I put him at #20, personally. Great fighter, but not one of my ATG favorites. On his side, he was a lineal champ (creator of the lineage ending with Lennox Lewis) for a combined total of just under 5 years, a long time. He was the first champ to win the championship twice. But that also meant he wasn't dominant enough to hold onto it. And most of his reign was spent either avoiding the obvious #1 contender, in Sonny Liston, or generally just facing unusually weak title challengers (imagine the outcry if a modern fighter faced someone who never had a professional boxing match in their life for a world title fight). Finally, I rate him as essentially the third best fighter of his era, behind Ali and Liston. You can argue that for a couple years after Marciano retired and before Liston established his resume and Ali became a pro, he was number 1, but it was a comparatively very brief period. Add into that he was a very small heavyweight, would be a cruiserweight at best today, and probably has the record for the champion who was knocked down the most (I believe well over 20 times), and I can't bring myself to rate him above 20.
With Cus and being the youngest HW champion before Tyson broke the record I would say top 20. Because he left Cus and started getting his ass kicked I would say bottom 90s.
I rank him above marciano, tunney and the klitchkos he faced some weak comp, but he dominated them for the most part, no different from rocky and wlad. I think he was faster and more explosive, more of a complete fighter than those guys, but he didn't have a great chin. 1- Tyson 2- Ali 3- Holmes 4- Lewis 5- Foreman 6- Louis 7- Johnson 8- Holyfield 9- Frazier 10- Liston 11 - Bowe 12- Wilder 13 - Patterson 14 - W. Klitchko 15- Marciano
Top 25 at best. I like Floyd, but he was an overprotected champion in a weak era. D'amato did everything to make his career path as easy as possible for a lineal champion, and he still couldn't avoid dropping a fight to Johansson. He was also blown away by the 2 greats he fought, and since Liston and Ali were stylistically as different as it gets, it puts a hole in the theory that Liston alone was just a terrible match-up for him.
do you really think this is a good list? tyson never faced morrison, mercer, tua, bowe, foreman, moorer, cooper... ali missed no one. which brings us to your #8 holyfield beat tyson twice, one by ko. and i think faced almost everyone here and beyond. ...kids these days...
Just makes top 25. Beat an aging LHW for the title. Ducked Machon, Foley and Williams. Knocked down by a guy making his pro debut (Rademacher). Brutally knocked out twice by Liston. Clusters with Vitali, Walcott, Norton, Byrd.
so you're saying Michael spinks should rank above larry holmes and john ruiz over holyfield? I have holyfield ranked above bowe and bowe beat him two out of three...in fact, holyfield also went 1-1 with moorer, so I guess that means moorer should be on the list too, right? clearly you don't understand the criteria that goes into ranking fighters...it's a combination of their overall ability and their career accomplishments. Tyson, at his prime was, imo, better than ali at his prime. ali accomplished more over his career. so, the question is who do you like better... yes, Ali is a beloved symbol of American heroism whereas Tyson is vilified as a lowlife thug, but to me that has nothing to do with boxing. imo, Tyson ranks above ali because the best Tyson beats the best ali and every other hw in history....but, for example I still rank guys like Louis and Johnson in the top 10 even though I think they would have struggled with the hw version of roy jones or james toney. that's because they have a record of significant accomplishments. Tyson was clearly not the same fighter after his 4 years in jail...he was still good enough to win two versions of the hw title, though. he lost to holy and lewis during his post-prime years....and holy lost to ruiz, moorer, lewis, toney etc. all that proves is fighters get old.
clearly, you don't know your boxing. Just name him your FAVORITE boxer and be done. NOTHING you said justifies tyson as #1.
