'prime mike tyson'

First topic message reminder :

I am a regular viewer of these boards and have been since it was the old 606 o the bbc website, one thing that perplexes me is the 'prime tyson' myth which has developed and is contiually talked about on these boards

tyson was no doubt great in the mid to late 80's but:
1 the division was poor in my view
2. his 'peak' was short and therefore does not deserve the credit it gets
3. when he should have been at his 'peak' he did not deliver

what are your guys views?

People think tyson was over rated because it was all over so quickly , the fact is in his prime there has never been a boxer that has looked so unbeatable , he was a fantastic boxer which gets overlooked , the idea that he just scared opponents and bullied them is a myth, he was skillfull as hell with speed and power , he just did nt have the commitment to keep in shape after 91 , hence the poor performance against holy and Lewis.

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:

Strongback wrote:He would have been the greatest human being that ever walked the planet if only Cus D'Amato hadn't died.

Just outside the Top 10 in my view. There were better opponents in the 80's than now but let's not get carried away by their quality.  I remember the 80's heavyweight scene and watched Tyson's fights which received a lot of coverage on the BBC.  My memory is of the 80's HW's being considered a weak era at the time.  Obviously it's better than now, today HW boxing is a farce.

Tyson did burn brightly though and caught the imagination like no other fighter since Ali.

If he was mike O'Tyson he would have been #1

Pretty sad when Az is reduced to regurgitating Truss' lines.  

Az is a strange chap.  Some sort of self searching would probably help him develop his own personality and stop him repeating everything Truss says.

Mike O'Tyson.....That is a classic.........and very true!!

The only thing that's classic is the wife beater T-shirt you're wearing now it's sunny.

Don't want to get sun burnt do I ???

Good grief Strongy. You're as boring as you are predictable.

azania wrote:Good grief Strongy. You're as boring as you are predictable.

Is that an echo in the room??

No it's just Az trying to be Trussy.

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:Good grief Strongy. You're as boring as you are predictable.

Is that an echo in the room??

No it's just Az trying to be Trussy.

haha I too have noticed that he copies truss a lot.

Oh boy. The other fool who refuses to answer a simple question unless a third person answers a random question totally unrelated joins in. It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

hahahaha good one

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

I suggest you keep others out of it who are not here to defend themselves. But by the way your wife needs more practice. A shower would help also. 

Champagne_Socialist wrote:

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

hahahaha good one

Oh dear. No EDL or BNP marches you can go to?

azania wrote:

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

I suggest you keep others out of it who are not here to defend themselves. But by the way your wife needs more practice. A shower would help also. 

So you tell him not to insult people who are not here yet on the very same line you insult someone who is not here....... well done you're smart.

Champagne_Socialist wrote:

azania wrote:

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

I suggest you keep others out of it who are not here to defend themselves. But by the way your wife needs more practice. A shower would help also. 

So you tell him not to insult people who are not here yet on the very same line you insult someone who is not here....... well done you're smart.

Actually you are not very smart.

azania wrote:

Champagne_Socialist wrote:

azania wrote:

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

I suggest you keep others out of it who are not here to defend themselves. But by the way your wife needs more practice. A shower would help also. 

So you tell him not to insult people who are not here yet on the very same line you insult someone who is not here....... well done you're smart.

Actually you are not very smart.

At least I don't get emotionally attached to a debate over the internet with total strangers and start throwing insults out of anger or frustration or even hatrid.

OK. You win. Grab yourself a drink to celebrate.  

Who would have though that an O' before Tysons name could lead to such Unpleasant name calling

Simple. Strongback elevates Irish boxers beyond their talent, ability and their record. And C_S just likes to divert and argue for the sake of it. He ruined the politics board and is determined to do the same here.

azania wrote: He ruined the politics board and is determined to do the same here.

Not sure you calling everyone racists every five minutes helped to be fair.

Rowley wrote:

azania wrote: He ruined the politics board and is determined to do the same here.

Not sure you calling everyone racists every five minutes helped to be fair.

Not everyone. If it barks, wags its tail and fetches a ball when thrown it isn't a horse. But others who posted there and are more sober minded than I am tended to agree with me. But I'll leave it there.

azania wrote:Simple. Strongback elevates Irish boxers beyond their talent, ability and their record. And C_S just likes to divert and argue for the sake of it. He ruined the politics board and is determined to do the same here.

Jeez I didn't realise I had been rattling on so much about Rinty Monaghan lately.

I can't remember my last post about an Irish fighter.


BTW Trussy uses the Irish slanging if I criticise an English fighter. If you are going to copy everything Truss says at least try to get it right.

azania wrote:

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

I suggest you keep others out of it who are not here to defend themselves. But by the way your wife needs more practice. A shower would help also. 

It was an obvious an old fashioned Morecambe and Wise style attempt at humour. You're too sensitive. No offence meant.

Your response came across as bad tempered and unnecessary by the way.

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

I suggest you keep others out of it who are not here to defend themselves. But by the way your wife needs more practice. A shower would help also. 

It was an obvious an old fashioned Morecambe and Wise style attempt at humour.  You're too sensitive. No offence meant.

Your response came across as bad tempered and unnecessary by the way.

You're too sensitive.

azania wrote:

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:

Strongback wrote:

azania wrote:It's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Leave your missus out of this!

I suggest you keep others out of it who are not here to defend themselves. But by the way your wife needs more practice. A shower would help also. 

It was an obvious an old fashioned Morecambe and Wise style attempt at humour.  You're too sensitive. No offence meant.

Your response came across as bad tempered and unnecessary by the way.

You're too sensitive.

You have over 18000 posts which suggests to me you are a keyboard warrior albeit a poor one considering you spend so much time in cyber space.

Way too sensitive.

azania wrote:Way too sensitive.

Good boy.

People always argue that much of Tyson's success was due to other boxers fearing him so much before they got into the ring, but he must have been doing something right for other fighters to fear him so much? Maybe all the controversy he created out of the ring affects people's ranking of him?

I think Tyson polarises opinion like few other boxers, hence why he's overrated to many, and underrated to others. Personally, I always felt that the myth comes before the man, and he's portrayed solely as a KO wrecking ball with no stamina or heart - Duty fell into this trap in an earlier post. His stamina wasn't the greatest, but it was by no means 'poor', and he could dig in when he had to - if his head was screwed on. As for weak opposition, I'm pretty sure that Spinks, Tubbs, Tucker and Holmes aren't exactly terrible names to have on your list, and he made plenty others look very ordinary. His skills were also underrated, excellent head movement coming in and tough to hit cleanly.

That being said, all of the above apply to his 'prime' years, whenever they were - probably around #15 for me on the ATL due to what happened afterwards, especially with Holy.

I feel Tyson's standing gets underrated and overrated in equal measure.

A lot of casual boxing fans may rate him as 1 of the greatest fighters ever to live and I think he gets underrated by some hardcore fans to compensate for this. I'd personally have him at the lower end of a top 10 but I'm a middle of the road kind of guy.

I don't really get the weak era argument as anyone who never fought Ali fought in a weakish era for heavyweights in comparison.

Its difficult to use overrated and underrated without a frame of reference. When people say he is/isnt top 10 or 15 is it applying the same critical analysis to all the heavyweights ranking above and below him? I dont think Tysons title reign compares unavourably to most other greats. His biggest crime for me is probably leaving alot of longetivity and potential unrealised to the point where his post prison career casts a shado over his initial reign. People will argue that in terms of defences and years at the very top hes actually not all that bad compared to several other greats but its easier to forgive a guy who took his time to get there and retired when reaching declining years with a sense of fulfillment than in Tysons often self cased implosion at an age when he had plenty ahead of himself.

However I find if you analyse most of the top considered heavyweights with a similar scrutiny then Tyson doesnt come off as bad as maybe expected. The talent he had, peformances he put in and level of competition he beat when at the top to me indicates a quality heavyweight rather than a mythical monster/hype job. It compares favourably with most other heavyweights.

Absolutely.........People forget that Tyson lost four potentially good years........shame too because I'd pick him to beat Holyfield in 1991........also would have picked him to beat Douglas in a return........

Everything fell into place for Buster in Tokyo.......wonderful performance though it was........Sure his family problems coinciding with a motivation less Tyson made him twice his usual lethargic self....

As for his reign comparing unfavorably one has to remember guys like Jeffries and Dempsey are in most top 10s and do they really have a better championship record........

Jeffries beating Sharkey twice is kind of like Holmes banging out Spinks........and Corbett was probably sliding.........Dempsey's reign isn't all that..........

Will re-iterate you had to be around during the Tyson years to appreciate what a monster he was...........

I'd agree with everything except you're last paragraph there Truss.

Mike Tyson was the "baddest man on the planet". Has there been a more intimidating fighter ever? You didn't need to have been born to realise that. My earliest boxing memory is sitting eating breakfast and hearing the news of him biting Holyfield's ear.

You make good points......However there are those who see Douglas and Holy taming him......and presume they just got in the ring and did it.........

Trememndous pressure for everybody that fought Tyson back then and 99% were beaten before they started.

Now they were probably the only two who went into the ring and "thought" they had a chance ........

Truly believe that If Douglas didn't have so many family problems he'd have lost.......Also believe his mindset was I'll use the jab and see how we go.....and then believed during the fight he could win and not before...

Holy's job was slightly easier..he knew Tyson could be beat..

I agree to an extent about both. I think that Douglas had a once in 100 careers type of night against Tyson. The stars aligned and he got into the ring with a 'f£&@ it' type attitude and it all worked out with his gameplan working out to perfection.

Holyfield but. Holyfield is Holyfield. All fighters are brave but I genuinely believe Holyfield was the 1st fighter to get past the Tyson aura. Obviously Douglas had bust the bubble so to speak so it could be that Holyfield drew inspiration from that but I think Evander had the balls to stand up and not be beaten before getting into the ring.

Tyson threw the Douglas fight because he knew George would beat his asss if he still had the belt.

The Boss wrote:I agree to an extent about both. I think that Douglas had a once in 100 careers type of night against Tyson. The stars aligned and he got into the ring with a 'f£&@ it' type attitude and it all worked out with his gameplan working out to perfection.

Holyfield but. Holyfield is Holyfield. All fighters are brave but I genuinely believe Holyfield was the 1st fighter to get past the Tyson aura. Obviously Douglas had bust the bubble so to speak so it could be that Holyfield drew inspiration from that but I think Evander had the balls to stand up and not be beaten before getting into the ring.

Holy was hugely confident..........1991 would have been a tremendous fight........Holy still was a relatively small heavy and Tyson had more tools.......

Like a May-Manny matchup now...The horse had probably bolted when Holy-Tyson fought.

Evan was getting big fast. Not hard when you have Lee Haney in your corner telling you what to munch on.

Tyson and his power lifting exploits raise a few eyebrows as well.

The 80's heavies werent an untalented group, they werent the most dedicated though, and plenty had a taste for charlie. That said, the fact that holmes still had good performances in him post tyson... And that tubbs was still able to take bowe to the edge.... is enough to prove that tyson was some force at his best.

He put the fear of god into his opponents and guys like spinks were beaten before the bell sounded. Others like thomas gave it a go. Perhaps the hardest thing to separate when analysing him is that he lost to maybe the first two guys who genuinley werent intimidated by him..( As champion at least - on his way up not everyone rolled over - quick tillis for example). Douglas because so much had gone on on his life that he was beyond fear, and holy i believe was one man, dating back to their amateur days, who actually intimidated tyson.

However, was that why they beat him? Certainly it was a major contributing factor but timing is everything and the signs of decline were in evidence regardless. Douglas especially was a very talented fighter, who pulled it all together 'for one night only'. For me, tyson is a threat to any heavy in history in his marauding pomp... A threat not necessarily a favourite... And top 10 fringe in the all time stakes.

I'd suggest he's over-rated by the general public and probably a bit under-rated in general by casual fans. Most balanced fans of boxing see both sides of the argument and take the middle ground.

Duty281 wrote:

azania wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Mike Tyson was massively overrated.

I'll ignore the wum..........Duty I expect a bit more than that from you.....wheelchair  - 1991!! say's it all you weren't around Mate..

However at least you offer something to the board..

Oh I should elaborate shouldn't I? Here we go then, in no particular order:

1) Never beat a great fighter in their prime.
2) Couldn't beat Holyfield or Lewis.
3) Was Champion in a very weak era.
4) Was only a Champion for a combined 5 years.
5) Lost to Buster Douglas.
6) Poor stamina.

About 10-15 ATG for me.

The era he was champ was second only to the 70s. The fights with holy and Lewis was at the end of his career.  Would you holdspinks and berbick aagainst Ali?  Poor stamina?  Such an ignorant comment.

You mean the absolutely weak late 80s era?  
The fights with Holyfield were 8 years before he retired.
The fight with Lewis was closer to Lewis' retirement than Tyson's.
Poor stamina? How many times did he manage to go 12 rounds?

Out of curiosity, what 10 or 15 fighters do you rank above him?

I dont thinksome of the points you are making with regards Tyson reflect the picture accurately. Lewis was clearly closer to his best than Tyson when they fought. If you want to regard the longetivity Lewis was able to maintain then by all means but the fight when it happened was when Lewis was not too far off his peak years and Tyson was all but finished as a fighter. Saying Lewis was closer to retirement doesnt really hide that because he retired at the top wheras Tyson fought on long past his best with increasingly obvious poor performances. Calzaghe, for example, was technically closer to retirement than Roy Jones was when they fought but I would not consider it a valid means of eveluating their respctive conditions.

With regards to his short reign, without knowing who you rank above him its difficult to make comparisons but some other names:

Mike Tyson 3 years unified, 8 defences - 1 year post prison

Frazier - champion 3 years unified, 5 years partial, 9 defences total
Marciano - champion 3 years, 6 defences
Demspey - champion 7 years (inactive for 3 of those), 5 defences
Jack Johnson - champion 6.5 years, 8 defences
Jim Jeffries - champion 5 years, 7 defences

The likes of Liston and Foreman had shorter title reigns and the extent of Lewis' longetivity and dominance is often overstated in my opinion. In actual years Tyson would be on the short side but in terms of defences he is higher than many.

In terms of stamina, probably not his strongest suit but you are dealing with a fighter who was one of the most devastating finishers and knock out boxers.

When you say the the 80s was an incredibly weak era, which eras do ou rank as much stronger and why? The late 1960s and 1970s was strong of course, but outside that how many eras were significantly stronger? In particular if you account for Tysons title reign, which ten or fifteen heavyweights would boast a stronger win column?

I think Tysons wins in his initial title reign over the likes of Spinks, Holmes, Bruno /Tubbs/Thomas/Tucker would measure pretty reasonably to most of the other top heavyweights. If anything I think its slightly underrated in comparison to alot of other great heavyweights many of which I dont really think can provide a significantly better list of victims and performances to go with it.

Take for example an old great, like Dempsey. Did he beat anyone that could be considered better than even aged versions of Holmes or someone like Spinks? Willard is not better than Holmes and was even older and more washed up. He beat Carpentier and Gibbons but I dont think they are better wins than Spinks. He beat Firpo who I wouldnt consider particularly any better than Bruno. Probably worse.

Or looking at a modern great Lewis, who did he beat that was really coniderably better than Tysons list of guys? Similar levels of challengers with some common opponents and you could probably say that Holyfield and Klitschko stand out as champions in their own right. But the Klitschko fight was not a hugley satisfying win in its circumstances and Holyfield was ageing. He had beaten Tyson several years before but when Lewis got him (and Tyson) the timing favoured him heavily. I wonder how Mike Tyson from 1988 would have fared against Holyfield from 1999 for instance? When I look at Tysons 1980s spell it doesnt look that bad in comparison to alot of his rivals.

Never easy, the ol' Tyson debate! I tend to rank him something like # 8 on my all-time Heavyweight lists, which probably means I'm a little kinder to him than the majority of others on here.

The problem is that there's basically never a middle ground when it comes to Tyson. For all those millions who'll argue that a number eight ranking is unfair on him and doesn't do him justice, there will be just as many (usually more scholarly types, admittedly!) who'll argue that such a placing flatters him. To confuse things even more, both arguments carry weight in their own ways, I suppose.

For pure ability, physically speaking, and sheer potential, I think Tyson is a top five man, arguably even top three. Outstanding power, sublime speed, strong as an ox, impressively accurate for such a heavy-handed fighter, hard to catch cleanly in the early stages and had an extremely sturdy chin on top of all that.

That said, he does get too much leeway for the shocker against Douglas and, like any other Heavyweight great you care to mention, there were weaknesses to his game which the right type of fighter always had a chance of exploiting. Again, this is where balance is needed; some of Tyson's die hard fans claim that these weaknesses didn't exist in a Rooney-trained, unmarried Tyson, whereas his harshest critics tend to claim that any Heavyweight verging on the 'great' status would have ruthlessly exploited them every time. Not so, in either case.

Even before the wheels came off against Douglas, the likes of Tillis and Tucker had shown that, if you could weather an early storm, establish the jab and use the ring, Tyson could be made to look human, rather than the unstoppable deity many claimed, and that his effectiveness and knockout threat tended to lessen once a fight went past the half way stage. He could be pinned behind a good leading hand, he could tire ever so slightly in the championship rounds, and his attack could be made to look a little repetitive. No shame in any of that, of course - no fighter is one hundred per cent infallible.

On the other side of the coin, the likes of Holmes (even a past his best version), Thomas and Tubbs, from the outset, all had the necessary skills and styles to give Tyson a similarly tough assignment, but they couldn't. Credit goes to Tyson and Tyson alone for that - he may have had a slightly tougher time against good jabbers and movers, but he was still well capable of beating them.

Lost fair and square to Douglas, though, and his ranking has to suffer accordingly. We're all well aware of the excuses regarding Tyson's defeat, mainly that his mind wasn't in the right place for the fight and that he was in a poorer place mentally than he had been for his previous outings, but if I were to say that the Bonecrusher who faced Tyson was clearly not in the same frame of mind or as mentally strong as he'd been when blasting out Witherspoon, would anyone really be taking me seriously if I advanced that as a reason for his sub-par showing against Tyson?

The manner of the defeats to Evander, rather than the fact that he was defeated in itself, can't be ignored either, regardless of whether Tyson was past his best or not. For me, there is every right to question Tyson's mental fortitude once the going got really, really tough and as such it's entirely reasonable to think that, even in his 'prime', he'd have lost a fair few fights to the other Heavyweights considered to be all-time greats as well as winning a fair few.

Think the thing with Tyson is he does tend to get a bit of a rough ride because as Manos has argued when you look at his actual record in comparison to others regularly populating top tens it does not rack up too badly. For me there are two elements to this. One is it tends to be a counter reaction to some of Tyson’s more excitable fans (of which there were many on the Beeb) who would have you believe that mythical beast that was “Prime Mike Tyson”© beats Ali, Foreman and Louis on the same night without breaking sweat, which is obviously patent nonsense.

The other thing I believe counts against Mike is we always, rightly or wrongly, look down on folk who we feel have under achieved and whilst Mike did not have a bad career most agree he fell someway short of what was expected of him, because as those of us of a certain age will remember when Mike arrived on the scene discussions about him going on to be the greatest heavy of all time were not seen as ridiculous and were fairly common place. I often compare the Tyson situation to Naseem, both had fine careers in their own rights and just as Naz stands reasonable comparison with the other British Greats as does Tyson with most heavies but both are frequently precluded or harshly treated in the debates solely because they almost certainly fell short of their vast potential.

manos de piedra wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

azania wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Mike Tyson was massively overrated.

I'll ignore the wum..........Duty I expect a bit more than that from you.....wheelchair  - 1991!! say's it all you weren't around Mate..

However at least you offer something to the board..

Oh I should elaborate shouldn't I? Here we go then, in no particular order:

1) Never beat a great fighter in their prime.
2) Couldn't beat Holyfield or Lewis.
3) Was Champion in a very weak era.
4) Was only a Champion for a combined 5 years.
5) Lost to Buster Douglas.
6) Poor stamina.

About 10-15 ATG for me.

The era he was champ was second only to the 70s. The fights with holy and Lewis was at the end of his career.  Would you holdspinks and berbick aagainst Ali?  Poor stamina?  Such an ignorant comment.

You mean the absolutely weak late 80s era?  
The fights with Holyfield were 8 years before he retired.
The fight with Lewis was closer to Lewis' retirement than Tyson's.
Poor stamina? How many times did he manage to go 12 rounds?

Out of curiosity, what 10 or 15 fighters do you rank above him?

1. Ali
2. Louis
3. Lewis
4. Holmes
5. Marciano
6. Frazier
7. Dempsey
8. Holyfield
9. Foreman
10. Tyson

Where's the love for the Boilermaker Duty? And Johnson much as it pains me to admit it.

Rowley wrote:Where's the love for the Boilermaker Duty? And Johnson much as it pains me to admit it.

Oh somewhere around 12-15th for both of them I'd imagine. Or maybe a bit lower.

He was a filthy, disgusting violent ra pist...FACT

I used to have Lewis that high Duty, then I re-thought after Chris I believe implored me to watch some more Holmes and reassess based on ability and record. Think Holmes ranks ever so slightly above personally, but won't argue with your list. I'd have Tyson around 13 as I feel that a few others like Johnson just edge him out.

Johnson is an interesting one and a good demonstration of why ranking the heavies outside of Ali and Louis is a thankless task. Obviously a hugely significant figure in the sport and heck of a talent but when one looks at his reign it is populated almost exclusively by guff. Jeffries was fat and retired, Ketchel was a middle and probably a fix and Battling Jim Johnson almost defines the word limited.

What makes thing even worse for Jack is the fact that these guys did not, by a long stretch represent the best the era had to offer. Langford, McVea and Jeannette were almost universally agreed to be the best of the rest. Accepted he had wins over these in his pre title days but certainly in the case of Langford there is every reason to believe he was a better fighter than when he first fought Jack.

Not saying Jack does not deserve a high ranking but can see the argument that when one looks solely at their opposition faced during their reign it can get difficult to justify him finding himself as frequently above Mike as he does.

You have to appreciate though Rowley, this is a man who fought 86 times and was consistently at the head of his game - I think the average heavyweight now has what, half that amount of fights? Fights for 10 rounds for most of them - then 12 for championship - this is a guy who was knocking people out for fun inside 15, yet was fully able to go the full distance at top speed.

His style too, adds weight to the fact that I do often think "would he beat" and I think he has the measure of the post 90's Tyson at most points in his career. If we look at Tyson we can't take just the dominant period into account when he had his best wins, if we look at their whole careers side by side - theres only one winner in my eyes.

Lewis at three ??...........and I have him just above Bowe........Who's wins over Holy are much overlooked.........Also have Johnson at 3.......Archie Moore reckoned Johnson was the onlty heavy that could beat Ali.....Great praise indeed........

Holy was a top 10 or just outside heavy.........and at his peak when Bowe beat him.........Tunney tends to languish around 10-15 for beating an old Dempsey twice....

Lewis lost to average fighters and never beat a top fighter in his prime...........Not his fault..

But enough not to have him Top 5........

Whoa whoa there Beefster. He as much as retired undefeated, avenging both losses.

You've also used Bruno and Tucker to champion Tyson, so use them for Lewis. Add in Golota, Tua, Grant, Holyfield (don't tell me he was washed up or shot), Botha, Ruddock, Tyson, Klitschko and McCall and you have an impressive set of wins there.

He may have lost to average fighters, but he righted those wrongs. Thats the mark of a top 5 ATG if ever there was one. Tyson never went back and beat Buster, he also lost his rematch with Holyfield by biting him. You want this man above Lewis?