The three causes of Tyson's decline?...

I think it was mainly getting rid of Rooney that caused his decline. You could see his technique and use of D’Amato’s peak-a-boo style get incrementally worse with each passing fight post Rooney. He was brought up in the peak-a-boo style and should have stuck with it and trainers that taught it (which I think was pretty much just Rooney after Cus died). He developed bad habits and even if not necessarily on purpose, stopped moving his head as much once he got with Don King.

 

Berbick wasnt afraid, tried to push tyson back but got KOd.

Thomas wasnt afraid, took a terrible beating in round 1, worked his way back into the fight but got knocked down for the only time in his career(despite being fed to some very good HWs well into the nineties).

Biggs wasnt afraid but got punished and stopped.

Tucker wasnt afraid but was soundly beaten

tubbs wasnt afraid and got knocked out

Williams wasnt scared but got knocked out.


Holmes smith and spinks were the only ones who were truly scared and both holmes and spinks got knocked out as soon as they tried to fight back instead of just trying to just survive.
Holmes stopped spoiling and got knocked out soon after.

The last thing spinks did before he got knocked out was try to fight tyson off of him with a right hand after being dropped

Tyson was rocked by bruno in his worst performance of his pre prison career because Kevin rooney never showed up to his training camp for the bruno fight
After that he started abandonig his technique which was just a symptom of his entire life in general just spiraling out of control

 

Against Bruno in 1989 Tyson won every round and only Tyson could beat easier Bruno obviously
it was a great performance and hardly proved a beatable Tyson.One good punch... i thinks this
showed Tyson chin wasn't weak.
What about the greatest Ali ?Who was down by two fighters like Cooper or Banks.

 

"actually he was beatable" by knocking frank bruno out earlier than last time?

what are you on Mendoza?
lucky bruno isnt whyte or you'd be trying to make him into some laughable ATG killer...based on throwing ONE punch.

 

You must be smoking something if you think Bruno 1 was a good tyson performance. It was the worst performance of his career pre prison including douglas! His trainer didnt show up for his training camp!
That tyson was very beatable because when he fought the way he fought bruno he was just another short HW without any of the things that made him special

 

Don't know about Tucker, but he looked mentally defeated by the half-way point of what still looked like winnable fight for him. Especially in the first 3 rds he looked like he could pull it off, but after that he gradually went in for survival mode. Could have been tiredness setting in, that he hurt his right hand as he claimed or that he was discouraged by Mike taking his best shots without much apparent effect. Probably a combination of those three.

But put the Douglas that beat Tyson in there, and my money is on him beating this version of Tyson also. I see no clear difference in the two versions of Tyson, but I do see a difference the versions of Tucker and Dpuglas.

 

If you cant see the difference between tyson of the tucker vs the douglas fight then you havent watched enough tyson fights or maybe you just always thought pf him as another short HW brawler, and never saw what was special about him. The difference in technique is very clear, right from the beginning.
Could douglas still pull it off? Maybe but he was very tired and had been hurt more than once himself by the time he put tyson away.

Put tokyo tyson in with tucker and i dont think he could slip the jab to the inside and throw the left uppercut to the body as sharply and as often as he did in the forst few rounds. I dont think tokyptyson could outjab tucker late in the fight either.
Infact watch the tillis fight, not one of mikes best performances(he wasnt agressive enough), and pay attention to the difference in the technique, footwork and balance. Tyson wasnt agressive enough but his elusiveness, speed and footwork was amazing. Tysons fundamentals had eroded significantly after he split with rooney.
Douglas tyson couldnt have eluded tillis'hook, turned around, repositioned his fert and knocked him down like that.

 

I just rewatched first six of both today, and there really is no difference. There's no continual head movement against Tucker. That's a myth. Watch it again. Rooney actually tells him after the third to move his head more and put his punches together, but even after that I don't see much difference in Tyson, only in Tucker.

I've seen just about any worthwhile Tyson fight I think, in many cases several times. He had good technique, but what you espouse is a myth of the ignorant for the ignorant, to be frank with you.

The Tyson that constantly moved his head and constantly fired off crisp combinations is a myth that can only be found in high-light reels. Against Thomas, Tucker, Smith and many others he only fought that way in spurts. In his fights that went beyond two-three rounds he frequently fought at a low tempo, leading with single punches and hardly moving his head. He could get away with that because his opponent was intent on surviving (Smith) or had gassed by the mid rounds due to poor stamina (Thomas). In the case of Tucker it seemed a bit of a combination of those two.

But I don't think Tyson was a weak willed front runner. That's another myth. He just naturally had problems against a much larger opponent that could keep up good movement, a great jab and a stinging right cross for 10 rds. And he had nothing like the continuous head movement over 10-15 rds that Frazier had in his prime. Ever. Not close to it at any point in his career.

A third myth is that Tyson was in poor shape against Douglas. He was his normal weight and even after almost 8 rds of getting the **** beat out of him he still had enough to lure Douglas onto a sharp counter that floored him. That is not poor shape by any reasonable definition. Probably not his best shape (who can be in top shape mentally and physically for every fight?), but certainly not in poor shape.

 

I rate Tyson highly. He had skill, speed, power and was much more resilient than most give him credit for. But with how the HWs just grew and grew, time was the enemy of a guy of his short stature.

In full honesty I believe that his personal problems and eventual prison stint actually helped his legacy. If not for those he would have no excuses against Douglas or for when Holy, Bowe and Lewis came into play. Even if a Tyson still with Rooney and without personal problems gets past Douglas in Tokyo (and that's a big if), he's probably losing 2 out of 3 against Holy, Bowe and Lewis imo when they come into the picture. With no excuses readily made.

 

Tyson really isn't given enough credit for what he achieved as A SHORT MAN.
It's remarkable that he beat so many decent fighters who had 4 - 6 inches height on him.

He's overrated when people assume "it must be a fluke" when he loses to one.
But he's under-credited by them too, because they assume the fights he made look "easy" WERE actually easy fights.
Tyson was working like hell in there.

 

Some, if not just about everybody has made up their mind about the assault case. But what some people arent factoring is just how much of an effect that can have on a guy if they allegedly ARE innocent.

Anyone who grew up with siblings knows what im talking about: its absolutely infuriating having to share in a punishment or even worse, taking the blame and someone else goes free or there was never a crime to begin with. Im not arguin hes innocent, im just saying IF he was and hes at the peak of his career making millions, undefeated, finally escaping from the ghetto and his nightmare childhood, that can absolutely ruin and crush a mans spirit. Its already mentally taxing as it is being an athlete, let alone a professional athlete with the pressure of world rankings, investors, and not wanting to go back to the ghetto.

Simply put, the way i see it, it wouldnt matter if he was busting his ass running 12 miles a day, training hard, fighting top condition all year round and kept the best trainers. The mental aspect cannot be overestimated. No matter how many ways tysons life played out, if that assault case happened and he wqs found guilty, he would NEVER be the same fighter again, even if he remained undefeated somehow people would talk about how different he was. And without either parent or his surrogate father figure to impart wisdom and nurture him to possibly guide him and regain his fractured psyche? You can forget about him becoming a sane, stable, functional adult anytime soon, let alone a stable functioning athlete.

 

This is really it. It's hard as hell to overcome such size disadvantage when you're facing a good fighter.

And the 80's crop weren't just bigger than previous generations, they were also well schooled fighters. Good jabs, decent guards, knew how to counter, go to the body and work at all quarters.

The tall HWs who have come since have often been more one-dimensional fighters that mainly have been very good at utilizing their reach advantage, but the post Ali generation could really do it all.

 

He was a great fighter but far from unbeatable as shown, is there any need to say more?

 

Yes.
There are some who believe Tyson had some sort of superior impregnable special style (the Cus D'amato system) that made it impossible for any of the possible fighters of that type to ever beat him unless he dipped well below par. If he kept the style pure, he's unbeatable for eternity against a big fighter of that vaguely-defined type.

But that's not true. What you see is what you get. Other top fighters had great styles and great trainers too, inevitably. Every style can be defeated. Physical advantages ARE advantages, and someone will be able to use them as such.

I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but there's no harm in driving home a point sometimes.

 

Management,king ruined him and many more Party time does not work in boxing