What if? Tyson had fought Holyfield before Douglas?

And twice on Sunday.

 

There's footage of several rounds of sparring between Holyfield and Tua on YouTube. Good stuff. It was a no-brainer to get the Samoan Slugger into their training camp since he could deploy similar devastating left hooks to the body and head a la Tyson with a high octane, in-your-face tough as iron style.

Being able to hold your own with a monster like Tua would give anyone confidence, not to mention all the extra weight lifting and superb game plan. People back then overlooked all of this and assumed Tyson would simply find a way to detonate his dynamite eventually. Plus, Holyfield had some really rough nights recently against Bowe and Moorer. So it did make sense on paper to favor Tyson given how he somewhat looked like his old self steamrolling credible world class opposition in Bruno and Seldon.

That being said, I'm not sure Younger Vander would've succeeded, although he damn sure would've given Tyson more resistance than any previous opponents. The difference in style was clear: Younger Vander was like a dynamo constantly moving with twitchy hands, a sharp jab, good movement, and more than happy to let his hands go throwing 3, 4, 5+ combinations. He was also more than happy to brawl at the drop of a dime. This would make for an exciting match at ring center as Tyson was all about throwing combinations as well at breakneck speeds.

The difference between this hypothetical fight and the actual one is that Vander's fate kind of depends on Vander himself. In his rematch with Bowe, he was wise enough to box and have more reasonable defense because reading with the harder hitting New Yorker led to a knock down and a clear loss. It also depends on how Tyson reacts to someone firing rapidly with both hands and refusing to back off. The only guy to really do that prior to his imprisonment was Ruddock who didn't half a fraction of Vander's ring IQ, technique, or capacity to fluidly throw with both hands.

Ruddock did give Tyson all he could handle, especially in the rematch, and even frustrated him at times leading to Tyson's body shots straight south of the belt line. I am not trying to paint some narrative Tyson would falter the minute someone stood up to him, only that he'd kind of be in uncharted waters against this high volume version of Vander. If Tyson takes control of the pace and lands some heavy shots early on, I think he gains more and more confidence falling into his momentum and eventually breaks Vander down in maybe the 8th round or so.

However, if Vander can punish every slight mistake, keeps his guard up, uses his brain and doesn't simply go to war anytime he gets nailed hard (I know, those a bunch of big ifs), he might be able to at the very least go the distance in a fight that may resemble the Tillis fight. Vander winning isn't out of the question if he can avoid too many bombs, but overall I'd have to slightly favor Tyson.