Tyson vs Tillis and Green

Boxing fans like to criticize the better fighters who get LEGIT hype behind them, this is commonly known as the boxing dumbed down effect.

For the best modern reference of this look at Joshua's fight against Takam the fight where he won every round and then became the under dog against Wilder or got taking down a few notches by many....BC he WON every round but went 10...


Imagine Tyson in this era with the same resume and fight replication ? He would be the biggest hype job in history .....

 

Who would you have winning had the bout gone 12 rounds?

 

He was.lucky that Blood didn't give effort.

 

I haven’t seen people being overly critical of Tyson for either fight.

At the time of the Tillis fight, he was a few months past being on the cover of Sports Illustrated hyped as the Next Big Thing. That’s an honor held for the Michael Jordans or other top people in their respective sports and he hadn’t done anything yet to signify that he was, indeed, all that. So a lot of people were tuning in to see this Kid Dynamite who was being so hyped ... and he didn’t look like the Next Big Thing.

So maybe at the time a few people were ‘meh, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.’ And based just on that performance, that’s fair. Same thing with Blood Green, who was next on Tyson’s hit parade ... he was hyped as this phenom kid who’s knocking everybody out and then two of his first high-profile fights he’s taken the distance. So yeah, not what a lot of the casuals who tuned in to see the monster unchained expected.

But I haven’t seen people on this forum en masse slamming Tyson for those performances. At the time, it was more a matter of expectations vs. reality.

Should also be pointed out that Tillis was on a losing skid and Tyson had much more trouble with him than Marvis Frazier, Tyrell Biggs, Carl Williams, etc., in recent outings where they won much more convincingly. So by comparison, Tyson didn’t make himself look better by comparison.

 

Tillis almost kod Frazier and then Mike did go Frazier in 30 seconds. Styles make fights. Tilliis dropped Williams twice and exposed Williams lack of chin. I

 

All I’m saying is that Tillis wasn’t beating people at the time, made Tyson work hard to win a close decision while others beat him much worse on the scorecards.

Tyson is obviously in hindsight better than those guys, but at the time in those two particular back-to-back fights he was being called the next great heavyweight and those tuning in didn’t see what they expected from all the hype.

 

True people were expecting him to ko everyone. Tillis and Green were resilent. He needed the experience of having to go the distance

 

Fun fact the only guy to stop Green was Bruce Johnson who was 8-22. Green didn't throw a single punch the whole fight because he was having a money dispute with the promoter.

 

I agree it was good for him. And I still think the OP’s premise is off base — there’s not been people seriously criticizing Tyson’s resume for failure to stop those two, he was still in the developmental stage. I’m just speaking to how it was perceived at the time ... that for two fights right after he came on the public’s radar he didn’t look like a force of nature.

If you get down to it, probably these two fights were part of the reason some expected Michael Spinks to beat Tyson, or at least have a chance to do so.

 

This. To be fair to Tillis he was a talented fighter, but he had a habit of checking in and out mid fight kind of like James Degeale. Tyson knocking him down forced Tillis to turn it up and he started beating Tyson to the punch instead of just relying on the jab.

Tillis also was beating Marvis like a drum in the corner, but the fight was under standing eight rules. Once Marvis survived the standing eight he simply outhustled Tillis and kept countering Tillis with straight rights to keep Tillis honest.

Marvis when he fought Tyson made the mistake of trading with Tyson early knowing Tyson had faster hands and a murderous uppercut.

As great as Tyson was in his prime his inside game was always lacking. A lot of tall guys tried to beat Tyson with the jab, but a good jab never stopped Tyson, but beating him to the punch on the inside before he could get in position worked like a charm and was a weakness that was present throughout this entire career.

 

Exactly.

And he could be tied up easily on the inside. And Tillis is not a strong heavyweight. But at the end of the day, there was a reason Tillis was a 10-1 underdog going into the fight. He was expected to be another highlight reel ko victim. Tillis just did not cooperate & Mike never did solve the guy.

 

Tillis was certainly determined to hear that last bell .