Tyson in 86

[Bricks]

Tyson fought a hell of a schedule in 1986 sometimes fighting as much as twice a month.

But there were 3-4 pointless fights in my opinion.

Merely squash matches.

I know Mike himself always desired tougher meat during this period when he seemed on fire with rage and had those mysterious bald patches i always felt (but which were never proven) were symptomatic of steroid use during his early couple of years as a HW.

I read a KO magazine interview in 86 where MIke said he beleived he should be put in with Mike Weaver. He also had a cancelled fight with Carl Williams during this time.

I have identified the following 4 matches as pointless ones (zouski, Ratliff,Hosea and Gross) which given a few of them were well spaced out could and should have been replaced with more demanding ones).....I must admit part of this is my desire to have 1986 Tyson to have an even more complete legacy.....so I would ask which 4 opponents would you have had Tyson fight instead??

Starting from the earliest slot in 86 to the latest list the 4.

Mine would be ......Jimmy Young......James Broad.......Carl Williams.....Mike Weaver...

[Goodnight, Irene]

Great way to risk derailing him, my Oxford-educated genius.

A goldfish could put together whats wrong with your match-making.

[loaded_gloves]

I know Mike himself always desired tougher meat during this period when he seemed on fire with rage and had those mysterious bald patches i always felt (but which were never proven) were symptomatic of steroid use during his early couple of years as a HW.

Oh God the steroid accusations never end on this forum. These were stress-related bald patches, very common. You can even get them in your beard/stubble. Totally large, circular bald patches that aren't even permanent.

Tyson was under huge pressure and public spotlight in 86. The stress must have been unimaginable.

[klompton]

I know Mike himself always desired tougher meat during this period when he seemed on fire with rage and had those mysterious bald patches i always felt (but which were never proven) were symptomatic of steroid use during his early couple of years as a HW.

Oh God the steroid accusations never end on this forum. These were stress-related bald patches, very common. You can even get them in your beard/stubble. Totally large, circular bald patches that aren't even permanent.

Tyson was under huge pressure and public spotlight in 86. The stress must have been unimaginable.

Exactly, this is well documented. Its one thing for someone like Holyfield to lose his hair in a natural pattern seemingly overnight after having gained 20 pounds plus of solid ripped muscle on an already lithe frame while training with known steroid abuser MR. Olympia Lee Haney (Especially in hindsight when Mr Fields got popped buying Roids "for his uncle" ) but its entirely another to have a small bald patch on your scalp as a 20 year old who was always big and unusually developed for his age. Particularly when that bald patch grows back, something you wont see from steroids...

[loaded_gloves]

When exactly did Holyfield gain 20lbs of solid muscle? And since when did he lose his hair over night?

Also, losing your hair in your 30s is pretty common. My friends in their late 20s are already receding. And Holyfield didn't lose it all, he clearly shaves it as you can see he still has hair at the back & sides when it grows out.

Tyson was unnaturally big when he was 14. His mother was huge and his older brother was around 300lbs. Jimmy Stewart, a grown man, former amateur boxer and the first guy to train Tyson when he was 13 or 14 in young offenders was amazed by how big and powerful he already was. Like he told Cus and co in private "I really have to hit him to keep him off me".

Were they feeding Tyson roids in young offenders too?

[klompton]

In 8 months in 1988 Holyfield gained twenty pounds of solid muscle. Have you ever been into bodybuilding? I can tell you trying to gain 5 pounds of solid, lean muscle, when you are already a lean, elite athlete participating in an endurance sport is extremely difficult. Twenty pounds? Get real. Its one thing to add muscle quickly if you are out of shape or never lifted, its entirely another to already be a top flight athlete who is known for being ripped and do it, especially while taking part in one of the most cardio intensive sports in the world. Keep in mind the guy was already 28 so he wasnt exactly going through puberty and he didnt exactly put on the middle age spread like weve seen so many other boxers who jumped in weight as they aged. Then factor in that his hair started to fall out as he approached his highest, most muscular weight to date (Bowe 2) and then the sudden "heart troubles," size and strength training with steroid users, and of course the fact that he was caught red handed later on. So... youre argument is what exactly? Its not like Holyfield has a problem bending the rules to get ahead. Even Qawi felt Holyfield was on something way back before he went to HW. Here was a guy who was known for having bad stamina as a 3 round amateur who went one of the hardest fifteen rounds ever just 1.5 years after turning pro in only his 12th fight after never having gone more than 8 rounds... Do I think Holyfield took PEDs? Not a doubt in my mind.

Thats all a far cry from Tyson suffering a patch of hair loss due to stress that actually grew back not to mention the fact that his weight stayed in the same range for the vast majority of his career.

[Brutu]

What fight was he meanest?
I think he looked mean in the bonecrusher fight.

[Bricks]

Great way to risk derailing him, my Oxford-educated genius.

A goldfish could put together whats wrong with your match-making.

U honestly think any of these 4 could have derailed him my Heartbreak High-educated genius.

I think Young was too old, Broad too fat, Williams an accident waiting to happen with a left hook machine like Tyson. Weaver admittedly had the firepower and strength to greatly test Tysons chin late 86 but that Tyson wouldnt have been hit and if he was he would have fought back and won

[Bricks]

BTW sorry if i kicked up a storm with the Tyson bald patches comment. Id be at pains to say nothing was proven so MIke was clean his whole career.

[loaded_gloves]

In 8 months in 1988 Holyfield gained twenty pounds of solid muscle. Have you ever been into bodybuilding? I can tell you trying to gain 5 pounds of solid, lean muscle, when you are already a lean, elite athlete participating in an endurance sport is extremely difficult. Twenty pounds? Get real.

But he DIDN'T gain 20 lbs of muscle! You have made the mistake of assuming his cruiserweight 190lbs was his natural, walk around weight. Like ALL fighters, he had to work his way DOWN to that weight. By 1988 his walk around weight between fights was 200lb+.

Moving up to heavyweight freed him from having to drain himself to cruiserweight, and allowed him to start adding mass. Why on earth people assume Holyfield's natural weight was 190 is absolutely beyond me. It goes against every other fighter making weight in every other division.

Did anyone think Joe Calzaghe would stay at 168 between fights as that was his actual weight? The guy would walk around at 180! Did Oscar de la hoya walk around at 154? No!

Add to the fact in 22 years of boxing at heavy, Holyfield has never failed one single drug test. Frans Botha and James Toney failed drugs tests pretty damn quickly.

[Goodnight, Irene]

Great way to risk derailing him, my Oxford-educated genius.

A goldfish could put together whats wrong with your match-making.

U honestly think any of these 4 could have derailed him my Heartbreak High-educated genius.

I think Young was too old, Broad too fat, Williams an accident waiting to happen with a left hook machine like Tyson. Weaver admittedly had the firepower and strength to greatly test Tysons chin late 86 but that Tyson wouldnt have been hit and if he was he would have fought back and won

Smart move betting his unbeaten record on that

[klompton]

In 8 months in 1988 Holyfield gained twenty pounds of solid muscle. Have you ever been into bodybuilding? I can tell you trying to gain 5 pounds of solid, lean muscle, when you are already a lean, elite athlete participating in an endurance sport is extremely difficult. Twenty pounds? Get real.

But he DIDN'T gain 20 lbs of muscle! You have made the mistake of assuming his cruiserweight 190lbs was his natural, walk around weight. Like ALL fighters, he had to work his way DOWN to that weight. By 1988 his walk around weight between fights was 200lb+.

Moving up to heavyweight freed him from having to drain himself to cruiserweight, and allowed him to start adding mass. Why on earth people assume Holyfield's natural weight was 190 is absolutely beyond me. It goes against every other fighter making weight in every other division.

Did anyone think Joe Calzaghe would stay at 168 between fights as that was his actual weight? The guy would walk around at 180! Did Oscar de la hoya walk around at 154? No!

Add to the fact in 22 years of boxing at heavy, Holyfield has never failed one single drug test. Frans Botha and James Toney failed drugs tests pretty damn quickly.

Holyfield turned pro at 177 and only weighed 190 for two fights before he went up to HW. Its naive to think he trained down 20 to 30 pounds or more (as if he walked around with that much excess weight, Ive met the man in person and hes always in shape) and then suddenly started fighting at HW at his walking around weight. Thats ridiculous. What did he do, stop all cardio so as not to lose an ounce of weight? He had to train up to get to a decent HW size. Thats well documented and I have footage of him doing so, include pumping iron with Haney. So please, spare me the "he was fighting at his natural weight argument".

As for the failed test argument thats as weak as it can be. Are tests infallible? No. Did Mosely ever fail a test? No. Barry Bonds? No. Mark McGuire? No. Testing was rudimentary at best in that era and thats if indeed a commission was testing at all, something most will freely admit was not done. Furthermore, and again speaking in that era, a loading phase was designed to be out of your system by the time any testing would be done without hampering the benefits the PEDs had on your body. Furthermore you keep skirting the issue that Holyfield was indeed caught buying steroids. You sound like the naive baseball fans who for years argued that those home run kings with massive legs, big asses, forearms like canned hams, and gorilla jaw muscles were the product of evolution (over the course of a lifetime LOL) and not something nefarious.

[BoxBuzz]

Maybe he purchased them for the purpose of careful study, in order to be educated as to just how one avoids such things.

Makes perfect sense.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Holyfield. out of the kindness of his heart, allowed a homeless man to stay in his mansion. This man went by the name of Evan Fields and he repaid the Holy ones kindness by trying to purchase steroids from his home. It's outlandish that Evander be held responsible for Fields actions. Shame on you Klompton.

[loaded_gloves]

That was just a trashy tabloid article that never went anywhere and vanished from trace. The same news outlet published a story about Holyfield having testicles like small peanuts.

Tell Botha and Toney how easy it is to cheat the steroid tests.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

It's incredibly easy to beat steroid testing in sports. You act like they even bother to tests for most fights. Boxing is probably the worst of any of them. It's extremely naive to think that even the tiniest fraction of users get caught. I don't really care, it's so wide spread in athletes over the last couple decades that I couldn't begin to guess on which athletes have done PED's and which ones haven't.

Evander is my second favorite fighter in history. And this is the man whose help he enlisted to bulk up to Heavyweight.

[klompton]

Oh bullshit! If it was just a trashy tabloid article why did Holyfield respond to it publicly trying to say he was buying the steroids for his uncle? You keep living in denial and ill make sure you get a real nice price on that bridge I have for sale...

[loaded_gloves]

Oh Christ... I'm just going to address you all at once. Lets agree to disagree - nothing I can say will change your mind & likewise nothing you can say will change my mind. But if you're going to come out with these wild accusations based on your perception rather than established fact then the burden of proof is on you, not on me.

You can't keep claiming steroids tests are easy to cheat when guys like Botha and Toney and other champs we can name failed them. So Holyfield lifted weights with this weight lifter who took steroids? You are not guilty by association. I work in the media, serious coke heads on a daily basis - yet I have never taken coke. Frans Botha and Oba Carr trained extensively with Panama Lewis but were never revealed to be boxing with illegal loaded gloves. Mike Tyson used Don King for his business acumen but never stomped a man to death. I've got a picture of Frank Bruno shaking hands with the Yorkshire Ripper but Big Frank never clubbed any hookers to death in the pale moon light (or at least have never been convicted of doing so).

If you best thing you can grasp is the Boxrec record which you misinterpret as reading that he was a natural 190lb man who boxed at 190lb and then by the end of 1988 he weight 208 then your reasoning is flawed. If you're going to cite Mosley or Barry Bonds who were publicly disgraced and had to own up when nothing of the sort has ever happened to Holyfield then again your reasoning is flawed. That trashy article led to nothing. Guess what, the biggest news paper in England said on their front page Freddie Starr ate a hamster. It never actually happened in reality, but the press reported it as if it happened. And yet you cling to some shitty internet article where the same outlet also published the credible story 'Holyfield has balls the same size as peanuts'.

Christ, Razor Ruddock went from 180 to 240 lbs and he was the most vociferous, aggressive challenger of steroids of all the 90s heavyweights. The powerhouse who gained by far the mosty weight was extremely paranoid of his opponents using PEDs and submitted himself to all steroids tests and demanded his opponents do the same. This clean man went from 180 to 240. A growing boy, a huge strong man, but never failed any test and was extremely vocal on steroids.

This is all a waste of time but ultimately I feel umcomfortable coming onto a website and accusing people I have no connection with or doing things I have zero proof of. Obviously that makes me a freak round here, but reading what you guys say I'm happy about that.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

[bollox]

I read somewhere that a certain 'Evan Fields' name appeared on some paperwork at whatever institution was linked to the steroids issue of a few years ago. I also read that when the number was called, a certain 'Evander Holyfield' answered the phone. hmmmm

[loaded_gloves]

That story is according to the same outlet who then published a story saying 'Holyfield has balls like peanuts'. They didn't seem a very credible source, unlike say when Mosley was outed or Barry Bonds or Dwain Chambers and it was a major thing.

[Bricks]

I know Mike himself always desired tougher meat during this period when he seemed on fire with rage and had those mysterious bald patches i always felt (but which were never proven) were symptomatic of steroid use during his early couple of years as a HW.

Oh God the steroid accusations never end on this forum. These were stress-related bald patches, very common. You can even get them in your beard/stubble. Totally large, circular bald patches that aren't even permanent.

Tyson was under huge pressure and public spotlight in 86. The stress must have been unimaginable.

Exactly, this is well documented. Its one thing for someone like Holyfield to lose his hair in a natural pattern seemingly overnight after having gained 20 pounds plus of solid ripped muscle on an already lithe frame while training with known steroid abuser MR. Olympia Lee Haney (Especially in hindsight when Mr Fields got popped buying Roids "for his uncle" ) but its entirely another to have a small bald patch on your scalp as a 20 year old who was always big and unusually developed for his age. Particularly when that bald patch grows back, something you wont see from steroids...

Agree with all your posts here 100%.
A lot of guys start to experience thinning hair in late 20s or once they hit 30.
The way Holyfield put on lean muscle in such a cardio intense sport like boxing was incredible. I have no idea if steroids were employed though, but from 20 years of having around bodu building gyms id be shocked if they werent. But like i say I have no evidence so wont make any accusations.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Mosley? He never failed a drug test. According to you that makes him innocent. After all, he has passed the rigorous drug testing in the sport of Boxing. You know, the same sport that the WBC just forgot to drug test after the Chavez/Rubio fight?

You're a knowledgeable guy on the sport. In this thread you sound like some dude whose women cheats on him in front of everyone but he just won't accept the reality.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Oh God the steroid accusations never end on this forum. These were stress-related bald patches, very common. You can even get them in your beard/stubble. Totally large, circular bald patches that aren't even permanent.

Tyson was under huge pressure and public spotlight in 86. The stress must have been unimaginable.

Exactly, this is well documented. Its one thing for someone like Holyfield to lose his hair in a natural pattern seemingly overnight after having gained 20 pounds plus of solid ripped muscle on an already lithe frame while training with known steroid abuser MR. Olympia Lee Haney (Especially in hindsight when Mr Fields got popped buying Roids "for his uncle" ) but its entirely another to have a small bald patch on your scalp as a 20 year old who was always big and unusually developed for his age. Particularly when that bald patch grows back, something you wont see from steroids...

Agree with all your posts here 100%.
A lot of guys start to experience thinning hair in late 20s or once they hit 30.
The way Holyfield put on lean muscle in such a cardio intense sport like boxing was incredible. I have no idea if steroids were employed though, but from 20 years of having around bodu building gyms id be shocked if they werent. But like i say I have no evidence so wont make any accusations.

I remember the article in SI about Evander's regimen to bulk up, another thing Loaded is way off base on, and he was doing sets of 360 on the bench and jumping up and off of big cinder blocks in between sets. I can't pretend to remember it word by word, but the program Lee had him on was insane. It's been a long time since I've read it, but I think he had just started lifting weights with Haney.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Wrong on Haney orchestrating everything.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm


A year ago, when Holyfield began his run for Tyson's title, he could bench-press 190 pounds. "Today he's 33 percent stronger than he was last year," says Tim Hallmark, Holyfield's physical-fitness guru. "He does 10 repetitions with 360 pounds after his pulse rate has risen to 180 or 190 beats per minute. A football player can do 360 pounds, but that is with his normal heart rate. If you get his heart rate up to 180 or 190 and tell him to do 360, he'll look at you like you're crazy. There is a tremendous strength decrease [as the heart rate increases]. He won't be able to do it."

Hallmark, a former triathlete who also swam for the University of Houston, believes that Holyfield is the finest endurance athlete in the world. Holyfield's celebrated workouts are a carefully monitored combination of cardiovascular exercise and resistance weight training—an unusual regimen for a boxer. Every phase of the workout is done with Hallmark constantly checking Holyfield's pulse.

"He is a beautiful blend of strength, endurance and flexibility," says Hallmark. "Strength without flexibility is debilitating for a fighter. There is a cost in hand speed and punching accuracy. Holyfield trains the same as a triathlete or a 10-kilometer runner, but he also trains the same as a football player to get endurance and strength."

In one exercise, Holyfield spends 12 minutes jumping with his feet together on and off a 2�-foot-high block. Over those 12 minutes, says Hallmark, he will jump more than a basketball player does in an entire game. Holyfield's heart rate will hit 220, the same point it reaches at the end of three minutes of fighting. During the one-minute rest period between rounds, Holyfield's heart rate will fall as low as 130.

"Going back to the corner, Evander's heart rate and his opponent's are probably the same," says Hallmark. "But if you put them on a graph, the opponent's drop between rounds will be a gentle slope. Evander's is like falling from a cliff. His recovery is amazing."

The body fat of a lean heavyweight is usually around 10%. Holyfield carries between 207 and 210 pounds with a 31-inch waist, and his body fat is 7.8%. The more fat a fighter lugs around, the quicker fatigue sets in. "Strength is not bulk," says Hallmark. "This guy is so strong yet so lean, he has a tremendous advantage."