Why has Mike Tyson become so underrated?

Exactly. So, what's your point then ? Tyson is rated highly.
He's rated on his WINS and his LOSSES.

The title of this thread implies he's underrated. You seem to be saying yes, he is, and unfairly, because he's marked down for the loss to Douglas.

ALL greats fighters are rated on their record as a whole, including wins and losses. Only very early losses and long-past-prime losses are generally ignored.

ALL the examples you came up with have their losses examined and their weaknesses were exposed.

Any great fighter who loses the title in his prime have generally had that result well examined and often marked down accordingly (the exceptions are usually when they've been unlucky enough to come up against a super-great adversary, and even then they are rated below that opponent accordingly.)

You haven't explained how Tyson's treatment is any different.
He's measured by the same standards as any other great fighter.
Hence why, despite this loss, he's rated highly by almost everyone, usually around #7 to #15 on any heavyweight all-time list.

You are right, history is loaded with great fighters with losses to lesser men. And guess what ? It counts against them ! We can't squeeze all of them into the p4p top 5 ATGs so we examine their records and rate them as we see fit.
Tyson's rated where he should be.
Yes, if he'd won ALL his fights or gone 10 years undefeated as champion he's be rated higher. But he didn't, so he sits where he is.

 

At least he was a Cruiserweight though. Much easier to go from 200 to HW then 175 to HW.

 

What's your point? Anybody can weigh as much as they want. Just eat more food.

 

I would have thought bringing up Holyfield being small while arguing Tyson's case is a pretty bad argument too. ....

What you're left with is : Tyson destroyed a light-heavy, but couldn't handle a cruiser.

 

Good point.


I guess my main point is that people always make it sound like every true heavyweight who fought Spinks totally destroyed him. But of course, the only guy we ever saw even beat him was Tyson. If Spinks had gotten knocked out by 2 or 3 other heavyweights, the "Spinks was just a light heavy" argument would hold a lot more water to me.

 

No, you're missing the point. I don't think whether a guy happened to be a light leavy or not earlier in his career is all that relevant to the discussion at hand. It's not like Spinks failed to have any success against other heavyweights.

It's just a bad argument, IMO

 

It's not like Spinks were completely ineffective at HW. It's that P4P he wasn't near the same at HW compared to his 175 pound self.

The Spinks name carries more weight at 175 pounds.

 

To put it another way, this highlights the fact that what these guys were earlier in their careers isn't relevant to the discussion at hand.

In other words, when both guys fought Tyson, they were heavyweights. Case closed.

 

I agree, but I still contend that he was a good, effective heavy weight. But, Tyson was just all wrong for him.

 

Agreed. So if we can say that Spinks were a solid, but not close to great heavyweight then where does that leave Tyson's legacy?

If that is the best win he could come up with. It leaves an incomplete resume.

 

It's a very hard question. Tyson was too dominant for his own good and never had the fortune of running into another truly great heavy weight when he was in his prime.

Personally, I think a Tyson-Holyfield fight in 91 would have been an all-time great fight. It's really a shame it never materialized.

 

Holy Tyson in 91 would have been a special fight. Shame it didn't happen.

 

Like Unforgiven I can't really understand the fuss here.

Let's say that Ttyson really had rolled around in women and coke for three weeks straight before Douglas and only lost because of that. It is still on him. We rank fighters on what they did do, not what they hypothetically could have done.

Does anyone doubt that Nunn had more talent than Hopkins and would have achieved more had he had Hopkins's dedication? But he didn't and he didn't and that's what matters at the end of the day.

And Tyson's losses to Holy are actually more damaging I'd say. Because even though Tyson nowadays is treated as the washed up fighter, the reality is that Holy in all probability had lost more. And in that case you can't claim a one-off, since Holy repeated the feat.

Still, I think there's a case to have Mike ahead of anyone not named Ali, Louis and Holmes. Lewis, Wlad and Holy should probably be ahead of Mike as well, but, hey, I'm willing to hear you out if you think differently. After that there are some who could be over or under him in the rankings.

So that gives quite a range to work with.

 

My point is Spinks was a heavyweight the night he fought Mike Tyson and had been for 3 years.

 

Its not just about having Kevin Rooney in the corner its what CAMP TYSON represented and that was the highest level of dedication to serious and professional boxing training.
Whereas that comically amateurish revamp dubbed TEAM TYSON was certainly not centralised around the highest level of dedication to serious and professional boxing training.
It was about learning on the job, , ass kissing, lackluster training and Tyson's bizzarre interest and relationship with a murderous slick talking gangster named Don King.

by the way I think he came pretty close to adapting in the 8th round when he was taking a pounding against the ropes after getting rocked backed up and almost floored before he,BACKING UP (to dispell utter nonsense which says Tyson cant fight backing up) dropped Douglas for a 12 count almost winning on the brink of defeat.