Who Was A Fighter You Expected To Give M Tyson An Hard Fight..?

Spinks had a game plan. He threw like a dozen right leads in 91 seconds (nearly 20 of which he was taking a count, so not much over a minute).

I don’t know if it was a ‘get his respect early’ thing or a ‘he’s going to be concentrating on the jab so you can bamboozle him with the right lead’ thing, or what. But he definitely came in with a plan to use the lead right hand, at least early.

 

The Bruno Rematch.

After 2 lackluster performances against McNeeley and Mathis Jr., and with less than 4 rounds under his belt, most felt Tyson was being rushed into a title shot. Frank Bruno was his first true test post prison and looked absolutely chiseled and herculean.

Even the ad campaign and tv spots showed a glimpse of their first fight in slow motion where Bruno rocked Tyson in that 1st round. Then you see Tyson's quote, "Frank Bruno hit me the hardest I've ever been hit!"
Here it is at the 8:32 mark:

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I loved Frank Bruno too but being a bigger Tyson fan had me genuinely terrified of Tyson's chances.

Here's a nice ad from UKTV with fan predictions.

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On the flip side I didn't think Francois Botha could pull off what he did.

 

Bruno improved loads between the Tyson fights and was above average and very dirty. He was just **** scared

 

Obviously we reasonably expected Tyson to have gone back a bit as well.

This fight was a bit of a red herring in that sense.

 

Everyone thought Michael Spinks would teach him a thing or 2

 

The Tubbs fight was in Tokyo

 

That uppercut from Tubbs still has me screaming, THROW IT AGAIN!!

 

I obviously view the first Bruno fight differently.

I think there’s a propensity to assess some of Mike’s lesser performances as if it was only him ,Mike, in the ring, fighting in a vacuum.

Mike himself identified the obvious relativity between two fighters and all important actions/reactions when he said that everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the mouth.

Most viewed that quote one way - the message being that it was only Mike upsetting everyone else’s plans - but Mike was subject to the wisdom of that axiom also.

Mike was on his way to cleaning up Bruno early in the first round - exactly as he had done with many other previous opponents.

Had Mike seen it through in that first round , it would’ve been your regular, garden variety, early round KO victory for Mike.

But then Frank turned it super rough and dirty. That thwarted Mike’s usual attempts to get in and be effective - and it also appeared to derail Mike a bit mentally.

You could def. see anger and frustration in Mike at some points.

The actions and reactions in that fight were normal and to be expected - hardly indicative of deteriorations or lack of focus on Mike’s part.

Bruno employed tactics that Mike hadn’t dealt with before - particularly when executed by a man of Bruno’s size, strength and power.

It was a tougher fight than usual simply because Bruno, the “other guy” who also happened to be in the ring, contributed very much to it being a tougher fight for Mike.

 

So when referring to Tyson of the Douglas fight, in future, should we be more accurately saying Tokyo Tyson Mark II?

Tokyo Ali was of course the version that faced Mac Foster in 1972. There’s so many “geographical” versions of Ali, it ain’t funny.

Now there’s a couple of fantasy matches for you - Tokyo Muhammad vs 1) Tokyo Mike Mark I and vs 2) Tokyo Mike Mark II.

 

Not to be smug after the fact but I didn’t really rate Spinks chances going into the fight - and it was also apparent leading in that Spinks was somewhat leery about the fight.

Spinks was likely compromised to some degree by his own fear - but even allowing for that, Tyson’s superiority would’ve still emphatically won the day, any which way, imo.

After the fact of the fight, of course, is there a case for suggesting that Mike Spinks was in fact “made for” for Tyson? I think perhaps there is.

 

Several of Larry’s post Tyson performances would’ve definitely helped to soothe the wounds inflicted (upon Larry and his fans alike) by his KO loss to Mike.

 

Andrew Golota

I thought that if Golota didn’t freeze up or take the wrong injection or do whatever the hell he did against Lennox, that he would at least make a good fight out of it for a little while.

I also didn’t know that those injuries that Golota got when he was in that deadly car accident, which surely didn’t help.

I thought Tyson would be more rusty out of prison and that McNeeley would at least last a couple rounds. But he was put in a “cocoon of horror”

 

As a 16 year old I didn't know much about Bruce Seldon, but I thought he had an intimidating look. At least on the fight poster. I thought he might push Tyson to go a few rounds and may be land some dirty shots and rough Tyson up a bit