Was Mike Tyson's prime overrated?

You can't add Seldon to that list and expect to be taken seriously though, it was an embarrassing dive.

 

It is very relevant.

 

I don't need to be taken seriously. What Tyson did speaks for itself.

 

I'm willing to give a guy a pass for losing when he is truly out of his prime, due to age, like being 33-35+, because this is the time you are starting to decline physically. You may become a better boxing, due to experience and understand boxing better, build high IQ and so, but your physical attributes will start declining from that point. With some it become earlier, with some a little bit later, but usually that is the time.

I don't see how can i excuse a fighter for being lazy or actually his fans trying to make he left his prime at 22-23 years old, or when in reality he starting to struggle and lost a fight.

Yeah you can make a case for when he goes to Prison, as that 100% ruined his prime, but not in before that.

Against Bruno it was crystal clear that Tyson is great, elite fighter, but has his limitation and with a proper tactics and with the right skillset you can beat him.
His energy starting to drop after the very first round in that fight. He was dead tired by the end of the round 1. And this was in his absolutely prime. Yeah he won the fight, but he won't do it against the like of Lewis, Fury, both Klitschkos and many, many more.
Nowadays fighter, as much as people don't want to admit it, have way better overall defense and way better tactically, and won't have problems tied Tyson.


He was a great fighter though, legendary even, and he was goddamn excited to watch, and a force to be reckon.

 

Do you acknowledge that Seldon took a dive though, it can't be used to bolster Tyson's resume.

 

I literally do not care. I just recited what Tyson has done in his career, like I said it speaks for itself.

Make a thread on the topic if you want, but right now you're flogging a dead horse.

 

It's impossible to gauge wether his prime was overrated but the facts are he never beat another prime ATG in his career, I wouldn't necessarily call Spinks an ATG at HW.

Some people get carried away by the highlight reels but many of Tyson's fights had a lull where he didn't look all too impressive and was a little predictable and one dimensional.

Now I'm not saying other ATG's haven't looked average at times but to me he always had a character flaw, Teddy Atlas was right about the Smith fight, they both appeared to sign a silent agreement. The true ATG's would have exposed Tyson's character flaws.

 

Klitschko (both of them) never beat ATGs either

Neither did Joe Louis or Sonny Liston or many people who make people's Top 10 list.....

You can't hold that against Tyson. He did what he had to do in his prime and post prison he was never the same force. That should not discredit his past achievements in any way.

 

Fair point but Louis reigned for a lot longer and i wouldn't have either of the brothers in the top 10 either.

 

Prime Tyson was the perfect combination of speed, power, accuracy, and killer instinct.

 

He was not overrated and others could not beat his opposition the way he did.

 

Did Marciano, Lewis, Wladimir, Fury, Holmes, Holyfield, Vitali, beat any ATGs in their prime aswell ? They had solid resumes, but you could argue they've never beat an ATG in their prime, does that take away from their careers aswell ?

The fact is Tyson had a solid resume in 80s, and cleaned up and unfied the division, which Larry Holmes failed to do in the 80s.

 

How did he clear up the division when he was knocked out against Douglas?

 

I don't really understand your point from 1986-1990 Tyson avoided no one, and beat pretty much every rated contender, champion, there was and unified the title. Tyson losing to Douglas via a major upset after that doesn't alter the fact, that Tyson cleaned up the division during that 4 year period.