Youngest Heavyweight Champion Ever: Patterson or Tyson?

Patterson beat Archie Moore, and it may not have been disputed, but his championship wasn't "lineal". Moore was just the LIGHT-HEAVY champion, not the heavyweight champion.

Patterson may have had the best or only claim to championship at the time, but I don't know how strong it was in reality.
I guess I need to research how much cleaning-up and eliminating he did against the relevant names in the division.

 

The Guinness book of World records has Tyson the youngest Hw champ at 20 yrs, 4 months!

 

Tyson was the youngest ever undisputed HW champion, I'd say. Unforgiven makes a good point: Tyson collecting all three belts should count for as much as Floyd winning the eliminator.

Was Clay the youngest lineal champ?

EDIT: Of course, The Ring still had Spinks as champ. So Tyson wasn't wholly undisputed.

 

I think this is probably the best break down.

Tyson has been referred to you as the youngest champion for over 20 years, but there are some who still stick to the old principle of " having to beat the man, to become the man."

While I give this concept merit to some degree, I do think that its over done. Patterson won the title in vacant fashion, therefore he didn't exactly "beat" the previous belt holder. Of course, it was due to the fact that the last champ had retired, but frankly I don't think this should give him anymore rights to be the youngest champ, than Tyson who won a belt that another man had been stripped of.. Yes, there is the rule of having to beat the man to become the man, but that isn't the only rule of being champion. You also have to defend against your mandatories, and Spinks failed to do this.

 

This is how I've always felt....

No matter how one cuts it, neither man became the man by beating the man. Both one belts that had been either stripped or vacated by someone else.. The main differences between Tyson and Patterson are:

1. Tyson had to fight three belt holders, not one.

2. Tyson did it at a slightly younger age.

3. Unlike Patterson, Tyson eventually DID beat the previous champ, whereas Floyd never did..

 

Personally I say Mike Tyson has a better claim.
After already unifying the WBC & WBA titles separately, he was only 21 years 2 months old when he gained the IBF title from the undefeated 34-0 Tucker, to fully unify for the Heavyweight Triple Crown.

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The technicality of The Ring Magazine title in my opinion in overrated, & Spinks hoarded it, ducking Tucker, whom i'm confident would have beaten him & i believe Michael thought the same too.

Patterson was 21 years 10 months old, when he got the Vacant World title from Old Mongoose.

 

Tyson was the youngest LINEAL champion, by beating Michael Spinks just three days short of his 22nd birthday.

Patterson was the youngest "UNDISPUTED" champion. As far as I know, anyway, no one disputed the status of Patterson-Moore as being for the title.

Tyson was CALLED "Undisputed champion" when he beat Tucker, but fact is his claim was hotly disputed by Spinks and a fair section of boxing press.

 

... And that leads us down another road of confusion.
Lots of champions have been stripped of alphabet belts for failing to fight mandatory challengers. So, you have to be consistent and decide who was "world champion" at the given time. Or whether the real championship was effectively vacant.

Holmes failed to fight his mandatory challenger in 1983, and Witherspoon picked up the WBC belt, lost it to Thomas, it passed to Berbick and then Tyson. Maybe you regard that as the correct championship ?
If so, then Spinks was never the real champion anyway, and Tucker certainly wasn't.

I understand your position on Spinks and Tucker only if you think it makes sense to have more than one world champion.

As for Patterson, I think his claim was relatively weak in his first term as champion, at least. And by the time he beat Johansson, the shadow of Liston was firmly undermining him further.
I'm not convinced that Patterson and Moore had cleared the field enough to contest the title with full legitimacy. I think people accepted it because Floyd was by far the most promising fighter on the immediate horizon, but his subsequent reign wasn't much good and makes me scrutinise his status to begin with.
Having said that, he was undisputed as far as I know, and its not for me to second-guess that with 55 years of hindsight.

 

It wasn't just Ring magazine who regarded Larry Holmes as being the real champion, and then Spinks for beating him.

Tony Tucker was just a Don King fighter that the IBF willingly tried to force on Spinks at King's bidding.
Spinks' record is shitty too, but let's not pretend Tucker was actually some sort of deserving case.

 

The problem that I have with people calling Michael Spinks " the lineal champ", by virtue of the fact that he " hadn't" retired as Marciano did, is that he could have gone on for years or even a decade facing tomato cans, while men like Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe and Lewis would have been referred to as carbon copies. Neither the fans nor the experts would have gone for this, and it wouldn't matter what the ring rated Spinks. In fact, they probably would have changed their tune, to avoid losing all credibility. Spinks was stripped of his fraction of the heavy weight title, which he acquired from a man who had been previously stripped of a fraction as well. By 1987 the lines which constituted who the "lineal" champ was had been blurred and probably no longer held any true meaning. There was a reason why Don King promoted the unification tournament to consolidate the title.

 

:good
:deal

 

Yeah, but away from your hypothetical scenario, Spinks actually fought Tyson about A YEAR LATER (or maybe less) than you, or Don King, or Tyson, or the IBF, would have liked. Actually they were all probably party to the delay anyway, and all made a hell of a lot of money due to it !

Spinks fought Tyson for the money, end of story.
If you wanna say he ducked the guy for a year, fine.

Most people consider that Larry Holmes was the real champion at one time or another.
But your point is valid.

Still, if you want to go along with "fractions" of world championships, and stripping of titles, it's a fact that Spinks still retained a fraction of the title after the IBF had stripped him. He was recognized by sections of the boxing press and public, and Ring magazine, who frankly had at least as much credibility as the IBF, a dodgy outfit that had only been around a few years. Let's not forget the IBF got their heavyweight belt its credibility from Larry Holmes, not the other way around.

 

I was only painting a hypothetical picture as to why I dont buy this logic that Marciano's title had been legitimately lifted due to his retirement, while Spinks reign was still considered valid for simply keeping his boxing license. Hence, my point that Floyd Patterson winning the title in VACANT fashion is no better than Tyson's winning it in the same way.

In a watered down sort of way, I did too, but my point is that the lineal title had been dragged through a lot of mud before finally landing in Tyson's hands. Holmes had been stripped of a belt, then Spinks following him. By 1987, I don't think the title really had much lineage.

The ring magazines manufactured belt is not recognized as a legitimate title. Its more of an honorary award.

By calling Spinks "the champ" and challenging Tyson's claim as the true king, the ring was creating controversy in an effort to move magazines off the racks. They were trying to sell a concept. To clearify, I had felt at the time that Michael Spinks was by far the most legitimate challenger to Tyson's title, but a challenger nonetheless.

 

You mean like JAck Johnson did? And still nobody claims Langford should have been champ. Or Jeanette. Or McVey.