Tyson or Frazier? Who ranks higher on your heavyweight ATG list?

Really the 80s would have to be evenly split between Larry and Mike. Larry was the better fighter, Tyson perhaps the better champion. Although Larry would of socked Tyson prime for prime, Tyson even said so.

 

Tyson beats both those bums on the same night.

Tyson had the better chin. Frazier only seems to have a better chin cause he didn't fight any hard hitters, apart from Foreman, who used Frazier's head as a bouncing ball.

 

You've never seen Frazier, Chuvalo, or Bonavena then. Tyson would have been a workout for most of the fighters of the 60s-70s. I've seen dozens of Tyson fights, and dozens of 60s-70s fights. Tyson loses most of them because he gets way outboxed or gets put in with punchers that are so tough he can't hurt them.

 

The 60's and 70's wheren't ****. The 90's is the best era of HW's.
Tyson pisses over all the 60's and 70's boxers.

 

To me those fights were where Mike finally proved he had heart. He cast doubt on that in the second Holyfield fight, but proved it again against Lewis.

The Lewis fight should have been Mike's last fight, period. Though he showed more heart than he ever did, at times it looked like he was being nearly tortured...just check out those last two rounds. The corner proved to be no Rooney in letting him come out for that last round in particular. It's a wonder Mike didn't come out fo the game like Bowe.

 

Actually, no offense but I make a lot more sense than you on this topic. Mike won the title in late 1986 and held it just over three years. How long did Holmes hold it again?

Holmes didn't need to unify, he beat the WBA champ before he even won the belt, he beat Witherspoon (future champ), David Bey (who beat Greg Page), James Smith (who not only knocked out Witherspoon in the first round but also became champ), Trevor Berbick (another future champ)...I could go on, but I'm being merciful.

Tyson beat a two-year ring rusted, just-turned-grandfather Holmes. Big deal. Even Mike said he couldn't have beaten prime Holmes. If Buster Douglas knocked out a prime Mike, Holmes would have ended it even earlier. Doesn't take much to figure that out.

Holmes held the title longer, made many more defenses. Plenty of top 10 contenders, too.

 

No need to get pissed off at me, but tbh Tyson never got dumped on his face, had his eye closed, or was 20 points behind and came back, or took 25 unanswered punches and came back. Watch the 60s and 70s and you'll see all of that time and time again. The 90s was good too, though.

 

Tyson also never beat an under-30 Ali, or anyone near that caliber a fighter (btw, Tyson adamantly admits Ali would have wiped the floor with him).

 

Tyson was great for cleaning up the title mess, but I don't see why people thought he was so amazing. Larry suffered devestating knockdowns at the hands of Weaver, Shavers, and Snipes, and stopped all three. He narrowly defeated Norton in a tough fight. Berbick, Cooney, and Witherspoon all gave him trouble, and he came back to beat them. He even pounded Bonecrusher after a big cut from head clash. The guy got hurt all the time and kept winning. Tyson never did that.

 

It was one of Iron Mike's great faults: he never got super hurt or knocked down and came back to win. Even Rom Lyle did that (and tbh I think Lyle would have given Mike a helluva fight).

 

me too! 6/ 10 he would beat him, too

 

Those are yoga master stretches. He didn't fight Pink, Page, Coetzee, Tate or Dokes, and didn't rematch Spoon or Williams. Tyson just cleaned out whoever was top 10.

 

You're not backing your argument up as thoroughly or convincingly as I did. He beat the people who beat Page and Coetzee, and let's be real, overall Tate, Thomas, and Dokes were pretty sorry fighters by anyone's admission. They damn sure weren't no Larry Holmes or ****, Ken Norton for that matter.

But hey, you want to live in that world, be my guest. Holmes' accomplishments far outweigh Tyson's. Not to mention, Holmes never got knocked out or even beaten by anyone who sucked as bad as Williams or McBride...even past the age of mutha****in' 47.

Good luck refuting that, you didn't even provide sufficient grounds for the above post.

 

Thomas was more highly regarded than Holmes at one point.

If you're gonna play that game, Tyson beat Bonecrusher who beat Witherspoon and Ruddock who beat Dokes, Berbick who beat Page and Bruno who beat Coetzee. It's better to just clean out the divison like Tyson did than fight Scott Frank and Tex Cobb.

 

Holmes missed many of the very top players in the 80's. He said himself after the Witherspoon scare he was going to take the easy fights on the way down and thought he deserved that extravagance.

When he was actually supposed to face Page (Page beat Snipes in an eliminator to be the mandatory for Holmes after the Witherspoon fight) he refused and then made a deal that he would face Page after Frazier. He refused again and was stripped of his title and then gifted the newly formed IBF title without a fight as they were looking to establish themselves. One can only imagine the furore if Rocky Marciano or someone did this even if there were politics involved as well. Look at Bowe-Lewis.

He also missed Dokes, Coetzee and Thomas and never rematched guys who gave him big trouble in Witherspoon and Weaver. At various times he basically said Page, Coetzee (that damn South African), Thomas (junkie) and Witherspoon could go to hell. It's all out there if you have the material. We are talking the big players of the time. Page came unstuck later but that was after the fact and hindsight.

You look at other long reign guys like Louis and Ali (there's some chat about a Foreman rematch) and they took on all comers and rematched guys that put them thru hell instead of stone walling them. Louis was very quick to rematch. Marciano did too.

Tyson took on all comers and had virtually no filler at all once he grabbed the title. If one looks at the may 87 Ring Ratings beat 8 of the top 10 and lost to another in Douglas. If he beat Douglas he was headed for Holyfield who was the 10th name. It's insane coming from what we had previously and little wonder he became such a worldwide phenoma.

Tyson may not match Holmes overall resume but his title ethics are beyond reproach. He wanted to face the best every time he stepped out. He's in the convo for dominant reign of the 80's due to the above and the fact that he lost to Douglas in the 90's.

It was the way he was beating these guys too. He was obliterating most. People bring up his two distance fights with Tucker and Smith but the fact is they fought mostly for survival and he beat them in an absolute canter.