If Tyson or any Champion retired undefeated, and very young while very popular, how..

[Benny Leonard]

What if Tyson retired after Spinks when he seemed to indicate he wanted to do?

What if any Champion, especially the Heavyweight Champion of the World, who was not only popular, but one of the most popular in history, would retire in his early to mid-20's?

It could be from just being tired of fighting, to being sick of the media, to the tragedies in your life, etc.

How would the media, the fans, his legacy (although if you retire early I am not sure you actually care about that), treat him?

Could you imagine if Tyson would of retired after Spinks or Ali never came back when he went into exile, or just imagine if Dempsey just decided to stick with his Hollywood gig and didn't want to come back, although he was a bit older than his mid 20's, but still, hugely popular.

[The Surgeon]

He would most likely be considered THE best if he retired after Spinks! Look at guys like Sanchez - Rated SUPER high, partially due to mystery - peeps luv that **** and Ike Ibeabuchi is another example

[THE REAL NINJA]

Tyson would have been rated very high maybe even #1 by the avg person on the street but pure boxing fans would need some thing more. I think he would end up some where around 5th all time in most peoples eyes instead of the 20's as ring mag places him.

This goes both ways really.
Marciano is well respected and some times overated due to being a undefeated retired champion.
But he is also sometimes underated due to never having to make a comeback .
With Marciano we will never know how he would have done with a young Patterson and with Tyson we would have never known what he would have done with Holyfield and a host of others.

I feel that there is no fair way to rate fighters VS boxers of other eras because of the factor of the unknown .
What if we take Holyfield and have him fight the same path as Tyson did Bruno,Ruddock,Golota , would he have been the same ?

[Benny Leonard]

bump................

[FreshPrince]

I was thinking about this before. If Tyson died in a car crash, or overdosing on heroin, right after the Spinks fight a lot of people would probably have him a top 5 heavyweight.

[Abstraction]

In a weird sort of way, many rate as if he actually DID retire after Spinks. Since that was in a way, the end of Prime Tyson, since it was when he Fired Rooney, and brought in Don King, and around the time his legal troubles and marriage troubles surfaced, not to mention the running away from training.

So, interesting..