Tyson already on the slide in Bruno I?

Just the amount of times he got hit in the Bruno fight. More in that fight alone than all the fights prior to that in his entire career at that point. The dismissal of Rooney was the death of Tyson really.

 

He was sloppy. The version who showed up for second Bruno fight wasn't really any worse.


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Sugar Ray Leonard stated that this was Tyson's most impressive performance upto that point. He dismantled a strong, big punching challenger who had his whole country behind him.

 

Bruno came to win. It's harder to freestyle and look cool when the other guy is trying hard to win.

Tyson was quite clever. He knew Frank was going to come right at him, that they would collide, so he was looking to beat Frank to the draw on the way in. So he did.

Tyson had the speed to meet him. It was a brave tactics considering the power.

 

All this talk of Tyson just throwing single shots and no combinations, comments like that make me think half of his fanatics haven't even seen the fight. Tyson threw plenty of combinations, hell even the finishing combination is arguably the best of his career...

 

In his last fight Tyson literally walked right through Spinks so he probably thought he could do the same to big Frank. He got the early knockdown which probably only reinforced the idea he could walk through Bruno which is maybe why he was so aggressive early on.

Personally I didn't really see any decline. Sure he didn't jab much but he was never going to win a battle of the jabs against Bruno's ramrod jab and he did a great job of slipping Bruno's jab, so clearly the head movement was there. When he did jab he usually got clinched it was clear the jab wasn't going to work against Bruno.

Tyson was just reckless early on after the quick knockdown and was looking for one shot to take Bruno out like when he threw the left hook that spun him around. Bruno was rough and dirty, hitting and holding on the inside and Tyson simply got caught trying to take Bruno out.

Bruno's holding tactics made Tyson look worse than he was, it spoiled Tyson's rhythm, saw him pushed back at times, similar to what happened to him against Holyfield, Tyson liked to back his opponents up, he could come forward and he'd still have space to keep throwing as his opponent backed up but Bruno held his ground so Tyson fell in too close and would get clinched. It was hard for Tyson to get much momentum as he'd get clinched so often.

You can say there was less combination punching, but how to you throw combo's when your opponent clinches you after throwing a punch? You can say he didn't jab enough but when he did, he either fell well short because of Bruno's huge reach advantage or even if he did land he got clinched. Watch the 2nd round, Tyson is clinched after almost every jab, by jabbing his power shots behind that jab were being stifled so he got rid of the jab and went straight to the power punches.

 

Tyson was throwing combinations, have you actually watched the fight??

 

It boils down to the same thing really.....fighters have a 2 or 3 year window when they are at their pinnacle. Then, they deteriorate a little.How does a guy handle that little bit of deterioration? Can they compensat or go to something else?

And while this is going on, there may be a new crop of pedigreed up and comers. Youthful reflexes to deal with and not the old reflexes they tend to deal with during that pinnacle timeframe. It becomes a tightrope act along the way & that's what keeps the sport exciting.

 

Definite Decline theres absolutely no doubt about it.
Tyson of the Biggs, Holmes, Tubbs fights was twice the fighter that fought Bruno.

 

I remember there was some speculation back then that Tyson was starting to slip. Was it ever proven? Not sure.. But by the time he fought Bruno, he had seen all but 91 seconds of ring action in the previous year, had gone through drastic changes in management in which his entire original team had been replaced, gone through an ugly divorce, had a car accident that rendered him injured, and was getting into fiascos outside the ring.. It also didn't help that Bruno was fighting dirty and holding behind the head while punching..In the end he still beat Frank more emphatically than anyone else had done previously.

 

Not on the slide, but for the first time in his pro career, Tyson looked vulnerable.

Bruno badly rocked him. If Bruno had more confidence ( an issue for him ) or had he landed something serious shortly after rocking Tyson, we could have seen an upset.