review of Tyson holyfield 1 and why tyson would have won in 1991(imo)

Might explain some of the rage Tyson had, especially before the Lewis fight.

 

Arguably the greatest heavyweight title fight of all-time that should have happened, but didn't. Classic, 50-50 fight. No idea who would have won. Gun to my head, I pick the 91' version of Tyson to stop a smaller, less clever version Evander. But, I would never put money on it.

 

http://www.thesweetscience.com/news...preciation-of-holyfield-beating-tyson-in-1996

 

http://www.thesweetscience.com/news...92-what-if-tyson-had-fought-holyfield-in-1991

 

Lol!!!

Holyfield 2

Tyson 0.

That's the final h2h count.

Lucky for u he didn't get to smash Tyson in '91 so you have something to cling to.

 

I liked the question holyfield was asked at 1991 fight conference:
How you feel to be undisputed world champion and underdog at the same time?
Haha.

 

Holyfield dropped Cooper with a body shot in the opening round.

 

The Tyson who struggled with Ruddock would not have beaten Holyfield.
I think it would have been a very similar scenario to what we saw in 96/97 with Holyfield surviving a torrid opener to slowly counter Tyson and stop him late on. It could go the distance but i reckon Holyfield's counter punching would have worn Tyson down and stopped him somewhere between rounds 10 and 12.

 

Holy beats Tyson every time they would fight unless he runs smack into a ko blow. Holyfields agressive but controlled style disrupted Tysons offense, made him think, made enough him confused and in the end made him much less the steamroller he was vs much lesser opponents. Holy knocked him out in bout one and would have knocked him out in fight two. Unfortunately Tyson looked for the exit in fight two when the going became tough. The Tyson legacy.

 

This section here is where the analysis completely lost me.

1) Watch the actual first fight. Tyson comes out like a cannonball. He lands some big stuff that at least moves Holyfield right away. Within 10-15 seconds, Evander is pushing and shoving him around.

Now Tyson is, at this point, "a fighter who is aggressive, has all his senses and is confident." And the OP says that getting pushed around cannot happen to a fighter who is all of these things. And yet is happens BEFORE THE FIGHT IS 30 SECONDS OLD.

So this "analysis" is sheer projection in the face of what actually happened, and ignores the evidence.

2) Onto rounds 5-6: the OP (to be fair, admitting that this is opinion only) says Tyson is coming on in the 5th and 6th until the butt.

When I look at it, I see Tyson fighting in spurts. He has some good moments early in the fifth, but doesn't keep up the pace of attack and is again manhandled by Holy in the clinches and by the end of the round is eating a steady diet of hard jabs.

The supposition posed by the OP is that Tyson fell apart after getting cut and BECAUSE he got cut. (Like every fighter whoever got cut suddenly came apart at the seams, which we know is not true.) But Tyson is doing good work in the sixth after the headbutt and actually lands a good right-to-the-body-left-hook-to-the-head combo right before the ref steps in to have the cut examined.

3) The problem isn't the cut -- if it is, it's a mental weakness on Tyson's part; it means he's a bully who shrinks when facing the slightest adversity; it's not afffecting his vision, it's not stopping him from punching and fighting, it's not like he's out on his feet; it's that things aren't going his way IF IT'S DUE TO THE CUT. It's that he doesn't sustain his attack and cannot. So Holy, who is nothing if not a 3-minutes-a-round, bell-to-bell FIGHTER, keeps working and takes over. He never relents. And Tyson sags under the pressure.

This is not a post-prison Tyson development, and that's where this thesis falls apart like Tyson did in the fight: Tyson didn't sustain action against Buster Douglas, he didn't do it against Bruno (punch/clinch), he didn't do it against Ruddock; hell, he didn't do it against Tony Tucker or Bonecrusher.

Look at Tyson's early knockouts like Alex Stewart and Spinks and others and you get the impression that he's an unstoppable tank who fires a barrage of shells and the other guy falls down ... and you could project that he'd do it for 12 rounds. But he never actually did. He comes out fast and settles into a pattern of big punch/clinch/big punch/clinch for the most part. He chops people down gradually, or they survive to the bell .... or if they can truly stand up to him like Buster and Holy, they beat him up and take him out.

That's Tyson before prison and after. Yes, he was less than prime when they fought. So was Holyfield, who was taking wear and tear during those years Tyson was imprisoned. So that's a wash as far as I'm concerned.

4) Tyson still has world-class power at this stage. His other results confirm that both before and after this fight (and the second one). And he hit Holy clean as a whistle with his best stuff quite a few times -- singular punches and at times in combination. And he NEVER damaged Evander, never had him in serious trouble ... at most he momentarily buzzed him.

That tells me Evander is going to be able to take his best shots at any stage. He's going to manhandle Tyson whenever they might have met.

5) Mostly, he's going to be more dedicated than Tyson, more determined than Tyson and more willing to plant his flag and go through whatever hell he has to go through to beat Tyson.

That's my analysis.

And I applaud the OP for his time and effort to put this together. I don't mean to belittle him in any way. I just respectfully disagree.