Teddy Atlas: “Mike Tyson was NOT a great fighter”

Teddy Atlas was not a great fighter.

 

Did he smoke a joint with Rogan like Elon Musk did? He sure speaks like he did.

 

I'm glad you agree with me on the last part.

 

Agreed. I've said it many times before. Tyson was what 23 or 24 when he got knocked out by Buster Douglas. And this was before he went to jail. If your prime is over before you hit 25, well that's all one need to know.

If you are a serious, dedicated professional you should be close to your prime at age 35.

Teddy Atlas is spot on about Mike Tyson. Probably the most overrated fighter ever.

Joshua and Wilder both knock him out. Just like Lewis and Holyfield did. Was Tyson prime when he fought Lewis and Holyfield? No, but they weren't either. The difference was Lewis and Holyfield were professionals who were dedicated to their craft. They weren't out there partying, doing all type of drugs, wilding out. They kept their main thing(boxing) their main thing. That's why they were able to fight close to their prime level until age 35+.

 

People go on and on about how talented Broner is but how he lacks the focus, commitment and work ethic to be great. They say Broner party were too much.

Mike Tyson was Broner times 100, lol.

 

I disagree with Atlas.

Tyson was a GREAT fighter, but not a brilliant boxer.

If you stood toe to toe with him and tried to slug (not many did tbh) he would put your lights on. Too nimble for a 200lbs+ man.

If you were a good boxer, he could beat you through his movement.

However, if you were a GREAT boxer and had a great boxing IQ (like Lewis etc) you would always have success against him as you could time him, fight backwards and keep resetting him.

For what it's worth, Douglas performed like an ATG that night in Tokyo, but it was just ONE night.

 

For someone called Atlas, it's ironic his view of the world extends no further than his own ego...

 

I guess it comes down to Tyson being a phenomenon in my youth, I'll always have fond memories of the buzz he created those early years. At 13-14 I had to set my alarm clock in the middle of the night to watch his fights on either the bbc or a german station. There was no internet, no youtube or nothing to leisurely follow pre fight shows with reruns of earlier fights and so on. You had the morning paper and that was it! If you were an adolescent into boxing back then, the anticipation for a Tyson fight was huge. I don't care if today folks are questioning his résumé in the typical boxing24 nitpicking way, or Atlas feels the need to run him into the ground....for some fighters some folks will always have a soft spot and that includes me as a casual fan for 30+ years

 

Tyson KO'd Buster. Ref gave him like 14 seconds.

 

Why not throw in the intellect of Wlad?

 

Then he wouldn´t really be Iron Mike now would he

 

If it was someone else saying this stuff other then Teddy like Nazim, Freddie, etc I’d give it a serious listen but Teddy has an agenda he doesn’t like Mike on a personal level and it has a lot to do with jealousy.

 

Some people do overrate him.

People both overrate and underrate fighters all of the time.

You have to look at things objectively and decide for yourself.

You can say that he never beat an ATG HW whilst they were prime. But then neither did lots of guys.

Mike did beat top HW's.

Larry Holmes was faded, but look at his fights against Evander, McCall and Mercer afterwards.

Spinks wasn't merely a blown up LHW. He proved that he was a credible HW in his 2 fights against Holmes, no matter how you scored those fights. He also had a decent win over Cooney.

Tucker was a very good fighter in his day.

Bruno had vulnerabilities but was a decent fighter.

All of the above guys would be top 10 guys today, and he beat most of them with absolute ease.

You can hold the opinion that he never would have been able to have beaten Evander or Lennox, but you simply can't ignore the fact that he was faded when he lost to them.

 

If sport is about entertaining , then nothing was more exciting than a young Tyson demolishing his overmatched opponents. It was poetic violence

 

It's not as simple as above.

It's disrespectful to say that Spinks was a blown up HW. Again, he proved that he was a credible HW.

Forget how old he was against Douglas, everyone knows that Mike wasn't at his best for that fight. Now you may hold the opinion that any version of Douglas would have beaten him. Some people do believe that. But you can't ignore the fact that Mike didn't train, as he was arrogant and unmotivated. He was getting dropped in sparring by Greg Page and he was sleeping with women. Now a man has to take responsibility for their actions. But let's not pretend that Douglas was a step up in class from Spinks, Holmes, Tucker and Bruno etc, because he wasn't. There was far more to it than Douglas simply being better than Mike. He was better than Mike on the night, but he did not face the versions of Mike who Spinks fought, where he was fully focused, fighting to his full capabilities.