Tony Tucker..evaluate

A durable heavyweight with good boxing skill and decent stamina. But also not a crowd pleasing fighter. He was often non aggressive and opted to play it safe. Good combinations and decent defense. His record lacks some big wins but at least he kept active for most of his career. Douglas, Broad, Norris and McCall are probably his best four wins and the McCall fight was controversial from what I've heard. Not sure exactly how heavily he got into drugs but have heard rumors myself.

 

Would've loved to have seen Tucker and Biggs square off.

 

Fair fighter, nothing special, no doubt his best win was Douglas giving him the title by quitting, way back in 1987:-(, pissed me off, Douglas might have won if he wouldn't have submitted:verysad

John Ruiz beat the hell out of him knocking him out..

Herbie hide also stopped him, as did Bruce Seldon...

He also lost to the hugger Henry Akwinwande, and Orlin Norris...

I don't know if he fought Tyson with a broken hand or not, that was a very long time ago, lol...

Maybe could have been better, but other things got in his way, his own fault :deal draw your own conclusions..

 

Liked the way he ended combos with a left hook in the Tyson fight.
Lost generation of 80s contenders. If things had been different prob
would have been a household name. At one point his ko to win percentage
was just under Foreman's. Recently in ring magazine Tyson
listed Tucker as having the best jab he ever faced, and Tyson
faced some GREAT JABS. Sometimes talent isn't enough, feel me?

 

Very good fighter fought out of the krunk club early in his career had a elite jab with good boxing ability, good righthand ,very very good chin, good body puncher for tall guy, he really had it all had but he lack that fire and desire, had so problems with his dad or someone in his family taking his money....he actually showed the blueprint on how to beat Tyson....he just didnt sustain it....1 of my favorite heavies.....

 

Tucker has a claim 2 being d GOAT @ (S)HW
Aside from stopping Douglas he also decisioned James Broad, but what makes him so special is him lasting d distance against d most destructive and most stylistically wrong (4 him) generation that came after him , which makes it more impressing cubed. How many fighters 6'5" and more remained upright throughout d entire fight against McCall? (consider Lennox Lewis, Henry Akinwande, David Jaco and Lance Whitaker) and Tucker was older than them all (except from Jaco), and fought an aggressive fight against McCall.
Tucker landed more than 1 good punch against Tyson leaving Tyson very unhappy in d end of their fight.
Consider that McCall, Lewis, Akinwande & Norris were all 7 yrs younger than Tucker, Tyson was 8 yrs younger, and even Douglas was 2 yrs younger.
Only James Broad was Tucker's age.
It was a diminished Tucker that gave mostly competitive fights against younger men, sometimes not even smaller, in their primes.
And in addition 2 it all, Tucker had knee problems since d Danny Sutton fight and came in with a fractured hand against Tyson (broke it in sparing).
1 shud wonder what if his hand & knees were healthy vs Tyson & d rest,
and what if d age differential was reversed against his opponents.


Now consider these as it was:
Internal ranking of the following (h2h) cliques containing Tucker yield:
1. Tucker
2. Douglas
3. Tyson

1. Tucker
2. McCall
3. Douglas

1. McCall
2. Tucker
3,4. Lewis & Akinwande


1,2,3. Tucker,McCall,Norris (all nearly equal and i still nid 2c McCall vs Norris)
4. Akinwande (and i need 2c Akinwande's fights vs Tucker & Norris)


And again this is just how it was as it was against younger men. Usually fighters have it much worse facing such age disadvantages.

Pity he did not fight Larry Holmes, Tim Witherspoon & James Smith.
Each 1 of those, especially Witherspoon wud hev enhanced his legacy even further, but then it is more than solid as it is.

Fighting Michael Spinks and/or Gerry Cooney wud hev bin low risk high reward 4 him, which is Y dei avoided him & fot ich oza, dito 4man.
1 shud olso wonder Y did Holmes & Tucker never fot.

 

He might just have held the lineal title briefly, if the cards had fallen in a different way.

Spinks vs Tucker anybody?

 

I and probably many others have contemplated this one for years. Frankly its a tough call. Spinks was past his prime and would have been facing a very large and prime opponent with durability and decent skill.. The thing however, is that Tucker often fought lazily while Spinks had the tendency to be tenacious as was the case in his first fight with Holmes.

 

His prime years were wasted fighting fourth-raters and bums.

 

They did, in sparring at Kronk around 1984.

 

cocaine abuse & father problems was his downfall. And those ridiculous jeri curls!!

 

This.

He was very talented.

 

Tucker has the unique distinction of being the only guy who fought both Tyson and Lewis and was never stopped by either of them.

The only other guy to hold that record is one Evander Holyfield and remember Tucker fought better versions of both than Evander did.

Speaks volumes about you when a prime Tyson and Lewis cant knock you out.