Except that he wasn’t, lol. Heck, he spent half of 1987 hugging Boneclutcher and ho-humming his way to a boring decision over one-armed Tony Tucker, who never really did anything besides beating a disinterested Buster Douglas (who Tyson couldn’t beat, haha). Tyson was the second-best heavyweight of the 1980s. He had a good run. Nothing to be ashamed of, but 18 months as lineal champ doesn’t make anyone fighter of the decade.
You make mine. Can’t discuss or debate the topic, so you turn to ‘well you just hate the guy because he’s a ******’ instead of refuting my points. BTW, your boy is facing a lawsuit this year for yet another **** he *allegedly* committed.
The Ring Magazine's Annual Ratings: 1986 Champion: Michael Spinks 1. Mike Tyson 2. James (Bonecrusher) Smith 3. Pinklon Thomas 4. Tim Witherspoon 5. Tony Tubbs 6. Trevor Berbick 7. James (Buster) Douglas 8. Tony Tucker 9. Frank Bruno 10. Tyrell Biggs Mike went through almost the entire division until it "almost" wiped him out. Mike can't be blamed for avoiding or choosing his opponents, because he didn't fight only Tim Witherspoon out of the ranked ones.
People were calling for Tate to retire my guy. It's not a particularly good win if the opponent is coming off a brutal KO loss. Tate was favored to win because he was a former champion and Berbick was a nobody with a 14-1-1 record who went life and death with Leroy Caldwell and got knocked out by Mercado in 1 round.
You can’t make a case for Tyson as heavyweight for the 1980s because you can’t get past the fact that he was lineal for a short period, while Larry was for more than half the decade. Or maybe he’s the ‘heavyweight of the ‘80s’ because most of his wins were over washed-up 1980s titleholders (who were never recognized as the real champ of the division)? Tubbs, Smith, etc.
As others stated, I thought Tyson's competition was very solid during his era, and he blew most of them away. I think the heavyweights during that era might have even been better than some of the other eras. The same could be said about pretty much any champion's competition, "who did he really beat?". All they can do is beat whatever is there.
I pointed out earlier that Spoon lost to Smith and didn’t lose again for more than half a decade. There was plenty of time to fight him if Tyson wanted to … would have been better than Tubbs or Truth Williams at that point, to name a couple.
Tyson was considered the savior of not only the heavyweight division, because of Holmes' moribund reign, but the entire sport of boxing!! Holmes could NEVER accomplish such a feat. And Holmes is my 2nd favorite heavyweight after Tyson by the way. Toodles
Who was ranked higher between Witherspoon and Tubbs/Williams? Plus, Tubbs went on to give a good showing against an undefeated Riddick Bowe and Williams went on to floor and almost stop Tommy Morrison when he was getting long in the tooth.
Yeah for a certain generation Tyson is the guy. I get that. Holmes was in Ali’s shadow. Unfortunate timing. And then when he beat Ali, of course that didn’t endear him to a lot of people to whom Muhammad was their hero. Tyson injected excitement back into the division and into boxing, no doubt. HBO collected a bunch of belt-holders who NOBODY considered to be the real heavyweight champion (and paid them more than the $75-150K Don King had been paying them for defenses) to make a tournament set up for Mike to clean out, and to his credit, he did it. But tell me who else is considered great because they beat Trevor Berbick? Who is considered great because they beat Bonecrusher? Who is considered great because they beat Tony Tucker? Or Tony Tubbs? Or Frank Bruno? None of those names means a thing on anyone’s record until someone brings up Tyson. He beat a lot of B-level fighters, many of whom were past their sell-by dates and some of whom never even had a prime, but he gets exalted for it. Name one fighter who is considered great because they beat ANY of the people I mentioned above. The one great name on Tyson’s win ledger, really, is Michael Spinks. An ATG light heavy. It’s like holding up Joe Louis as a great heavyweight BECAUSE he beat John Henry Lewis, lol.
