Tucker sticks around.

With this argument people often don't consider, if tucker had good hands he would have been more open to counters and likely been knocked out himself. He took a few big punches early from tyson which i think helped put him in his shell a bit. It turned into a boring fight because tucker survived, if he fought he would have got hurt like the others. Saying he would have done what douglas did with two good hands makes no sense to me. 1990 tyson was in a different place without his long time trainer and on the slide.

My take is tyson and tucker both had great chins so there would have been no ko, added to the fact tucker didn't hit hard enough to take tyson out, tucker would have gone into survival mode much like others did. He was a decent fighter but tyson was just better at the stage they fought, it was his time. Tucker had his chance, if he was the great tyson beater some say he was then he would have done it at some point, but what we have is no evidence of this.

 

If Tony had both hands, he had a strong chance to upset Tyson, but, truthfully, probably wasn't adequately prepared. His career wasn't really handled right from the beginning, and that knee injury, and being out for 15 months didn't help either.

 

At that stage of the game, DKP was all in on Tyson and he was not going to lose any sort of decision in a remotely close bout. And Tony is not winning 9 or 10 rounds against the guy it'd take to get the close decision.

 

Was it me or did Tyson seem a bit subdued in the Tucker fight or maybe I'm just not giving Tony enough credit for making Tyson look less effective?

 

Tyson got lazy when he was dominating an opponent but had trouble stopping him. Exception was Ruddock who he had to be careful with and on top of his game til the final bell. Imo Tyson already had the upper hand(although it was very competitive) in the first 3-4 rounds until Tucker broke his hand and looked MUCH MUCH better than in the early going against Douglas

 

I'm convinced it was the way that Tyson looked in the Tucker fight that made the Duvas throw their then prospect Tyrell Biggs into a fight against Tyson just a few months later. They must have though that judging by how Tucker did, now was the best time to catch Tyson. I remember Biggs even throwing one or two left upper cuts early against Tyson. The same punch that Tucker had momentarily rocked back Tyson with early in their fight so the Biggs camp definitely looked beforehand at the way that Tucker fought against Tyson.

It's just a pity for them that the gamble failed as Biggs wasn't ready for such a jump and Tyson gave arguably his finest overall performance in that fight and just a few months after looking so subdued against Tucker.

 

From what i heard thy wanted to cash in on Biggs before he was completely devoured by his drug addictions. Tyson looked very good against Tucker, the only thing i would criticize as a Tyson fan who's seen every one of his fights countless times is that he got complacent after Tucker stopped using his right after round 4 i think, and just started outjabbing Tucker. It was great seeing him slip the jab to the inside and come up with a left hook/uppercut to the body of Tucker everytime.
Tyson trained very hard for Biggs because he felt Biggs had bullied him years before and he wanted to pay him back and he did. Hard elbows, body punishment, letting up a few times, mocking. It was a great performance

 

yeah I liked the Tucker performance by Tyson, what was underrated was Tyson's patience and pacing. he was so confident he had the fight won he just took his time, didn't get flustered when hit, totally ignored the big Tucker uppercut in the first. those Tucker successes had no effect, Tyson stuck to his plan and wasn't deterred. this counters a lot of arguments relating to Tyson not handling another opponent that isn't afraid and was having some success. Tucker wasn't afraid, he even thought he won the fight. Tyson didn't seem in knock out mode, he seemed to know Tucker was durable so went for the points win, which showed he could adapt a bit in a fight, not always go for the KO. Not adapting in an Ali sense obviously but he wasn't as one dimensional as some believe.

 

Tucker did tremendously well against Tyson. The more I watch their fight the more I'm impressed with TNT. A rematch would've been made but not immediately. Maybe before a rematch Tucker needs to fight an eliminator to get another crack. Suppose he faces Witherspoon or even Dokes or Truth Williams if Spoon gets the Don King treatment?!

Imagine a few battles with the other 80's big guns: Tucker vs. Spoon, Wiliams, Thomas, Dokes, Biggs, Bruno, Green, Bonecrusher, Tubbs, Page, Berbick. The list goes on and on...