The Kostya Tszyu myth of being great

Tszyu was a great fighter, but I dont think he was the greatest Light Welter ever like some people are led to believe. I honetly think he is the weakest of the three HOF inductees this year, but he was pretty damn good and is a deserved HOFer. I think his bouts of inactivity and unavenged loss to Phillips tainted his career a bit. (Not because he lost, but because he didnt avenge it). Yes, he beat a lot of old men, but many of them sere still solid competitors. He also beat some good young guys.

 

Jeez, people think that I'm hard on KT.

Casamayor122 and I have discussed this, and I do think that he overrates KT slightly, and places maybe a bit too much significance upon some of his victories (like Chavez and 140lbs is historically a pretty deep division, and there are some fighters at the weight who I feel did enough throughout their career to be rated more highly than KT.

But...

Even if you think that fighters like JCC, Pryor, Loi, Locce, Cervantes, Ross, and maybe one or two others could be rated more highly than Tszyu, that still makes him one of the eight or nine best 140 boxers to have ever stepped inside the ring- at minimum. And since those fighters were great in their own right, it only makes sense to think of KT as being great (if not legendary) in his own right.

Yeah, KT lost to Phillips and Hatton, and that gets held against him. And yeah, he doesn't have a victory over a fighter who was truly great in his prime. But he's got a lot of good-to-very good victories, and was the dominant fighter in the weight class for close to a decade.

And that makes him a pretty great fighter, even if he wasn't quite as great as some of his supporters might have you believe.

 

Fair assessment, Drew101.

I personally (and most others) never claimed that Tszyu is the greatest etc. etc. At a stretch he is a borderline ATG. By strict criteria he is a HOF and that's how I rate him.

But when these stupid threads crop up every week or so, I take pleasure in swatting these flyweights. :yep

 

Mike Tyson Was not Great Either imbecile.

 

Like most of his fans repeatedly say he was cheated.Lets just say if that had been Hatton not coming out for the last round,he would have been crucified.

 

KT was a decent fighter with a glass jaw

 

Many valid oppositions considered him too risky. I seem to recall Mayweather saying that he didn't want to fight Tszyu until he was as old as his uncle when they fought. He also unified the division and on the way destroyed potential greats.

 

That's simplistic and silly. Do we really, really need to go down the long list of losses suffered to lesser fighters by greats? ...Come on.


Edit: My meter is off, I think. Long day.

 

atsch You really are delusional. If Mosley is a natural lightweight then Tszyu is a natural super featherweight.

After shitting on everything Tszyu has done you bring up Mosley's 1 year long "reign of terror" against low-ranked opponents at LW.atsch

 

great fighter.

 

Look if you wanna be a jackass aboout it then please be my guest. but lets recall a couple of things...
One thing mainly that u make a complete joke is Sharmba Mitchell.

U do realize that Mitchell was actually a great little fighter who happened to be the best contender for years. His loss since 1994 came only to Tszyu. He was beating everyone in a good division until Tszyu destroyed him after a 2 year lay off. Number one contender wanted to dethrone the champ and when they fought well u know the rest.

U know I can take any career of any fighter and discredit him the same way... but Tszyu dominated and ruled the best division in boxing for years and years. First to unify it!!! If you dont agree with that then you're the one that's a Youtube historian. It's a fact. When Tszyu ruled his division it was considered best and deepest in boxing. And everyone that stepped up to him got their ass beat.
(Also) for the record Tszyu had no intention fighting Chavez. It's that jackass Suliman and figured he could hand Chavez that title by making him a mandatory challenger.

And this year he is inducted to IBHOF, right along Chavez and Tyson. How does that feel??




Andrey

 

Tszyu was a boxer's boxer.

You will be hard pressed to find any contemporary boxers who thought of Kostya as anything less than great. Similarly with boxing analysts and experts.

Yeah, he was special, and top 5 all time at 140.

 

:thumbsup Good post.

I doubt he has seen a single Mitchell fight outside his losses to Tszyu and Mayweather/Williams when he was past it.