Not Only Does Mike Tyson Not Belong As A Top Ten HW, He's Not Even Close

[BIG GUNZ]

I love Tyson, but even I could admit he's not a top 10 HW. If he never lost to Douglas & beat Holyfield than maybe he would be. The thing is after 1990 his heart wasn't into fighting anymore. It was just a paycheck for him. If he never went to prison & still had the passion for fighting through the 1990s than he easily would make the top 10.

[HedonisticFrog]

Has no business? It's heavyweight boxing, anything can happen. Speaking on that, Vitali was a last minute replacement for the fight and he did have a good showing but he wasn't there yet, he got horribly cut and the fight was over.

Vitali was winning on the scorecards at the time of the stoppage. Lennox Louis just got lucky by winning with a cut stoppage.

On to the topic of Tyson, I think a lot of you are underrating him and saying he was just a brawler when he had a great defense as well as power.

http://i.imgur.com/J4MC4p5.gif

[Cuauhtémoc1520]

[QUOTE=B-Bomber;14851757]

I agree , it was Iron Mike's way to quit .

14th or 15th in an ATG list is a very good ranking , I don't argue with that either.

What I disagree with is your analysis of Tyson as a fighter. In the early stages of his carreer he wasn't only a bully with a big punch .

Head and upper body movements, feints , bob and weave , combination punching , choice of punches , speed, balance, discipline and work ethics.

I think Cus D'Amato did a great job with young Tyson, even with his personality. If I remember he was not aggressive at all. He was a polite guy , shy even. I remember a TV show in which he was almost scared to sit next to Ali and ...i think it was SRR? ...not sure.

However, the Iron Mike persona was created later , gradually. After going to jail though Tyson was pretty much the fighter you described: undisciplined, dirty , relying on his power which in my opinion wasn't even so amazing without speed and superbe conditioning.

Well I did say that in my post. I think Tyson was very well schooled, but he did still have his faults. I think Tyson had problem with bigger, longer fighters. He went the distance against Bone Crusher Smith and Razor Ruddock. Both hit him a lot and they were tough fights.

I just think when you look at the complete list of HW that have ever fought, there's no way I can put him top 10 as some do. He was a hell of a fighter, devastating puncher, and incredible character outside the ring.

Tyson will always be that feared monster just destroying people but let's remember the era he did it in. It's the same reason I think Roy Jones is slightly overrated, he never had much competition in his prime to really give us that defining fight.

[521CEO]

Has no business? It's heavyweight boxing, anything can happen. Speaking on that, Vitali was a last minute replacement for the fight and he did have a good showing but he wasn't there yet, he got horribly cut and the fight was over.

True anything can happen in boxing as you always have a punchers chance, but lennox chin was always suspect to me. And if Vitali was indeed a last minute replacement then why not prepare for him and prove that it was a fluke by beating him in a rematch? By retiring after the fight you create more doubt than anything. Also when he fought Holyfield and Tyson they were well past their prime and I truly believe that the results would have been different had he faced them in their primes. There is no denying that Lennox had an exceptional skill set for a hw, but throughout his career he left many doubts for me and I feel like everytime he was on the verge of greatness he did something questionable(Mcall, Rahman, Klitchko).

[B-Bomber]

[QUOTE=Cuauhtémoc1520;14852153]

Well I did say that in my post. I think Tyson was very well schooled, but he did still have his faults. I think Tyson had problem with bigger, longer fighters. He went the distance against Bone Crusher Smith and Razor Ruddock. Both hit him a lot and they were tough fights.

I just think when you look at the complete list of HW that have ever fought, there's no way I can put him top 10 as some do. He was a hell of a fighter, devastating puncher, and incredible character outside the ring.

Tyson will always be that feared monster just destroying people but let's remember the era he did it in. It's the same reason I think Roy Jones is slightly overrated, he never had much competition in his prime to really give us that defining fight.

In my opinion his biggest flaw was his lack of inside game .

Tyson vs Tillis is an example . Tillis spoiled and clinched a bit, but what striked me the most was Tyson's inability to fight on the inside or out of a clinch .

At mid range Mike was phenomenal, but he lacked inside game if you ask me. Also Holyfield took advantage of it, albeit vs a different version of Tyson.

[-Lowkey-]

This sums it up perfectly.

How Good Was/Is Mike Tyson?

By Frank Scoblete
30 January 2000*

Now that Mike Tyson's career is almost over, it might be of interest to take a cold hard look at just how good he was at his best to get some idea of where he stands in the rankings of the great heavyweight champions.

It is not a stretch to say that much of the fearsome Tyson persona of a decade or more ago was media hype and was little related to what he actually accomplished in the ring or against whom he accomplished it.

We can make a case that Tyson fought "never-wases" and "nothing-lefters" in his early career culminating with his knockout over an intimidated former light-heavyweight champion Michael Spinks, whose only real claim to fame was "winning" two controversial decisions against an aging and distracted Larry Holmes.

Other than the light-hitting, terrified Spinks and the out-of-shape, intimidated, comebacking, former great Larry Holmes, who did Tyson actually fight in his pre-prison days who was truly any good in absolute terms? If we measure competition based on who Ali faced, then who of all Tyson's pre-prison opponents was as good as Jerry Quarry, Oscar Bonavena, Ken Norton, Ron Lyle, Ernie Shavers, Joe Bugner, Mac Foster, Floyd Patterson, Zora Foley, Cleveland Williams, Jimmy Ellis, Bob Foster or Ernie Terrell, not to mention the awesome likes of all-time greats Sonny Liston, George Foreman or Smokin' Joe Frazier? Would you classify Bonecrusher Smith, Tony Tucker, Trevor Berbick or Frank Bruno with any those other fighters? Only if you never saw them fight!*

The only*real*fight the pre-prison Tyson ever had was against the only decent heavyweight fighter he fought, a determined, well-conditioned Buster Douglas -- and Tyson was roundly beaten, battered and knocked out! That was Tyson in his prime, against a fighter who went on to "extinguish" himself by being knocked out in three rounds by Evander Holyfield.

If the pre-prison Tyson's boxing worth must be looked at with some skepticism, then the post-prison Tyson must be looked upon with scorn. Often in boxing, the true greatness of a fighter is not actually known when he is in his prime as he defeats opponent after opponent rather convincingly. It is only after he ages, slows down, and gets himself into wars are we aware of just how good the fighter is -- and was!*

Certainly that was true of Ali. Before he made his comeback from an almost four-year forced layoff, there were all sorts of questions about his ability. Could he take a punch? Had he been beating up washed-up fighters? Did he have courage? Would he dog it if he were ever in a real fight? The layoff slowed Ali down, made him more vulnerable. What's more, great fighters appeared in that time, fighters better than any he had previously fought!*

So a somewhat diminished Ali met each and every challenger -- starting with a comeback fight against highly ranked Jerry Quarry and then a second fight against vicious number-one contender Oscar Bonavena. His first career loss to Joe Frazier in his third comeback fight proved he could take a punch and that he had mountains of courage. That fight was the first of several "wars" Ali would fight in this second part of his career.*

His next loss was to Ken Norton. Fighting 11 rounds with a broken jaw, Ali merely proved again that he was as courageous as any fighter who ever lived. His great victories against these very same fighters and his upset win over the god-like Foreman, showed what a great fighter he was -- and how much greater he had been*before*his layoff!

Not so with Tyson. His "layoff" was heralded with a return to the ring against a rank amateur, Peter McNeeley, whom Tyson "destroyed" with a wild flurry in round one. This same McNeeley was later knocked out by the bloated Butterbean in one round and has since lost just about every real fight he's had! And what of Buster Mathis, Jr., Bruce "I was knocked out by a gust of air" Seldon, Francois Botha, or Julian Francis? Are they credible opponents? Only if elephants can fly.

The only real fight the post-prison Tyson had of any significance was against Evander Holyfield, who was selected because he appeared to be a shot fighter, having lost two out of three to the disappointing Riddick Bowe. Had Tyson known that Holyfield was not a shot fighter, but actually the only great heavyweight of the 1990s, I'm sure he would have selected a different fighter to beat, perhaps a third go-round with the overrated Razor Ruddock who proved himself a worthy Tyson contender by being knocked out in one round by the otherwise cautious Lennox Lewis.

So here we have a very simple yardstick for measuring the greatness of Mike Tyson. He fought two hard fights, one pre-prison and one post-prison -- both of which he lost (subsequently, he ate his way to a third loss and fouled himself into a no-decision). The rest of his victories, pre-prison and post-prison, were over fighters who couldn't make the "C" list during Ali's tenure. So where does that put him on the list of all-time greats?*

It doesn't. He doesn't belong. He's not even in the top 20!

If you think of the very few good heavyweight fighters who have plied their trade in the late 1980s and 1990s, it is a short list: Evander Holyfield, George Foreman (oh, yes, the Big George who fought Holyfield would have rocked Iron Mike just as he did Smokin' Joe), Riddick Bowe, and maybe Lennox Lewis and Michael Moorer. Tyson only fought one of them, and lost. The others he avoided.

I do not, as some writers do, lament the fact that Mike Tyson never lived up to his potential. In fact, I believe he did live up to it, fully, completely. His potential just wasn't all that great and that's what he became -- not all that great.