Ron Lyle has some solid results. Ellis (39-9-1) Shavers(49-4-1) Bonavena (51-8-1) Middleton (20-3-1) Berbick has solid results too. pinklon Thomas (26-0-1) Greg Page (19-0) John Tate (20-1) Mitch Green (15-0-1) David Bey (14-1) So who wins this heavyweight sizzler?
I think both have nearly equal standing in the boxing world, but Lyle would win via close decision. Hard-hitting heavyweight brawl.
Berbick definitely has the grit and skill set to take a close decision win in my book. He was a lot more ring savvy than some people give him credit for.
I might put it closer myself at 60-40, but then again, Lyle ONLY ever lost to the best fighters in the world, Berbick-you never can tell who he'd lose to.
Berbick is definitely an unsung hero. Crazy guy that he was, in the ring he really won a lot of fights as the opponent that he was not supposed to win. He practically finished Tate as a player in the world scene. He beat an unbeaten Page on his coming out party. I won’t mention Ali, but again, Berbick was just hand picked to lose really. Later Pinklon Thomas was supposed to be taking over from Larry as the worlds best HW. Berbick really delivered here. This is enough to match Ron Lyle in my book. And this is all before he even meets Tyson.
This is one of the matchups where we can see 2 different result had They fought twice. But i think berbick is tricky enough to outpoint Lyle. I just don't think Ron was as good a finisher as Foreman or tyson were.
The win over Thomas is really very impressive in my opinion. Thomas had beaten a host of the 80s best and was undefeated and Berbick whooped his ass. Thomas beat prime Tillis, drew with Coetzee, beat prime Witherspoon, then an excellent version of Mike Weaver, then he lost to Berbick. I always thought that Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe, and Morrison have Berbick to thank for defeating Thomas. I'm sure that at the stages they were they all would have beat Thomas, but Berbick made it easy for them. And in turn, Thomas used Berbick up as well. The facts are there. It was a damn hard fight between the two and one of the best heavyweight fights of the 80s.
