruno and Seldon to pick up, drop and pick up another strap. These are the only title fights he won, during his second career, which adds to contrast between this and his '80s self.

Quality of his Losses? Pretty poor. Douglas did a number on Tyson, utterly shattering his mystique. Holyfield bullied the bully, working him over thoroughly and the DQ loss speaks for itself. Tyson did appear to go out on his shield, though, and how much kudos that earns him is down to the individual observer.


All-in-all, do we judge him on his destructive, but short-lived best from the late '80s, alone; or, do we look at the end-to-end path of his career, in which we need to include what was ultimately his failure to regain anything near his early dominance, in the '90s?

I think, on balance, people can be both awed and disappointed by Tyson, at the same time. His impact on the division in the '80s is undeniable. He blasted his way through the competition, carving himself an image from the carnage he exacted; the incarnation of Dread, itself. And, who wasn’t watching when Tyson was fighting?

On the other hand, if one is to be objective, then they should accept the fact that he was unable to pull the rabbit out of the hat like an Ali, a Frazier, a Foreman, a Holyfield; or, demonstrate composed, dominating, technical proficiency, over time, like a Johnson, a Louis, a Holmes, a Lewis. Therefore, the rating of Tyson depends significantly upon his reputation, as much as it might on his achievements - and I do not think this a unique position for a famous heavyweight to be in.

Tyson is certainly up there in the discussion, but I for one have no argument with those, who choose not to include him in their top-10 list of All Time Great Heavyweights.