What 21 year old fighter was greater than Tyson from the Spinks fight?

The main pattern with Holmes is he went 12 years and 48-0 with 20 title fight wins. His pattern is good.
Yes, a couple of close decisions, and knocked down 2 or 3 times, but he was winning, and dominating his opponents in the main.
So I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Holmes was 35 and past his prime against Carl Williams (who he narrowly beat) and Mike Spinks, who he lost to on points, but you call that "every excuse in the book".
Meanwhile talk of "pathetic training" for Tyson getting totally destroyed at age 23 !

 

The recently deceased Bernardo Mercado turned the trick on Berbick in 1 before either fought him, so Mercado kayos gay gutless Mike easily.
Also at 39 Holmes was fighting Tyson until counted out; at the same age Tyson was kayod by Danny Williams & Kevin McBride and pleading, " PLEASE NO MORE. DON'T HIT ME AGAIN!!!!!"

 

I think Tyson probably ranked among the top couple of hundred pigeon-handlers of his age in New York by the time he was 17.

 

It's funny people mention Holmes had trouble with Shavers.
But Holmes totally schooled Shavers over 12 rounds in their first fight.
And was schooling Shavers all the way up to the 7th round in the second fight.
It took Shavers 19 rounds to catch Holmes like that.
And then Holmes still went on and stopped him anyway.

 

R.I.P Mercado

 

A lot of those 20 title fights were against guys who didn’t deserve title shots while the better opponents mysteriously didn’t have the stars line up.

 

And Trevor Berbick might actually be Tyson's best win.
So what?

 

I am sorry NoNeck if I gender specifically insulted you with this grouping. You have the right to any pronoun you want. I am sorry.

 

No he ****ing isn’t.

 

Who is then?
Berbick was WBC champion coming off maybe his best career win over Pinklon Thomas.
It's either him or Tucker really.
But Tyson obliterated Berbick, so I go with that.

 

Spinks, Thomas, Ruddock, Tucker, Holmes—>All better.

Even Williams beat Berbick when you look critically.

 

Berbick beat Thomas. That's a guy you seem to think Holmes needed to beat.

Anyway, Tyson didn't beat anyone remotely on the level of prime Holmes. That's the main point.
And Berbick was the only common opponent who fought prime Holmes.

Holmes was well past his best at 35/'36 and he was even more past it at 38.
It's crazy that you put so much emphasis on what Holmes was doing at that stage of his career.
Holmes's prime was at least 3 or 4 years before Tyson even turned professional.
Holmes's prime was actually 1978-'82. No one seriously disputes that.

 

I’m not gonna sit here and explain Thomas’ dumbass lifestyle to you after he won the title and took everything for granted. He was better than Berbick.

Tyson beat all sorts of guys who were similar to Holmes. I wouldn’t even say they were miles away from Holmes’ level at their peaks. The main difference is that none sustained that level for a long period like Holmes, and part of that was due to Tyson snuffing them out.

Im not sure there’s anyone on Holmes’ resume who I wouldn’t favor Spinks, Tucker, or Ruddock to beat. Maybe a green Witherspoon beats one of them?

 

At his best he was better than Berbick.
Against Tyson he was no better than when he lost to Berbick.

FFS, you underrate the **** out of Holmes.

 

If Tyson with no preparations managed to survive 10 rounds of just beaten up, he would 100% go the distance with Ali if he was in prime condition with no outside factors affecting him. And if Ali was beating Tyson up so easily, he would play around with him and give Tyson an opening to landing a knockout shot as he did to Cooper but this time he's facing against one of the best finishers so it would be a lot harder to recover.