While I favor Foreman, it has to be said Tyson wouldn't be looking to get inside. His game was mid-range. Just like he caved against Ruddock after being hit with the smash countless times?
He's not even getting to mid range. Foreman's heavy jab stops him dead in his tracks. And yes, he caves. We aren't comparing Ruddock to Foreman in the power stakes, are we?
While I agree with your main point, that he didn't necessarily fulfil as many brutal KOs as one would think given his H2H prowess in fantasy fights and their are a ton of excuses for him I recently went back and watched his fights, and one thing that's noticeable to me following the Spinks bout is he all but abandoned his peek a boo style, head movement, and body punches. Even in the Carl Williams fight that lasted just over a minute or so off the top of my head, you can see the signs. While he still uses his head movement, it's more sporadic at this point, and he doesn't throw a single body shot the entire fight aside from a single left hook. The signs were there before Douglas imo. This was about 4 days before the bout. Headline reads "Tyson on a self-destructive path" and in the article Rooney, his former manager mentions how he's not even remotely interested and slowly slipping. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/100459418/edmonton-journal/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/100459770/edmonton-journal/ But again this was nobody's fault but his and it gets annoying hearing all the excuses for him. You’d think someone held him at gunpoint and forced him to skip gym day and his roadwork or tied him to a chair and forced him to bang those Japanese hookers. It’s true he was surrounded by yes men who weren’t motivating him but he chose to surround himself with King and his cronies. But at his best which was admittedly brief I truly do think he was that good. I'd only favor Ali, Liston, Cleveland Williams, and George Foreman over '88 Tyson with only Ali being a lock. Lewis is 50-50. Go back and forth on this all the time. I think this line "He seems to be taking more credit into the fantasy realm than he materially earned in his actual career." can easily be attributed to Holmes. While I'm a fan of Holmes and have him as my number 5 ATG, It gets a little old, seeing people pick him to dominate guys like Liston and Foreman, and shut them out effortlessly when he seldom did that against the rather mediocre opposition he actually faced. It's like people pick him to replicate Ali's performances because "close enough right?" when he wasn't as fast in terms of food-speed, nor hand-speed as even post exile Ali, didn't dance as fluidly (always looked a bit awkward doing it tbh), didn't out-box his opponents nearly as effortlessly, didn't have Ali's stamina nor immunity to body shots, and an inconsistent defense. As a matter of fact, his defense at times was flat out ordinary, and for someone supposedly immune to the left hook, he was sure nailed by an abundance of them by the likes of Weaver, and even Berbick a couple times. Their was a thread a little back regarding Holmes and how he does against today's division and virtually every comment said he'd dominate everyone with ease with the possible exceptions of Fury and Usyk. Gave me a good chuckle. As long as their's no 19-8 Mike Weavers, or ATG's like Renaldo Snipes, he'll be fine.
Ruddock may not have hit as hard as Foreman but he still hit dangerously hard and that never stopped Mike from coming forward. Is your argument seriously "Mike caves because Foreman hit harder than Ruddock"? When did he ever cave anywhere near his prime after being hit once he tasted his opponent's power?
Mate, Mike's not as durable as you'd like to think. He may not have been in top shape but if his chin was as good as you think then why did Buster Douglas dispose of him like he was a nobody? Holyfield? Lewis? Williams...yes past prime Mike but he still got removed pretty easily. Foreman was 8 years older than Tyson was when he beat Moorer and Tyson lost to Williams and his chin was still unimpeachable. Yet Tyson could and did fold on a few occasions. Mike had a good chin, but not a granite one. Inarguably the only way he can beat Foreman is to come forward and we have all seen how Foreman deals with come forward types. It's not just a matter of Foreman hitting harder than Ruddock, he is going to soften Tyson up with a very heavy jab. He's also going to handle anything Mike throws with his crossarm defence and certainly we know that the second incarnation of Foreman had a chin that you cannot bust. Tyson is very unlikely to knock Foreman out and that being the case he cannot possibly win. What is most likely, in my opinion is that Tyson get tagged with the jab for a couple of rounds, gets opened up when he comes in and wears a straight right that sleeps him.
The trouble is Mike can only fight one way and that one way vs Foreman is suicide. Tyson needs to be coming forward as then he can dictate both the range the fight is fought at and also the tempo. That isn't happening here.
Swag, as I said, just imo, there are far too many over qualifications and excuses offered on Mike’s behalf. Not just conceptually (viz: as if to say, well that’s Mike’s fault) but in all truth and practicality. There is also the screaming, inequitable feature of not examining the back stories of Mike’s opposition in equal and opposite terms. The degree and maintenance of Mike’s head movement is also exaggerated imo. It was good, in complement with his offence, but it wasn’t executed every second of every round as some now describe it - and it certainly became less so when some fights wore on that much longer. Re the Carl Williams fight. A fight that only lasted 91 seconds. Mike looked fine, as normal and secured the signature KO. Were there any contemporary analysis’ that detected any, let alone notable, deteriorations in Mike’s game? Not to say there weren’t any such analysis’ but I don’t recall that there was - not that a 93 second window is sufficient for analysis at any rate. So, could it be that the Williams performance/victory didn’t fit into the retroactive analysis of the context of what was or wasn’t going on around Mike and how it might’ve negatively affected Tyson? I think perhaps so and citing deterioration even in the Williams fight comes across as another reach on Mike’s behalf - not to explain his performance - it was fine - rather, to try and make that performance fit into an argument for trending deterioration. Even in the first Bruno fight, Frank brought resistance and offence (albeit by illegal means) that Tyson hadn’t encountered before. Holding and punching at the same time, hitting on the break etc. Again, Frank was almost gone in the first round - and Mike looked mighty fine in almost bringing Frank to an early demise - but Frank hung tough and then made it really dirty and rough for as long as he could. Going years back, the neatly packaged answer for Mike’s less than overwhelming performance against Tillis was that Mike was “green”. Of course that was not true - Mike was not quite fully prime but he certainly wasn’t green. Now it is also suggested that Tillis, although in a patch of losing more than he was winning as at the time , somehow posted one of his best performances ever. That may or may not have been true but the effort to preserve the expectations of what Mike was supposed to be, despite material outcomes, was often an overriding feature to his career. Too often the consideration of the actual quality opposition (good or bad) before Mike came a long second to the premeditated perception of Mike’s invincibility - and if he didn’t appear quite invincible - then he wasn’t 100% of himself. Very circular reasoning. Also, address of the Tillis fight shouldn’t be confused with arguing that Tillis won - that argument isn’t required. Wherever Mike was in terms of his development was well understood at the time of the Tillis fight - given same, he was expected to wipe Tillis in quick time, Mike a 10-1 favourite, - it didn’t happen and Tillis’ style in mesh with Tyson’s made for a competitive fight. Pure and simple. No small point that Douglas himself brought the very attributes to the table that were previously forecast to be the most likely to give Tyson issues. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth - Mike famously said this but I’m not sure why it only applies to everyone else but Mike - and Buster was thumping Mike from the outset. Doesn’t matter if Mike wasn’t prime for the first Holyfield fight, the point again is that he was still made a prohibitive favourite - still considered to be this H2H monster - forecasts were wildly wrong again. Even after that defeat I believe Mike was still ultimately installed as the favourite for the rematch. Sorry to rant, all respect for your opinion. I didn’t leave enough time for Larry - maybe next time.
Every single one of them. Prime Tyson can beat can beat anyone that ever lived. However, there are no guarantees and he'd definitely have a few tough matches, where it's gonna be 50:50, against the following men: Lewis, Liston, Vitali, Fury.
