Mike Tyson: 1985-2000

[Rocky Balboa]

I have posted this in current scene, but the first reply I got was not sensible, so I thought British Scene would be better, lets hope so!

It was extremely sad to see him lose yesterday, especially to a fighter of Kevin McBride's level.

I have and always will be a fan of Mike Tyson's. I had the pleasure of meeting him when he came to London in January and June 2000. He was very polite, gave me his autopgraph on a number of occassions.

I hope he is serious about his retirement, and does make any more comebacks, regarless of his financial predicament. There must be another way to make money and pay off his debt. Hasn't a lot of the debt been payed off?

Man, they said Tyson was in shape, but it seems that no matter how much training he does, his stamina is not htere these days.

IMO, Mike Tyson is one of the greatest heavyweight's ever, in history! For me, he cemented his place when he beat Michael Spinks. Regardless of his personal, Tyson is a legend, and no one can deny him that accolade!

I hope he finds peace within himself and enjoys the rest of his life. Poeple say Mike wil end up dead, in the gutter etc, I really hope this does not happen!

I reckon Mike would be a good trainer, some of you may disagree, but here's why I think this: Mike has great knowledge of Boxing, and learnt from the best in Cus D'Amato. Mike still knows what to do, and how to do it, but he cannot do it physically, anymore.

It is obvious he does not want to fight anymore, and he should not be forced into fighting.

Lastly, does anyone know if Jeff Fenech made any comments. Tyson should try and move abroad, maybe Australia. Him and his family should try and get away from America; it seems to me that he has not been happy living there over the years?

[Chesney_Chambers]

You're right it is sad to see him bow out like this trying to make money to repay debts

A Prime Mike Tyson is the most exciting fighter of all time IMO. If Prime Tyson had the temprement to go with with his skills he would have been the greatest ever HW IMO

[jamesmcdonnell]

I have posted this in current scene, but the first reply I got was not sensible, so I thought British Scene would be better, lets hope so!

It was extremely sad to see him lose yesterday, especially to a fighter of Kevin McBride's level.

I have and always will be a fan of Mike Tyson's. I had the pleasure of meeting him when he came to London in January and June 2000. He was very polite, gave me his autopgraph on a number of occassions.

I hope he is serious about his retirement, and does make any more comebacks, regarless of his financial predicament. There must be another way to make money and pay off his debt. Hasn't a lot of the debt been payed off?

Man, they said Tyson was in shape, but it seems that no matter how much training he does, his stamina is not htere these days.

IMO, Mike Tyson is one of the greatest heavyweight's ever, in history! For me, he cemented his place when he beat Michael Spinks. Regardless of his personal, Tyson is a legend, and no one can deny him that accolade!

I hope he finds peace within himself and enjoys the rest of his life. Poeple say Mike wil end up dead, in the gutter etc, I really hope this does not happen!

I reckon Mike would be a good trainer, some of you may disagree, but here's why I think this: Mike has great knowledge of Boxing, and learnt from the best in Cus D'Amato. Mike still knows what to do, and how to do it, but he cannot do it physically, anymore.

It is obvious he does not want to fight anymore, and he should not be forced into fighting.

Lastly, does anyone know if Jeff Fenech made any comments. Tyson should try and move abroad, maybe Australia. Him and his family should try and get away from America; it seems to me that he has not been happy living there over the years?

tyson didn't look in great shape, he had quite a lot of body fat, and looked generally a lot more flabby than usual, at 233 it wasn't like he would be in great shape.

[stujones]

Yes,

Teletext had him at 221 and I didn't read his actual weight untill after the fight - he looked in as bad a shape as he looked throughout his career and I was shocked when he took of his t shirt. He was hardly a teletubby but its usually very hard to guess his weight (since it has started to flucuate) just by looking at him. This time though, he looked bigger.

I do like title of this thread, really Tyson was completely finished when he first announced his retirement vs Golota. It was after then that he seemed to be more money driven with flucating weight and drab performance. Before then, any decline wasn't really accelarate by his lack of desire just age.

[steve689]

It's was sad to see the end of a ring legend but at 39 it is better it has happened now, while it was sad to see him lose to such a fighter as Kevin McBride i am glad he did because any wins over whatever level of opposition would have been papering over the cracks with huge Daily Telegraph broadsheet newspapers. Let's be serious, no matter how many times the gravy trainers (i'll coin that one!) insisted on trying to dupe us with "he is looking better than ever...training harder than before" etc it was widely known that this shell of a man was just Boxing to pay off debts. So long Mike, your career has been entertaining none the less but it's better you lose now and we can all move on....happy retirement

[barry]

I just noticed on the current forum chopping right stated that if you wanted an intelligent response to post in the British forum, which I have noticed he is completely right, so I won't yap like I do in the current forum. Anyway, this is how I feel about Tyson:

If Tyson would never have fought on past 1991, everyone, and I do mean everyone would have a vastly improved opinion of his career. The man has been past his prime for 15+ years, but he still managed to do fairly well among some decent heavyweights.

The last eight, or nine years have been very bad for Tyson, but then again, he was far from his prime, not to mention that he missed four years due to prison. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't as gifted as Ali and able to come back in the same manner that Ali did after three years. Very few atheletes have ever been able to come back after losing four years, actually none comes to mind, except Jack Blackburn when he was fighting, but that's all that I can think of.

I think that one of the problems now is that everyone thinks of all the things that Tyson did wrong without looking at the things he did right!

[Guest]

Losing to a white guy was the final straw, he is officialy done now.

I'll remember him for what he was, The Most Feared Man In The History Of The Sport.

He actually paralysed opponents with fear before even hitting them.

A Legend

I have some stories about him from some friends of mine who were in the King camp in his glory days.

One i remember, women would wait for him in the hotel lobby, several of them, they would get dolled up and hope he picked them to come up to his room, then they would attempt to have Mike impregnate them, it was similar to winning the lottery for these women.

Everyone of my friends who met him said he was incredibly nice and cool, they were a bit surprised by that because of his badass image.

[jeej]

Losing to a white guy was the final straw, he is officialy done now.

I'll remember him for what he was, The Most Feared Man In The History Of The Sport.

He actually paralysed opponents with fear before even hitting them.

A Legend

I have some stories about him from some friends of mine who were in the King camp in his glory days.

One i remember, women would wait for him in the hotel lobby, several of them, they would get dolled up and hope he picked them to come up to his room, then they would attempt to have Mike impregnate them, it was similar to winning the lottery for these women.

Everyone of my friends who met him said he was incredibly nice and cool, they were a bit surprised by that because of his badass image.

I love you too.

[Manos de Oro]

Sorry, whine coming up:

Sick of hearing about Tyson - for more than a day now he's had about 5 million words of copy plastered over every message board as well as the front news pages of Sky, Yahoo and CNN.

People, especially boxing fans, should be cheering for the fighters that pick themselves up after a (metaphoric) knockdown. Not ones who constantly fail to stabalize themselves and fornicate up chance after chance after chance, especially when they ain't even picking themselves up, but have continously gotten help being propped up by others!

He is taken off the NY streets and has the right body frame that D'Amato likes - does well to listen to the old man's instructions and is eager to learn. Deserves respect for this, and for getting himself in fighting shape.

Remember, though, that his rise to the Berbick fight was not about constantly taking fights at short notice, fighting other prospects, or going up against any real dangermen. Instead, the majority of his early rise was against the finest knock-over jobs of the 80's. Names you will see on many a recognisable fighter from that era's record: take a look at the records of Robert Colay, Conroy Nelson, Mark Young, Mike Jameson, etc. And the times he did step it up from that class, how many times was he the underdog? In fact, how many times was he the underdog throughout his career?

What about fighters like Bernard Hopkins? It's much, much harder for a person to pick themselves up from the gutter at age 22, than it is age 12. Not only that, but he fought hungry light heavyweights and even cruiserweights at a few hours notice, sometimes in places as intimidating as the Blue Horizon (where every crowd, was a 'knockout crowd').

Hop fights his way to a title shot, loses legitimately, then fights his way back and goes to the other guys hometown in the back of beyond, before grinding out a legitimate draw despite punching himself out in the early rounds!

Wins the title shortly after that, and hasn't lost since - in over a decade of hard training, clean living, and pristine body conditioning.

The sad thing is that he won't get anywhere near the copy Tyson has gotten should Taylor beat him in July - from official news sources or message board fans. He hasn't had any wealthy backers that helped launch him, or promo videos done of him that were sent to sports hacks around the US, or anyone like Don King who might have made an absurd claim to reverse a blatant loss in the immediate aftermath, should it have happened.

The pudendum has enjoyed a much more luxurious lifestyle than anyone here, and will continue to do so (look for him on chat/sports/lifestyle shows in the coming days/weeks). I'm at a loss to understand why people latch onto him and feel sorry - fornicate, he even admitted in the post fight interview the other night that the whole promotion had been a sham to get him money. Yep, I'll look for him in the bars and strip clubs flashing his green next time I'm in Vegas for what will be a real boxing match.

[KO Artist]

Losing to a white guy was the final straw, he is officialy done now.

I'll remember him for what he was, The Most Feared Man In The History Of The Sport.

He actually paralysed opponents with fear before even hitting them.

A Legend

I have some stories about him from some friends of mine who were in the King camp in his glory days.

One i remember, women would wait for him in the hotel lobby, several of them, they would get dolled up and hope he picked them to come up to his room, then they would attempt to have Mike impregnate them, it was similar to winning the lottery for these women.

Everyone of my friends who met him said he was incredibly nice and cool, they were a bit surprised by that because of his badass image.

I love you too.

I dont want to turn this into a black/white thing.

But the best HW in the world is white

[DavidPayne]

Manos on the money.

Just add in that he never fought Bowe, Mercer, Foreman, Briggs, Moorer, Tua, Byrd, Klitschko and plenty of other fighters who may have hit him back like Morrison and Witherspoon.

Just add that he never got off the floor to win.

Just add that he only fought Holyfield because he thought he was shot.

And you have his career just about summed up.

[Kilburn]

I dont want to turn this into a black/white thing.

But the best HW in the world is white

I think what he means is a typical white heavyweight in McBride, i.e a shit heavyweight.

[stujones]

Manos on the money.

Just add in that he never fought Bowe, Mercer, Foreman, Briggs, Moorer, Tua, Byrd, Klitschko and plenty of other fighters who may have hit him back like Morrison and Witherspoon.

Just add that he never got off the floor to win.

Just add that he only fought Holyfield because he thought he was shot.

And you have his career just about summed up.

I think that is a little harsh for two reasons.

1) I see his great career as 1985-1991 (short I do appreciate) I treat everything he achieved after jail as a bonus.

2) You've listed some fighters there, but come on during his first championship reign he fought and destroyed many fighters who were alot better than some on that list. Okay, you can say Bowe, Klitchsko and possibly Tua and Byrd. However, the rest? What about Pinklon Thomas (very underated fighter), Michael Spinks, Larry Holmes, Bonecrusher Smith Tony Tucker, Bruno, Rudduck. You cannot really say Shannon Briggs, Ray Mercer and good old George (at that age) was better than these? If you are saying Mercer, Briggs, Tua and Foreman because of their power - then look no further than Bonecrusher Smith who (IMO) is as powerful as any of those with the exception of Foreman.

The ONLY threatening fighter he didn't face was Tim Witherspoon. That fight should have happend. Of course, it was scheduled untill Witherspoon lost to late sub Bonecrusher Smith.

[Graham Brett]

Tyson is one of the greats, he fought good opposition.

Tucker was an excellent fighter, and in his prime was as good, if not better than the likes of Eddie Machen, and Ernie Terrell.

Pinklon Thomas was another tremendously skilled fighter when he fought Tyson, as was Tony Tubbs and Carl Williams

Larry Holmes was 38 when he fought Tyson, but at 42 Holmes gave Evander Holyfield a very tough nights works.

Micheal Spinks had excellent credentials and was a better HW than Roy Jones or James Toney was.

Look what Tyson did to all these guys.

At best they looked average against Tyson, but they could have given a few of anyones top ten nightmares.

Tyson is easily in my all time HW top 10.

and in 5 years, he will be straight into Canastota

[jab]

Manos on the money.

Just add in that he never fought Bowe, Mercer, Foreman, Briggs, Moorer, Tua, Byrd, Klitschko and plenty of other fighters who may have hit him back like Morrison and Witherspoon.

Just add that he never got off the floor to win.

Just add that he only fought Holyfield because he thought he was shot.

And you have his career just about summed up.

Also Maskaev, McCall, Akinwande and Ibeabuchi. Basically except for what he thought was a washed up Holyfield, he managed to avoid all decent heavyweights of the 90s.

Spinks was a washed up fatest fight weight former lt-hv who didnt fight in a year and showed up in bad shape, retired after the lousy effort. This was 3 years after he beat Holmes and wasnt the same fighter. Take a year off and then come in rusty and fat to fight a vicious puncher and see what happens. Not a representative fight by Spinks.

Holmes: 38 years old, had a two year retirement and was coming back after two losses to fight Mike Tyson. Again, a former champ dragged out from a retirement to be fed to Tyson. Again, this Holmes was a shadow of his former self and only had a 2 week training camp. Not a representative fight by Holmes.

Frank Bruno: coming after 1.5 years of inactivity to fight Mike. Already koed twice. Has anybody taken an 18 months layoff then come back to fight a champion and performed well? How he even got the fight? He certainly didnt deserve it coming right out from a semi retirement. He didnt fight anybody for the right to challenge Tyson. Would have done him good, as some of the rust would have come off.

Some of the most celebrated Tyson victories were over long inactive sacrificial lambs.

He had some genuine victories too, but he also got fed some good and former great fighters coming after very long lay offs, straight into a fight with the champ. They were set up for a fall as no one comes from such long inactivity and has any prayer of beating an active reigning champ.

And people say the 90s were bad or our modern champions fight undeserving challengers.

[steve689]

Sorry, whine coming up:

Sick of hearing about Tyson - for more than a day now he's had about 5 million words of copy plastered over every message board as well as the front news pages of Sky, Yahoo and CNN.

People, especially boxing fans, should be cheering for the fighters that pick themselves up after a (metaphoric) knockdown. Not ones who constantly fail to stabalize themselves and fornicate up chance after chance after chance, especially when they ain't even picking themselves up, but have continously gotten help being propped up by others!

He is taken off the NY streets and has the right body frame that D'Amato likes - does well to listen to the old man's instructions and is eager to learn. Deserves respect for this, and for getting himself in fighting shape.

Remember, though, that his rise to the Berbick fight was not about constantly taking fights at short notice, fighting other prospects, or going up against any real dangermen. Instead, the majority of his early rise was against the finest knock-over jobs of the 80's. Names you will see on many a recognisable fighter from that era's record: take a look at the records of Robert Colay, Conroy Nelson, Mark Young, Mike Jameson, etc. And the times he did step it up from that class, how many times was he the underdog? In fact, how many times was he the underdog throughout his career?

What about fighters like Bernard Hopkins? It's much, much harder for a person to pick themselves up from the gutter at age 22, than it is age 12. Not only that, but he fought hungry light heavyweights and even cruiserweights at a few hours notice, sometimes in places as intimidating as the Blue Horizon (where every crowd, was a 'knockout crowd').

Hop fights his way to a title shot, loses legitimately, then fights his way back and goes to the other guys hometown in the back of beyond, before grinding out a legitimate draw despite punching himself out in the early rounds!

Wins the title shortly after that, and hasn't lost since - in over a decade of hard training, clean living, and pristine body conditioning.

The sad thing is that he won't get anywhere near the copy Tyson has gotten should Taylor beat him in July - from official news sources or message board fans. He hasn't had any wealthy backers that helped launch him, or promo videos done of him that were sent to sports hacks around the US, or anyone like Don King who might have made an absurd claim to reverse a blatant loss in the immediate aftermath, should it have happened.

The pudendum has enjoyed a much more luxurious lifestyle than anyone here, and will continue to do so (look for him on chat/sports/lifestyle shows in the coming days/weeks). I'm at a loss to understand why people latch onto him and feel sorry - fornicate, he even admitted in the post fight interview the other night that the whole promotion had been a sham to get him money. Yep, I'll look for him in the bars and strip clubs flashing his green next time I'm in Vegas for what will be a real boxing match.

Manos i think you are one of the most sensible posters out there, i agree with almost everything in this post...while i think Tyson did a good job on the guys he fought early on, none were really anything other than cannon fodder. However Tyson has had more than enough opportunities to make good his bad living and mistakes and has never done so.

Perhaps one of the main reasons people side with him (and some even collect funds for him despite the fact he has probably pissed away hundreds of millions of dollars) is due to fact that he has always come across behind the mask as a scared little boy, people seem to feel sorry for him if anything as he has often shown this weaker more vulnerable aspect to his character...personally i think it will only be a long hard road from now on for him, where he goes now is anyones guess although prison and an early grave are both sad possibilities.

[Manos de Oro]

Manos i think you are one of the most sensible posters out there, i agree with almost everything in this post...while i think Tyson did a good job on the guys he fought early on, none were really anything other than cannon fodder. However Tyson has had more than enough opportunities to make good his bad living and mistakes and has never done so.

Perhaps one of the main reasons people side with him (and some even collect funds for him despite the fact he has probably pissed away hundreds of millions of dollars) is due to fact that he has always come across behind the mask as a scared little boy, people seem to feel sorry for him if anything as he has often shown this weaker more vulnerable aspect to his character...personally i think it will only be a long hard road from now on for him, where he goes now is anyones guess although prison and an early grave are both sad possibilities.

Thanks for the kind words, Steve, I think the same of your posts. And I agree fully that that persona we see in interviews and at press conferences is the reason most people find the need to empathise with him.

I have grave suspicions we might see him turn up in an Indiana/Dixie ring sometime in the future.

[Shirow]

My money would be on him next seen being brutalised by Bob "who injected all the steroids?" Sapp in K1.

But to be honest i don't really care

[Kilburn]

Hah c'mon mate the wind from one of Tyson's hooks would get Sapp out of there. He's terrible.

[kevo]

Bobb Sapps a joke. Has any one seen his fight with the Sumo wrestler? Admittedly he was big (bigger than Sapp), but Tyson hits a lot harder than any Sumo wrestlers, and Sapp was rocked by him.

Tyson gets slated for being a 3-4 round fighter, but Sapp is a 1 round fighter at best!

Incidently, did anyone see Butterbean on K1? Taps out against some asian fella who must weigh as much as one of his legs!

[Shirow]

I never saw the fight but can you really say any 300+lb fighter has no chance with Tyson nowadays?

Sapp is a joke i agree but he's much bigger and stronger than McBride.

His stamina makes Tyson look like a Kipketer too. I remember seeing one of his bouts where he came out throwing (and missing) about 5 big bombs then very nearly collapsed from exhaustion. I'm not exaggerating.

I did see that tiny Japanese guy against Butterbean. He was literally sprinting around the ring perimeter for about a round and a half then dived for one of fatboys legs got a lock on and it was all over.

Very amusing.

[Goz]

At the end of his career he quit on his stool. What a pussy. So that's feigning leg injuries, biting your opponent, how many more ways to quit? I suppose he took his thrashings from Lennox, Holyfield (the first time) and Douglas but even so, Tyson's image has protected him from far more criticism than it would other fighters.

Whenever Tyson got hit back he lost, the stereotypical bully.

[stujones]

Agree with all of that post Goz, apart from the feigning of that leg injury. He complained when he was on top and only a few seconds after he had Danny all at sea.

Other than that, I do agree. Still a great fighter to watch in his prime though.

[Shirow]

I knew i'd find one. When i couldn't find this phrase on a current scene thread i almost lost hope.

This gem, posted yesterday, is from one of the geniuses at Eastside...

mikes, biggest problem are his legs,mike could be the champ again, his hand speed is there, i boxed for over 25 years now and its all in his legs,im almost he same age as mike , and ive always had strongfootwork but as ive gotten older ive had to work extra harrd to maintain footwork and most days i still dont have it ,i really believe that its the first thing to go in a boxer , and lookin, at mike its obvios mikes legs are like 2 cynder blocks , just look at the tapes ,he was acrooss the ring in seconds, and he wasnt running that was all legs and how quickly he would duck a punch and come up with a devastating punch , 90% legs but he has lost it big time he needs to slim down through calestics or mabey a boot camp of some sort it wouldnt be easy but the truth is hes gotten lazy i wish he could somehow read this . he says he still loves boxing and i believe him. its been a big part of his life, bt you cannot live boxing 12 weeks a year and expect to be good, let alone , the best but anyone whohas seen mike fight in the past would be a fool to think that mike is finished he will be back and people still pay to see him . i have mike ranked as second best fighter of all time he would have outslugged foreman, louis ,and marciano easily frazier would have been a little tougher . but ali was too smart and too fast oh yeah , and ali had the ultimate footwork.
13.06.05 @ 14:53:56

[KO Artist]

I knew i'd find one. When i couldn't find this phrase on a current scene thread i almost lost hope.

This gem, posted yesterday, is from one of the geniuses at Eastside...

mikes, biggest problem are his legs,mike could be the champ again, his hand speed is there, i boxed for over 25 years now and its all in his legs,im almost he same age as mike , and ive always had strongfootwork but as ive gotten older ive had to work extra harrd to maintain footwork and most days i still dont have it ,i really believe that its the first thing to go in a boxer , and lookin, at mike its obvios mikes legs are like 2 cynder blocks , just look at the tapes ,he was acrooss the ring in seconds, and he wasnt running that was all legs and how quickly he would duck a punch and come up with a devastating punch , 90% legs but he has lost it big time he needs to slim down through calestics or mabey a boot camp of some sort it wouldnt be easy but the truth is hes gotten lazy i wish he could somehow read this . he says he still loves boxing and i believe him. its been a big part of his life, bt you cannot live boxing 12 weeks a year and expect to be good, let alone , the best but anyone whohas seen mike fight in the past would be a fool to think that mike is finished he will be back and people still pay to see him . i have mike ranked as second best fighter of all time he would have outslugged foreman, louis ,and marciano easily frazier would have been a little tougher . but ali was too smart and too fast oh yeah , and ali had the ultimate footwork.
13.06.05 @ 14:53:56

I'm very pro Tyson, but words cant describe this post.

Tyson is more shot than Ali was when he fought Berbick.

Tyson must not fight again.