Would Jimmy Young Have Beat Tyson In Tokyo?

You doubt Mike Tyson would have beaten Jimmy Young at his best? Wait...what?

 

No. To me the big problem would be would be Tysons speed. Don't think Young could cope with that.

 

I was trying to fathom that myself,

 

No chance

 

I don't think so. Young would only have maybe a 20% chance of pulling off an ugly decision win with his slippery defense and counters.

Tyson's short arms means his range of motion and speed in combos are better up close. Combine that with his head movement and foot speed to press inside means Young won't really be able to breath and think. He would be forced to either open up or become extremely defensive. If he opens up and tries fighting his way out of trouble Tyson won't respect his feather fists and could nail him with something vicious or possibly drop him. Young is not busy enough to convincingly win the majority of rounds. If he goes into his shell blocking and slipping the majority of the time he'll lose a lopsided decision. Tyson would just nail away at his body and throw flurries to stay busy and win on aggression while hoping to tire Young out and get him to drop his hands.

The only way Young could win is to get Tyson's timing and rhythm down the first couple rounds. Then try to land big counters, tie Tyson up, run as soon as they separate, block and wait for a counter, tie up, repeat. Slow the pace down and slow Tyson down so be can't get off his fast brutal combinations and tire him out with hit and run+grab tactics. At some point tho Tyson would manage to explode with something big and land flush, but Young was never knocked out and had great observational skills and recovery. It would look similar to Frazier vs Quarry and Tyson vs Holyfield. This would be very far fetched tho and unlikely for Young to pull off.

 

I wrote that wrong, my friend @Sangria. I can see Jimmy Young at his best beating Tokyo Mike. But Mike at his best was a far better fighter than Earnie Shavers (who knocked a young Young out in I think under 4 rounds).

Prime Mike would have walloped the yee-haw out of Jimmy, no matter what part of his prime Young was in.

Sorry for the misprint. @JohnThomas1

 

All good mate i hadn't commented prior to someone else as i wondered if it was a simple typo.

 

Douglas always had the physical tools but he only had that mindset once. Boxing is mostly mental and on that night Douglas had the strongest possible Motivation.
Tyson wasn't at his best but it still took something special to beat him. His speed and power still ends 99% of HWs in the first 3 rounds

 

This made me laugh out loud

 

Oh ok, I kinda figured that was what you were going for. I've been watching Jimmy Young vids again and dude rarely got hit. And didn't Cus bring Young in to spar with a teenage Mike Tyson in the early 80's?

 

Absolutely, Kam. The sight of him on the canvas with one eye shut trying to put his mouthpiece back in will endure as a testament to any who say he lacks heart.

We used to have a poster on here called Perry or Houdini who would say that Tyson lacked heart because he never got off the canvas to win. That takes heart, to be sure, but it's not the only test..

What takes even more heart is when you get off the canvas to lose. I have said in another thread that Duran going out for the second round against Hearns takes a special pair. To walk into a certain beating is something I can't comprehend.

Perry would compare Tyson's heart to that of Foreman because George got off the canvas to beat Lyle, ergo had a much bigger heart than Tyson.

I put the comparison of each fighter's first loss to him. On the one hand you had Tyson who had been beaten up for ten rounds by Douglas and literally hammered into the canvas. And he was scrambling desperately for his mouthpiece so he could have him some more of that whupping.

Then you had George, who had engaged fairly evenly with Ali, and he was sitting on the canvas looking at the ref count to ten, got up and walked to his corner. Now I'm not saying George lacked heart in his first career. His fight with Lyle showed that in spades. But he never showed the kind of heart that Mike showed in Tokyo in career 1

Mike was totally disinterested, had lost all love for the sport and had all manner of things going on in his life but he was still of the mind that he would leave the ring on his shield. In his worst ever performance, he showed the one thing he had never had to show during the period of dominance he had enjoyed; that he had the pure fighting heart of a real champion.

 

Jimmy didn't get hit a lot...but prime Mike through a LOT of powerful punches.

 

Perry used to disparage Liston something fierce for quitting on his stool against Ali first fight, wouldn't rate him in any capacity because of it. Knowing he was an enormous admirer of Duran i used to throw Duran out and out quitting against SRL in his face. First time you could hear the cogs in his brain crunching before he eventually forgave that as it was not for the heavyweight championship of the world.

He was certainly something. Having said that now and again he came out with some excellent posts.

His greatest ever however was his Guiness Book of Records type skill on the treadmill with the gym public flocking from all corners just to glimpse his magic. The guy was superhuman and this may have been my favorite post in the history of this forum.

Perry -

"I remember when I had my own boxing gym in the garage in my late teens early 20's. My heavy bag was 125 pounds and I would hit it non stop in 30 minute increments alternating between bobbing and weaving under and around the bag and coming up with punches and moving side to side jabbing and throwing combos in full Ali mode. Then skipping rope 10,000 times until I was standing in a puddle of sweat and finishing the workout with a 5 mile run. 3-4 times a week I would visit a gym to lift mostly shoulder, back and leg work. Funny thing is that I would finish off each workout running full bore on their commercial treadmills. It was quite a sight with the machine screeching at its highest speed and me running at top speed. I would sometimes gather a small crowd. Several times the treadmills broke down under the stress!"

 

Yes, I remember that post. I think I said 'Great post, Forrest.'.

Didn't you hint that he sounded like a champ and then alluded to Aaron Pryor? It made me smile because in the UK we have a cartoon comic of silly, adult humour called Viz and one of the characters is Aldridge Pryor (He's a Hopeless Liar) who is, as you've probably guessed, a compulsive fibber. I wondered if that's where you were going with it.

I also recall he would get into little spats but never hit the 'Reply' button and it was hard to tell who he was being condescending towards. Made me f****** howl, he did.

 

Sorry. Gotta share my mental image of Perry carrying on at full pelt after the treadmill has died. What would be in his way as he carried on at 30mph over the edge of the machine?

I've got an image of him faceplanting a giant mirror that would do Tom and Jerry proud.