Tyson's knockout of Berbick.

The greatest punchers are notorious for being able to land throw away looking shots, gloried snaps of the wrist... But those punches end up doing exceptional damage. The likes of Carlos Zarate comes to mind.

 

I am trying to point out by example that it is moronic to state that Prime Tyson knocks everyone out. Or just knocks everyone based on the opponents best of prime performance.

Those are 4 examples of fighters he could not knock out, and only one of them would be classed as a world class fighter.

 

Poor Berbick just didn't know what hit him, or where he was, for God's sake. Berbick reminded me of a stunned cow in a slaughterhouse. I guess I'm more impressed with that fight...with Tyson, of course,...that punch, and how it made Berbick react...the more I see it. Downright ultra impressive. I know one thing's for sure, that if that version of Mike Tyson was around today, he would utterly obliterate the heavyweight division.

 

Russell, check out Ingemar Johansson-Dick Richardson sometimes...I think the vid is still on You Tube....Ingo ends that fight with 1 punch...a seemingly ordinary, run of the mill looking shot...and suddenly it was all over.

 

It's always pretty remarkable seeing guys being far removed from their senses by a fighters "nothing" punches.

 

Tillis was in awesome shape and fought very well. He had a medicore record but had been competitive in almost all his losses up to that point, except for the Witherspoon one round blowout. That fight was kind of an abberation. He was still a top 15 type. Tyson needed a fight like that during his development.

Tucker I guess is the won you are saying was World Class. He was IBF champion. It was a unification fight.

Green had never been kod up thru the Tyson fight. He had a very good chin. And, he was still rated in the top 10-15 when he fought Tyson.

Bonecrusher was WBA champ. It was a unification fight. He had just blown out Witherspoon and had a great chin. He had lost decision to Holmes, Tubbs and Witherspoon who were all top 5 when he lost to them. And he had Kod Bruno and Mike Weaver. True, he had lost a decision to Marvis Frazier. I would say he was World Class when he fought Tyson. Plus, he fought only to survive, hugging Tyson at every opportunity. Hard to Ko a guy with a good chin and who fights that way.

Plus, as I stated in another post, Tyson went on a big KO streak after the Tucker fight koing a bunch of World Class fighters.

His peak year was 1988 when he kod Holmes, Tubbs and Spinks

 

It was more like the finishing punch to the accumulation of damage that Berbick had already taken up to then. His legs had already gone by then and that final punch, though it did appear that powerful, was what pushed him over the edge.

Have a look at the first knockdown, a few seconds into the second round. Those punches that Tyson connected with, didn’t actually appear that hard yet Berbick collapsed to the canvas as if he had suddenly been shot by a sniper. Seems strange at first but then if you rewind back to near the end of the first round, you see that Berbick was been staggered by some tremendous flush shots and seem ready to drop but somehow survive unsteadily to the bell. Seeing that it then becomes clear that the early second round knockdown was more due to the effects of the punches that he took at the end of the first round than the actual punches that put his down.