Who could beat Mike Tyson in his prime?

Do you want to defend this statement?

It is patently absurd in almost any context but especially in a head to head sense.

 

Some poster said some fighters "could" but would they pull it off ? Out of , lets say five top fighters, how many could get it done and it aint all five...

Tyson brought a unique package to the table....size/speed/power/defense.....and he blew away ex champs like they were bums... it never looked particular difficult for him.........but his defense was one of his main weapons.....until the Douglas fight you can count on ONE hand how many times he had been hit with solid shots........Bonecrusher/Tucker and Bruno each landed a good hit, thats it.

Ali/Frazier were knocked down or wobbled, marciano hit the deck, Liston lost to a Skinny etc etc......they all had close calls or struggled or packed it in after one great performance or had hardly any title defenses against top opposition.........Tyson until Douglas displayed none of the above, barely lost a round or struggled.......the closest to "struggle" would be Bruno.

After the Spinks fight the decline was rapid, hardly any combos, looking for one shot, no jab, just walking in, minimal head movement and no real bounce in his legs......no surprise because he stopped doing road work after Spinks, ballooned like crazy between fights and went on crash diets to shed weight.

Now to Evander Holyfield, his entire rep is made out of beating a washed up Tyson twice.......the same Tyson who is called a borderline bum by the very same posters in this thread is all over sudden this magical monster which the dragon slayer Holyfield dethroned.........Tyson is a bum for every fantasy fight but when it comes to Holy or Lewis he is the yard stick for their legacy...after that he is a bum again who gets beat up by everyone who stands up to him....fact.

Holyfield is 2-5 in his other sig fights, without the fan man most likely 1-6.......

Now riddle me this......put Evander in the joint for 4 years, have him fight some gimmies for a handful of rounds and then have him face a Tyson who was active and build his entire career around to fight Holyfield......how many are giving Evander a real shot here......not many if any at all.

No fighter irregardless of weight class ever came out of prison after 4 years and recaptured his former glory......that said fighter will never regain his timing or overall ability like he had before going in....fact...no matter how hard they train.

Ali was never the same.........Foreman fought hand selected non threats and still lost until he hit gold with a glass chinned Light Heavy......even VK went the distance with no hopers who he would have most likely stopped before his comeback....and NONE of the above went to jail.....they all could train , hit the gym and enjoy freedom.......incarceration does funny things to people.

Now, make no mistake, IMO, the people who are in prison belong in prison for their deeds

 

So Seamus, are you really going to say that Billy Miske wasn't better than Michael Spinks? Or Tony Tucker? Or Pinklon Thomas? Or Tony Tubbs? On his worst day, he was their equals!!

 

Head to head, he doesn't last more than a few rounds with any of these guys... maybe he goes 6 with a moderately in-shape Tubbs.

No offense but if you aren't just taking a **** on the subject, we aren't really talking about the same thing here.

 

The flip side is a refusal to accept any negative variables even when they are well documented and proven. Well, you used to be quite partial to Mugabi and Holyfield to be honest.

Schmeling fought the perfect fight, absolutely. I would agree Louis still lacked that bit of experience (and had a couple of technical flaws) but also a big take home point is that he had gotten overconfident and complacent. This was documented prior to the fight by Blackburn himself who was extremely worried going into the fight. The loss was exactly what he needed. Going into the rematch Blackburn openly stated how confident he was as Joe had trained hard and done everything right this time around.

Now one can certainly argue that they still think Louis would have been beaten even if he entered the ring in his best shape. One could also speculate the other way.

The fight is somewhat akin to Lewis - McCall. Lewis, tho big, talented, strong and immensely powerful was quite ordinary technically and his camps were a disgrace for a professional boxer. He took his licking and instantly went about shoring thigns up and came out the other side a vastly improved boxer.

True that hahaha. Well except Benitez. He took that one on the chin so to speak.

And here we are at the exact place we differ so much on. There was a reason Rahman was a big underdog in the initial match, even if he was underrated with hindsight. Lewis is simply a far better fighter with all things equal. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt he took Rahman woefully for granted, had a shocking camp and did not arrive near early enough to acclimatize and was filming Ocean's Eleven. He was training 3200 feet below where he was to fight.

The combination of factors certainly didn't help and hence the bookies, almost always an astute mob, had Lewis as the solid favorite in the rematch. You can speculate Rahman took Lewis for granted but he'd just won the title and there was nothing put forward. Their past and future proved Lewis was simply a far better fighter excepting that one fight.

It's not wrong to accept the odd logical spelled out reason for someone far far better than someone else losing. History is littered with it, and also littered with revenge. The sad thing for Tyson is that he never got that chance, Holyfield did.

It would leave it up in the air. Douglas was in woeful shape against Holyfield, he may or may not have been just as bad against Tyson - hard to say. Once he climbed that Tyson mountain he'd done it all and was basically finished with boxing. Maybe he'd get up for Tyson but noway he'd be in quite the same shape as he was in Tokyo. Even in good showings against Ruddock Tyson had lost a little. I think that's fair to say. We would have found out a lot more if he didn't get himself jailed.

They are all levels below Tyson. Tyson is expected to beat them and more than 90% of the time he does. It's all about levels. If Joe Journeyman with the 2-18-1 record gets ko'd by Tyson but had a pretty poor training camp do we stop press and and start doubting Tyson's victory?

There's a reason greats and big favorites get some leeway. Resume and performance mean a lot.

I take could a bit differently to you here i think. I take it as who i think would beat him, who i would favor. Numerous others have answered it this way as well. It could have been worded differently.

If i took the Douglas version of Tyson who i don't think is the best of him for oh so obvious reasons my list would expand. Super Greg Page dropped him hard in sparring. Guys like Frazier, Holmes and Bowe would leap straight into calculations personally.

Thanks as well, always a pleasure.

 

Jesus, 134 replies
Also,
Ali clowns a decision
Dempsey and Marciano stop him mid rounds
Louis stops late rounds
Liston probably wins a tough war, could go either way
Holmes stops him late or gets a decision
Don't see too many fighters beating him, but the top ATGs do

 

Son, this son thing is getting hilarious lol!

 

Dempsey never beat anyone 1/10th as good as Tyson.

Again, picking a ColorLine drawer over Tyson is sacrilege.

 

Ali
Louis
Lewis
Holyfield
Foreman
Frazier
Liston
Holmes
Douglas
Dempsey (await Seamus's temper tantrum)

 

Hmmm prime tyson

Buster Douglas first and foremost

Bowe..

Lewis

Possibly George Foreman .

(50/50)

Evander Holyfield

All i can think of for now

 

Well what about Bill Brennan....he had the speed, power and heart to take and convincingly beat and/or KO any one of those guys. Don't tell me that you think Michael Spinks could beat Bill Brennan??

 

Tyson never beat anyone 1/10th as good as Dempsey, what's your point? A fighter can still be good even if the overall division wasn't very good.

The color line doesn't define a fighter's skill, and that wasn't even Dempsey's fault. Other greats like Johnson kept the line, but he's regarded as an ATG. That's a pretty unfair assessment and a terrible excuse to discredit Dempsey. And before "But Wills!1!1!1!" Dempsey ran through Firpo much faster than Wills, so the proof is in the pudding of who would've likely won.

 

Excellent points, really well put. I still side with JT but that was some comeback.

 

The Bill Brennan who Greb beat like a rented mule 5 times?

I'd take Mike Spinks to beat that guy any and every day of the week.

 

I would argue that Dempsey never fought anypne with the brut physicality of Berbick or Bruno or Ruddock. He never beat a heavyweight with the skill of Thomas, Tubbs, Spinks or Holmes.

He was spectacular against an old semi-retired rodeo hand. After that, his efforts were middling and his opponents largely hand-picked media creations till such time he lost the belt.

If you have no measuring stick, you can't really measure. Seriously, how would Tyson look if all he had to fight were the likes of Carpentier, Firpo and Gibbons?

Firstly, Johnson fought plenty of black fighters on his way up and defended against Johnson.

Secondly, being an "ATG" in a historic sense does not equate to being an ATG in a head to head sense.

The only guy walking around in Dempsey's era who remotely resembled a modern heavy (outside Jack himself to some degree) was named Wills. That was the measuring stick that could at least provided some estimation of his true value.