Was Mike Tyson a "great" boxer or just a very good boxer?

[Bullrush]

He was great. Very underrated defense, great hooks, crazy uppercuts, great jab, knockout power in each hand, iron chin, extremely smart and a student of the game. The only thing he lacked was heart/mental strength. Kind of like Sonny Liston but just way better and way more complete.

[boliodogs]

I don't think Tyson was very game. He was usually good enough to dominate fights from the start. He had a bully mentality. When things didn't go his way he was not good at coming from behind to win. He tended to give up mentally. He deliberately fowled out by twice biting Holyfield rather than hanging in there and trying to legally win. He took the ten count against Douglas while crawling on the floor fumbling with his mouth piece rather than just standing up to beat the count. He stayed down rather than get up and continue to fight against Lewis. Tyson was very formidable and a hard heavyweight to beat. But in my opinion he didn't have much heart compared to gamer fighters like Holyfield.

[Sweet Jones]

Tyson's great, but one of the most overrated fighters of all time.

He had no Plan B and was mentally weak. If he didn't get you out of there in the early rounds, he didn't know what to do.

How many world class HWs in past 40 years have a Plan B? Once you get past Holyfield, Holmes and maybe M Spinks, you count on one hand the number of HWs who could win fights in a variety of ways.

Also, this notion that Tyson was clueless without KOs is false. Go look at some of his fights that went the distance or deep in rounds (Ribalta, Tillis, Bonecrusher, Tucker, etc), Tyson stayed workmanlike in ****ing the body in those fights. His jab in the Tucker fight was as good as you'll ever see from a shorter fighter.

This myth of Tyson as a career long clueless ****er is false. Later in his career when he quit giving a dayum to properly train, he went Right Hand crazy. But before that, dude was as devastating a combo puncher (up and down, both hands) as there was in boxing.

[Sweet Jones]

I don't think Tyson was very game. He was usually good enough to dominate fights from the start. He had a bully mentality. When things didn't go his way he was not good at coming from behind to win. He tended to give up mentally. He deliberately fowled out by twice biting Holyfield rather than hanging in there and trying to legally win. He took the ten count against Douglas while crawling on the floor fumbling with his mouth piece rather than just standing up to beat the count. He stayed down rather than get up and continue to fight against Lewis. Tyson was very formidable and a hard heavyweight to beat. But in my opinion he didn't have much heart compared to gamer fighters like Holyfield.

IMO, using the Lewis (which I attended live) and Douglas fights to question Tyson's heart are bad examples. You could argue that both fights could have been stopped in the corner the round before, but Tyson came out and took that beating.

The dude was legitimately KOed in both fights. It happens.

[fanofslug]

He was known for his power and menace, but people overlooked his excellent boxing skills. Sure, he sold his soul to Trump and the gay army, but you can't say he wasn't a great boxer.

[TX_BOXNG]

He screwed himself, would of been TBE

[Larry the boss]

He is very overrated,who is the best fighter he actually beat??

[Redd Foxx]

He had a lot of potential in his early years, even though the division was weak at the time. After he fell out of prime and made a lot of poor personal (and some professional) choices, HW started to heat up.
I truly wish we could have seen that young, explosive Tyson against some better comp. OR, that he kept better discipline once he became a worldwide celeb.

[VatoMulatto]

Tyson's best wins would be Spinks Ruddock and an over the hill Holmes. Don't you need better wins to be considered "great"?

The two best boxers he fought: Lennox Lewis and Holyfield and he couldn't beat them. People say Tyson wasn't as good as he was back in the late 80s when he took on Holyfield but I'd actually pick both Holyfield and Lennox Lewis to beat any version of Tyson.

[_original_]

Tyson had great skills, superb defense, great head movement, great combinations, lethal power with both hands, attacked the head and the body, ect. I actually don't think it was heart that was his problem, , more so that that explosive style is very taxing and exhausting in the long run. His gameplan was built to take guys out early but even an athletic specimen like Tyson could only sustain that style for so long. Would have been interesting to see Tyson seek out another trainer, when Cus passed away, to tweak his fighting style a bit and use those great skills he had to pace himself as he aged and guys were lasting the rounds with him. Sadly, Tyson is the biggest example of "woulda-coulda" when we talk about boxers.