Why do people think Tyson is a top ten Heavyweights?

If Frank Bruno's in Tyson's top 5 then that would suggest a serious lack of depth to his resume.

Personally, I think Tyson beat 5 better men than poor old Frank, at least, and you'd hope so.
Having said that, 1986 Berbick might be the best man Tyson beat, and Berbick wasn't much better than Bruno !

Tyson fought a consistent stream of legitimate solid contenders of the time. That's admirable.
I do feel people might be overrating them slightly though.
Wladimir has wins over similar contenders, surely, and stretched out over a long period, which is no easy task either.

 

Although Bruno was nothing special, he did give a fantastic effort vs a Prime Lewis, better than a lot of guys Lewis beat. In fact Brunos effort was just as good if not better than Tyson, Holyfield and Vitalis.

Vitalis whole legacy is based on the Lewis fight, why cant Bruno get a bit of credit too.

Vitali gets kudos for his high KO percentage, well what about Bruno? He knocked out all but two of his opponents and one of those was Oliver Mcall.

If Tyson can be criticized for having Bruno in his top 5, outside of Ali, Louis and Holyfield, Id love to see the top 5 of some of the other ATGS.

 

I know who we're talking about. And I'm addressing your point about his best wins which I believe to be better than the wins of the men I listed.. I didn't say anything about his losing in his prime, but if we want to play it that way, then Wlad lost to Purity, Brewster and Sanders while still being under thirty. Jeffries had a grand total of 19 recorded fights, mostly against super middleweight and light heavyweight sized guys, two of which drew with him and several giving him absolute hell. Dempsey got knocked out by Fireman Flynn, outpointed by Willie Meehan, and sat on the title without a single defense for three years. Liston beat a grand total of ONE man in world title fights, suffered an early career loss to a nobody and beat men who I don't think are as good as Spinks, Tucker, Thomas, Berbick, etc.. And most of these guys never had the inconvenience of a four expulsion from the ring to deal with... Tyson came back and established himself as a champion.

 

Bruno's "fantastic efforts" usually ending up with him dying on the ropes getting his head punched in, the picture of helplessness .... yeah, that fits his performance against Lewis too.

I wouldn't even put Bruno in Tyson's top 5, so I can't critcize Tyson for it.

 

Well the poll is currently at 31 in favor of "yes" and 10 advocating "no." And I'm guessing that about 3-4 of the votes in favor of "no" belong to Swagdelfadeel, or some rendition of him..

 

Vitali became a legend for pretty much the same thing.

 

Vitali was never dying on the ropes, out on his feet, getting battered.

 

Doesn't matter what position it was he was still getting Kama Sutra'd.

 

If you're trying to say Vitali was sh!t ... yeah, I can't argue with that.

 

But but Vitali wasn't in his prime.

He was only 32 fights into a 44 fight career.

 

Imagine a Bruno-Vitali hybrid, with Bruno's reaction to getting tagged along with Vitali's tissue-paper skin !
Talk about vulnerable, stiff, cumbersome oaf.

Probably give Lewis all types of hell

 

Look no further than Ismail Silakh.

The man nicknamed 'The Black Ukrainian'.

http://storage.cloversites.com/epicsportsmanagement/site_images/page19_picture0_slide_3.jpg

 

On the contrary, I think Tyson's boxing skills get criminally ignored sometimes.
Can anyone name a short, front-foot fighter who had a better jab or defensive abilities?
For Pete's sake, he outjabbed 6'5" Tony Tucker. Tyson had an excellent jab, fantastic defensive skills, a wide and varied assortment of punches, his footwork was outstanding (even if he did square upnsometimes) and he could find his range probably faster than any heavyweight in history.

It was when he neglected the subtler and finer points to his game and started relying on his power that he started looking less devastating.

I think Tyson's boxing skills were excellent, especially given that he was a short fighter.

 

Agreed. His ring IQ was amazing and those combinations and ability to slip the jab was a rare treat.. And after all these years on this forum I still can't figure out why so many people are hanging on the Tillis fight.. Tyson was 19 years old with umpteen fights facing a fully matured 28 year old man who had been in the ring with the best heavys around, yet he still won. How good did Wlad look against Davaryll Williamson? And that was when he was 29 years old and WITH Emannual steward in his corner.

 

Tyson on the ropes asked for the ref to help him up then quit vs Kevin McBride. Mike had limited heart when things weren't going his way.

He also cut and swelled up rather easily.