The myth about Tyson's weak opposition

Tyson is an all-time great HW. He is overrated by some, underrated by others... just like every other great fighter is.

On his way to winning his first world title he beat the type of fighters a guy on the way up is supposed to fight... but he destroyed them like no other had done before-

KO2 Conroy Nelson
KO1 Sammy Scaff
KO1 David Jaco

He beat Jesse Ferguson KO6

He was forced to go the distance vs. James Tillis (W10), who fought the best fight of his career.

The same can be said for his next opponent, Mitch Green (W10).

He went back to knocking people out after that-

KO1 Reggie Gross (he was supposed to be a true test for Tyson)

KO1 Marvis Frazier (he had been stopped in 1 by Holmes, but he had beat James Tillis, Jose Ribalta, and Bonecrusher Smith since that fight) The fight lasted 30 seconds.

KO10 Jose Ribalta

KO2 Alonzo Ratliff

Then came his first world title run.

It is what it is. Tyson beat who was available at the time.

 

I would only put Ali as having better opposition. Lennox is even but less dominant. Holyfield has some better names but not nearly as dominant. Holmes has similar names but less dominant. Louis has the longer reign and comes closest to the domination factor.

Tyson's 9 defenses were 4th most at the time, and he fought everybody and even the people they beat. He left no stone unturned. Imagine this: He fell short of his goals and was still able to do better than most ATG's were asked to do.

 

Excellent post!:good

 

The same Jesse Ferguson who later went on to beat Ray Mercer and get himself a shot at Riddick Bowe, years after Tyson had beat him up

James Till was a VERY experienced journeyman when he fought Tyson, whereas for Tyson it was his first step up. Everyone seems to remember Tillis gave Tyson problems, no one seems to remember that this was Tysons first step up, he was still green and fighting an experienced journeyman whod been in with Biggs, Coetzee, Frazier, Witherspoon, Williams, Page, Thomas, Shavers and Weaver before facing Tyson.

Tyson never stopped Mitch Green, i dont think Mitch Green was ever stopped in his career.

Most of the guys Tyson beat in his initial title run had never been stopped before and/or were undefeated at the time.

Biggs and Tucker were both undefeated.
Berbick was never stopped again after facing Tyson and he fought for another 14 years.

These guys had all never been stopped before, until Tyson got hold of them. Biggs, Thomas, Holmes, Spinks, Tubbs, Buster Mathis.

And these guys fought a variety of other great fighters like Holyfield, Foreman, Holmes, Moorer, Lewis and Bowe. Tyson stopped all of them much quicker and in more impressive fashion. Guys like Bruno, Williams, Savarese, Seldon, Ettienne and Stewart

 

Wait a second, it's not me whose using Dempsey as the barometer of Tyson's greatness.

Dempsey's reign was unequivocally **** (in pure terms of accomplishment) and it came 65 years before Tyson's reign.

With people here are going back that far, digging up Dempsey's reign of crapness, to make Tyson's reign look good ...... it raises the question WHY? IF Tyson's opposition was so good, why the eagerness to compare to Dempsey's who almost everyone admits had a crappy reign?

 

You're definitely over-selling them.

Berbick, Smith and Tucker were coming off pretty big wins over top-flight opponents, they had shown some good recent form.

Carl Williams, it's arguable.

*Tubbs had not registered a big win in almost 3 years. And he was still fat.

*Spinks had not fought in a year. Spinks hadn't fought any top HW fighter apart from larry Holmes, who probably deserved the nod over him in the second fight. That was over 2 years before he faced Tyson. Forget the hype, those are the facts.

*Bruno had only beat fat old Bugner, and hadn't fought at all in 16 months. Ring magazine didn't even rank him among their contenders (which might have been unfair, he could have scraped in around #8 or #9. imo)

*Thomas had not had a big win over a relevant opponent in 2 years and everyone agreed he had looked bad in his 4 fights since then.

*Biggs went life-and-death with David Bey. He was almost certainly being cashed in before he lost to someone for a smaller payday.

These are just the facts based on the recent form, on what we know happened in the ring. Unlike people who make excuses for Tyson's loss to Douglas, I wouldn't even bother talking about all the "outside the ring" stuff excuses, because for some reason that's only Tyson's privilege.

Simply, at least half those guys were not coming off good spells that would really indicate they were at their best or well prepared.

 

Tyson only met 3 undefeated opponents in his first run at a title .
Ricardo Spain 1-0-0
John Anderson 3-0-0
Lorenzo Canady 3-0-0
A total of 7 fights between them.

Only two of Tyson's other opponents had not been stopped.
Green and Hosea.
Most had been stopped multiple times.
Berbick had been kod in 1 round by Bernado Mercado previous to fighting Tyson.
Biggs was undefeated, but he only had 15 fights under his belt.
Tyson's early opposition was pretty dire.

 

I think 6 of his first 10 title opponents had never been stopped before.
That's including Tony Tucker, who Tyson didn't stop either.

Thomas, Tucker, Biggs, Holmes, Tubbs, Spinks

 

His opposition was generally pretty good. It wasn't elite, but it was hardly weak. As mentioned before, a lot of those men were of reasonable age, experience, activity, conditioning, and good records. Even Holmes who was 38 years of age and off for two years was better than Jess Willard when Dempsey beat him, better than Joe Louis when Marciano beat him, and better than Muhammad Ali when Holmes himself beat him. I don't know if I can see any of Tyson's title opponents being "great" in any particular era, but I can see a good many of them being contenders of comparable status in just about any period.

 

They weren't bums.
Their strengths and weaknesses have been covered here, with some exaggerations from some posters of course.

I'm not convinced a 38-year-old Holmes was better than a 37-year-old Joe Louis. People say that, but I don't see any good reasoning behind that.

 

I do. Louis had absolutely no finishing ability left whatsoever by 1951, which initially was his strongest attribute. The lightening fast combinations had diminished and I think its fair to say that his stamina and punch resistance had as well. Sure he was more active than Holmes and possibly in a little bit better shape. But Joe Louis aged very poorly when contrasted to some of his peers in the ATG fraternity. Holmes at least still had a good jab, strong right uppercut and could still take a punch. The Tyson fight was not the best display of this, but his comeback years later revealed that there was at least a little bit of gas left in the tank.

 

I would have to say that Holmes went on to do significant work after this.

Lets not forgett that he beat Mercer more convincingly than Lewis did.

 

I said title run, not run to the title :good

 

If you meant title defences you should have said so.