Would you classify Tony Tucker as an underachiever?

In terms of winning belts, he was rightfully a beltholder for a brief period. But in terms of resume, Tucker clearly underachieved.

Prior to Tyson fight, his 2 best wins were Buster Douglas and ancient Jimmy Young.

After that Tucker managed to score controversial win over Orlin Norris and close win vs Oliver McCall.

He was managed too carefully to avoid serious challenges before the title fights.
But Tucker has the tools to be competitive against world class opponents.

He went 12 rounds vs peak Tyson and held his own.

Against Lennox Tucker was clearly past his best, but managed to give him a hell of a fight. After Tucker rose from KD in round 9, he beat Lennox for the rest of the round, landed many punches, and if he hit harder, Lennox would have went down. One judge even scored that round 10-10 despite the KD.

Tucker could have had better list of wins, that's for sure

 

Underachiever? Pfft. If he chose to achieve, he couldn't even try to become the holder of Mike Weaver's jock strap.

 

I agree with most of your post but it seemed to me that Lewis was playing possum in that 9th round, and he came back at the end.
The 10-10 scorecard was ridiculous.

 

I think Lewis was dazed for a moment I seemed to remember a right hand that stopped Lewis in his tracks. But yeah Lewis did comeback well at the end of that little barrage from Tucker.

And you're right the 10-10 round is ludicrous.

 

That mostly sums him up. He lacked that X factor in a big way. In some ways he has a little bit of Jimmy Young going but without Jimmy's better wins.

 

No, because his prime coincided with Mike Tyson's.

He did what he could with what he had, and that was a lot that he did.

 

I always wondered what had happened to him at the time ? He disappeared in the late 80s .his best years were wasted. It would of been interesting to see him in the post Douglas mix up ! Shame

 

Drugs happened just after Tyson, unfortunately.

 

In general, when a fighter is defined by his losses rather than his wins … that tells us something.

The two most ‘impressive’ things on his resume were (a) didn’t get KO’d by Tyson (not that he was ever close to winning the right or making it close on the scorecards) and (b) didn’t get KO’d by Lennox Lewis (see Tyson comment above).

The win over Buster is a good one, but Douglas wasn’t at the time considered much of a threat and Tony didn’t exactly run away with it … most like Buster lost interest and got taken out on his feet because he was gassed or just not determined.

After that it’s pretty thin.

Not getting KO’d is better than getting KO’d, I guess, but it’s not winning either. Mitch Green and Bonecrusher also didn’t get KO’d by Tyson but nobody sings their praises about it. I’ll tell you another guy who didn’t get KO’d by Tyson — Buster Douglas. In fact, he took Tyson out.

Same with Lewis. The man was a big puncher but he also had stretches where he’s willing to play it safe and take an easy points win rather than going for it … and Tucker did nothing to make him have to step it up. Another guy who didn’t get KO’d by Lewis was Oliver McCall, who in fact KO’d Lewis in their first fight.

I find Tucker’s resume pretty yawn-inducing.

 

He sounds like the boxing equivalent of a game manager quarterback (someone along the lines of Teddy Bridgewater).

 

Tucker was tested twice in his prime, he stopped Douglas and went the distance with prime Tyson. Tucker was very good.

 

Promoter issues.

 

Its complicated. He took the traditional paths to world belts for American fighters fighters took at the time to get title shots. He fought for the NABF and USBA. A lot of why Tuckers SOS looks so awful is most promising guys he fought had their careers implode. Then his first 3 title fights were lineal HW champions.

 

Two? Buster and?