Mike Tyson is so overrated by casual fans

[SaadOffTheDeck]

His timing certainly was off. There is no shape like actual Boxing. I don't see the later version winning, but he probably goes the distance.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Tyson just had a short prime, mainly because he couldn't handle the fame, money and women he attracted. He was a street thug who hit the big time and couldn't hack it. Not taking anything away from Douglas but no way Tyson was properly prepared or taking Douglas seriously. Before he started loading up on his punches he would give any fighter in history a tough fight, I can't see anyone easily beating him.

I don't think he gets enough credit for beating Holmes. Lets not forget after losing to Tyson, Holmes fought another 24 times, going 21-3 only losing to Holyfield (aged 42), McCall (aged 45) and a disputed loss to the undefeated Brian Nielsen (aged 47). He was never stopped again, beat the undefeated Ray Mercer quite handily four years after the Tyson loss and had two more cracks at the world title losing on points to Holyfield and McCall much later in life. Even though Holmes was 38 he was still a good fighter, as proved by his career afterwards, and not many fighters could've flattened Holmes like Tyson did.

I agree with most everything you said.
Except Holmes had a two year layoff and took this fight on short notice. Holmes who is one of my favorite fightets. Would of still lost at 38 but I think with a few tune ups and a longer camp would of made it a more competitive bout.

Tyson was a beast. He would of given any champion in history a tough fight. Top 20 for sure. Those that have him on the top 10 have a legitimate argument

I agree with both the above posts. Tyson flattened Holmes in a way nobody else ever did, but Holmes own pride got the better of him, and he believed he could just come out of retirement train for a couple of months, and beat Tyson - which was foolish.

I also agree that a fit and focussed Tyson would have given any heavyweight in history serious problems. He was always mentally fragile, however, he was so quick, and hard hitting, and lest people forget, hard to hit at his best.

Tyson looked lethargic and docile going into the Douglas fight, his mind was clearly elsewhere - that's not an excuse, part of Tyson's weakness was that his out of the ring life was chaotic, and he couldn't keep his shite together - that's who he was, and that's that. Clearly though Tyson was not fighting to his strengths in the Douglas fight. He was already in decline by that stage, and would never be the same fighter he'd been before the loss.

I wonder what would have happened if Holyfield had met Tyson when they were originally supposed to meet. Holyfield got injured, and then Mike went to Jail before the fight could be mind, if memory serves me correctly. Holy hadn't grown into a proper heavyweight by that stage, and had looked a little shaky in his early heavyweight fights. We will never know.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Tyson just had a short prime, mainly because he couldn't handle the fame, money and women he attracted. He was a street thug who hit the big time and couldn't hack it. Not taking anything away from Douglas but no way Tyson was properly prepared or taking Douglas seriously. Before he started loading up on his punches he would give any fighter in history a tough fight, I can't see anyone easily beating him.

I don't think he gets enough credit for beating Holmes. Lets not forget after losing to Tyson, Holmes fought another 24 times, going 21-3 only losing to Holyfield (aged 42), McCall (aged 45) and a disputed loss to the undefeated Brian Nielsen (aged 47). He was never stopped again, beat the undefeated Ray Mercer quite handily four years after the Tyson loss and had two more cracks at the world title losing on points to Holyfield and McCall much later in life. Even though Holmes was 38 he was still a good fighter, as proved by his career afterwards, and not many fighters could've flattened Holmes like Tyson did.

I agree with most everything you said.
Except Holmes had a two year layoff and took this fight on short notice. Holmes who is one of my favorite fightets. Would of still lost at 38 but I think with a few tune ups and a longer camp would of made it a more competitive bout.

Tyson was a beast. He would of given any champion in history a tough fight. Top 20 for sure. Those that have him on the top 10 have a legitimate argument

Sure a few warm ups wouldn't have hurt him but he was given two months notice so not massively short notice. It's not as if the fight went a number of rounds and Holmes tired, he was knocked out. I'm not so sure I believe Holmes that he was physically underprepared, he has an ego the size of a house and the aura around Tyson with the chance of regaining the title make me think he wouldn't have not trained properly. I think Tyson would've beaten him whatever condition Holmes was in. I agree Tyson was a nightmare for any HW champ in history.

I don't think a 38+ year old Holmes was going to beat a peak Tyson, but he might have done better if he'd had a tune up or two before Tyson. He was just that bit off with the jab, and was leaving holes for Mike to exploit.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Tyson pulled out of the holyfield fight, not evander.

[Evander]

I could buy somebody telling me a select group of boxers could out smart Mike Tyson at various points in his career.
The big argument for me is how would they have coped with the prime Tyson, which went on for at least a couple of years.
Evander Lennox and Riddick were among the opposition but they all came at different times in Tysons career.
I've always thought that if you took a prime Holyfield,Lewis or Bowe against a prime Tyson ... Tyson would win.
If you based it off career achievements it's against him.

[Undefeated49-0]

Everyone knows he was down longer than 10 seconds, you're not bringing forth a revelation. That doesn't make it a ko, the ref counting 10 does. As I said, there is no evidence to indicate Douglas would not have gotten up if the count was proper.

What a contradiction you have here, first you say this: Everyone knows he was down longer than 10 seconds,

Then you say this: there is no evidence to indicate Douglas would not have gotten up

You just stated that "EVERYONE" but then you said there isn't any evidence. Hello, he was down for more than 10 seconds, duh

Nobody questioned that he was down for more than ten seconds, everyone but you knows it doesn't matter. No contradiction at all, complete consistency in every word.

My point wasn't whether it mattered or not, you're the jughead that came here contradicting yourself idiot.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Ok sweetheart, you do your thing.

[gilgamesh]

My point wasn't whether it mattered or not, you're the jughead that came here contradicting yourself idiot.

Buster Douglas could've risen at the count of 5. He stayed down until the count of 9 to gather himself it's clear to see from the video footage that he could've gotten up basically as soon as he went down. He played it smart and stayed down to get his senses back. Anybody should be able to see that. He hits the canvas, and is clearly alert just seconds after hitting the canvas.

[Taansend]

Look at the clock on YT (counter bottom left) and take notice when Douglas hits the canvas and you'll be able to clearly tell he was down for at least 12 seconds.

He hits the deck at 3:31 according to the YT clock on the seconds for the time track on this video and is actually standing by 3: 45, in reality it is 14 seconds but he was getting up by 13 seconds, go count it for yourself.

It doesn't matter if he was down for 40 seconds, as long as he beat the refs count of 10.

This

[Wales]

I agree with most everything you said.
Except Holmes had a two year layoff and took this fight on short notice. Holmes who is one of my favorite fightets. Would of still lost at 38 but I think with a few tune ups and a longer camp would of made it a more competitive bout.

Tyson was a beast. He would of given any champion in history a tough fight. Top 20 for sure. Those that have him on the top 10 have a legitimate argument

Sure a few warm ups wouldn't have hurt him but he was given two months notice so not massively short notice. It's not as if the fight went a number of rounds and Holmes tired, he was knocked out. I'm not so sure I believe Holmes that he was physically underprepared, he has an ego the size of a house and the aura around Tyson with the chance of regaining the title make me think he wouldn't have not trained properly. I think Tyson would've beaten him whatever condition Holmes was in. I agree Tyson was a nightmare for any HW champ in history.

I don't think a 38+ year old Holmes was going to beat a peak Tyson, but he might have done better if he'd had a tune up or two before Tyson. He was just that bit off with the jab, and was leaving holes for Mike to exploit.

Don King went to Holmes house and said "Ive got you a fight against someone i know you can beat"
Holmes said " who is it?"
"Mike Tyson" King replied
Holmes then said "Are you crazy I cant beat Mike Tyson, no thanks, dont want the fight"
"I'll give you three and a half million dollars" said King

Holmes simply replied.....

"Where Mike at?"




all about the $$$$$$. Holmes wasnt getting no tune ups or preperation. He was overpaid silly money to come in as a name and get sparked out with almost zero risk.

[Wales]

Echo a lot of whats been said - biggest "what if" in boxing history.
List his best 10 wins.... Pretty shoddy list when you look at other resumes

Also, Tyson didnt have the heart when the going got tough.

Still he was an unbelievable talent, ruined by a combination of the greed of others and his own stupidity.

[Boxing Writer]

I am tired of fat old men who complain about "prime Tyson"


Stop act like Tyson was an old fat man against Buster Douglas. Tyson was only 24 years old .

LOL I have never read anybody calling 1990 version of Tyson old and fat. I heard people calling him unfocused, past prime, but you are the first man (or woman) who bring fatness to the Douglas fight.

Mike Tyson actualy lost against any decent fighter he ever faced .

LOL again. So HOFer Michael Spinks wasn't a "decent fighter"? OK, another HOFer Larry Holmes was shot when he fought Tyson, but Mike also beat guys like Thomas, Berbick, Tucker, Smith, Tubbs, Bruno, Ruddock and others. They weren't "decent fighters"? They were bums in your opinion?

Let's be real . FAT OLD FOREMAN went 12 rounds against prime Evander and Mike Tyson got KTFO oh my godness !

Let's be real. FAT OLD 45 y.o. HOLMES went 12 rounds against prime McCall and 29 y.o. Lennox Lewis got KTFO (I'm using your language here) in 2 rounds by exactly the same version of Oliver. Oh my godness!


Conclusion: Almost the whole post of OP is ridiculous. The only part I agree here is that Tyson is overrated by casual fans. Especailly when we comparing him to the guys like Joe Frazier, who is extremely underrated nowdays. How can anybody rank Tyson over Frazier if Joe's best win was MUCH better than Mike's one and Joe only lost to ATG fighters Ali and Foreman?

Based on career achievements I can't rank Mike over Jack Johnson, Gene Tunney (OK, Tunney wasn't heavyweight for the most part of his career so it's questionable), Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Evander Holyfield or Lennox Lewis. Of course, he could have beaten some of them H2H, but he might have very well lose to Sonny Liston, Riddick Bowe or even Vitali Klitschko. Therefore I find it hard to rank Mike as top-10 heavyweight of all time.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Echo a lot of whats been said - biggest "what if" in boxing history.
List his best 10 wins.... Pretty shoddy list when you look at other resumes

Also, Tyson didnt have the heart when the going got tough.

Still he was an unbelievable talent, ruined by a combination of the greed of others and his own stupidity.

This makes him underrated. What he didn't have was a ring iq and the ability to excel inside. He had heart for days.

[MachoTime]

what's odd is whenever a all time favorite fighter thread comes up on this forum. Who's name is at the top of list...Tyson

over rated my a**. far from it..

[dberry]

Echo a lot of whats been said - biggest "what if" in boxing history.
List his best 10 wins.... Pretty shoddy list when you look at other resumes

Also, Tyson didnt have the heart when the going got tough.

Still he was an unbelievable talent, ruined by a combination of the greed of others and his own stupidity.

I agree with this, Tyson, as great as he was, didn't like opponents coming forward and fighting him, his heart did seam to let him down a bit when this happened, this is how Douglas beat him and why I think Holyfield would have beaten him at any stage of his career.

In reguards to the "long count" argument, both Douglas and Tyson were afforded the time for the ten count i.e. The counts went for the same amount of seconds.

[dberry]

Echo a lot of whats been said - biggest "what if" in boxing history.
List his best 10 wins.... Pretty shoddy list when you look at other resumes

Also, Tyson didnt have the heart when the going got tough.

Still he was an unbelievable talent, ruined by a combination of the greed of others and his own stupidity.

This makes him underrated. What he didn't have was a ring iq and the ability to excel inside. He had heart for days.

Saad, Im not saying that he lacked heart, I'm saying it sort of broke his heart if he couldn't get his opponent onto the back foot and hurt him.

[magwitch]

I saw James Douglas beat Tyson on a VHS tape I got from an Oxfam shop. Watching it, I couldn't understand the surprise as "Buster" was hands down the best man on the night and certainly no fluke took place.
If anything I'm only surprised that Douglas isn't more well known or why didn't win more big fights. He was excellent that night and 100% deserved it.

I think Tyson would have stopped Lewis if the fought earlier but I agree that Holyfield probably would have always beaten him. Riddick Bowe too maybe.

[man]

If anything I'm only surprised that Douglas isn't more well known or why didn't win more big fights.

don't think he had the best of work ethics.
didn't always show up in shape.

[stevedoc]

I saw James Douglas beat Tyson on a VHS tape I got from an Oxfam shop. Watching it, I couldn't understand the surprise as "Buster" was hands down the best man on the night and certainly no fluke took place.
If anything I'm only surprised that Douglas isn't more well known or why didn't win more big fights. He was excellent that night and 100% deserved it.

I think Tyson would have stopped Lewis if the fought earlier but I agree that Holyfield probably would have always beaten him. Riddick Bowe too maybe.

i don't go along with the holyfield would of always beat him bit , holyfield was nearly ko'd by bert cooper and was by bowe but when he fought tyson some how he could take his shots and happened to of bulked up into the hulk and most likely full of PEDS . having said that if holyfield was his weakness it shouldn't make tyson a bad boxer look at ali norton had his number and won at least 2 out of 3 .

[Controversial]

Don King went to Holmes house and said "Ive got you a fight against someone i know you can beat"
Holmes said " who is it?"
"Mike Tyson" King replied
Holmes then said "Are you crazy I cant beat Mike Tyson, no thanks, dont want the fight"
"I'll give you three and a half million dollars" said King

Holmes simply replied.....

"Where Mike at?"

all about the $$$$$$. Holmes wasnt getting no tune ups or preperation. He was overpaid silly money to come in as a name and get sparked out with almost zero risk.

I don't buy that. Holmes had a huge ego, I don't believe he would take a fight that he didn't think he could win and then not train properly for it.

Here is Holmes being interviewed after the Tyson/Biggs fight on the 16th October 1987, just over 3 months before he fought Tyson on the 22nd January 1988. King is with Holmes and confirms the Tyson fight was taking place in January. Even then Holmes mentions sparring 15 rounds so his condition couldn't have been that bad, so he was in training with 3 months to go, hardly short notice. As he says he didn't need the money and he wouldn't take the fight if he didn't think he could win. Holmes was very bitter about the Spinks 'losses' and saw this as his chance to regain the title. He saw his layoff as a positive thing as he regained his passion and his body needed a rest. Long breaks aren't always bad as SRL showed against Hagler and he was out for almost 3 years. There was 1 year 9 month gap between Holmes losing to Spinks and fighting Tyson, to put that into perspective Andre Ward went 1 year 7 months between fights not so long ago. We are talking about Holmes here, one of the greatest heavyweights in history in some peoples opinion and ranked in most people's top 3 or 5 I would guess.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m861f99Nkvk

[jamesmcdonnell]

Tyson pulled out of the holyfield fight, not evander.

I thought holy got injured in sparring.

[Controversial]

Tyson pulled out of the holyfield fight, not evander.

I thought holy got injured in sparring.

As I recall it Tyson was meant to fight Holyfield after the Douglas fight, which of course went tits up for Tyson. The next scheduled fight was in November 1991 and Tyson pulled out with an injury. Then Tyson went to jail.

[Syntax Error]

Tyson pulled out of the holyfield fight, not evander.

I thought holy got injured in sparring.

As I recall it Tyson was meant to fight Holyfield after the Douglas fight, which of course went tits up for Tyson. The next scheduled fight was in November 1991 and Tyson pulled out with an injury. Then Tyson went to jail.

Correct.

It was Tyson who pulled out & then we all know what happened after that.

[banjo]

I love the way people try to mask Tysons loss to Douglas by saying things weren't right, Douglas had lost his mother 3 weeks prior, his partner was really ill and he had the flu and he still won.

[Controversial]

I love the way people try to mask Tysons loss to Douglas by saying things weren't right, Douglas had lost his mother 3 weeks prior, his partner was really ill and he had the flu and he still won.

The loss of Douglas's mother fired him on, he said it was his motivation. There's no argument as far as I can see that Tyson wasn't prepared. He was dropped in sparring and had public training sessions cut short. There were reports of him shagging his way through as many women as he could whilst in Japan. People in the fight game were expressing their concern that Tyson wasn't looking good or training properly and one journalist predicted a Douglas win after seeing how good Douglas was looking and how bad Tyson looked. The fight is proof, Tyson looked lacklustre, he was loading up on his punches and didn't look like the Tyson we had seen before. That doesn't take anything away from Douglas winning as he fought a great fight, and it's not his problem that Tyson didn't take him too seriously, no one did really which was why the odds were so big. I can't see Tyson losing to Douglas if he was motivated like he was against some previous opponents.

The below from Tyson's book. Excuses if your not a fan, believable if you are a fan.

On January 8, 1990, I got aboard a plane to fly to Tokyo. Kicking and screaming. I didn’t want to fight; all I was interested in then was partying and women. By the time we left, I had put on 30 pounds. Don King was so worried about my weight that he offered me a bonus if I would make my usual weight when we fought in a month.

I didn’t consider Buster Douglas much of a challenge. I didn’t even bother watching any of his fights on video. I had easily beaten everybody who had knocked him out. I felt like my heroes Mickey Walker and Harry Greb. I read that Greb was so arrogant he’d tell his opponents that he hadn’t trained because “you are not worth me sweating for.” So I followed his lead. I didn’t train at all for the fight. My trainer, Anthony Pitts, would get up early in the morning and run with my sparring partner, Greg Page. But I didn’t feel like it. Anthony would tell me that he’d see Buster out there, digging in with his army boots on, snotsicles hanging off his nose, getting in his run.

I couldn’t eat since I was overweight and I wanted to lose the weight and win the bonus from Don, so I drank soup that was supposed to burn off fat. And then I had the cleaning ladies for the main course. It was ironic because you go to Japan and the women seem so shy and introverted but as soon as they’re behind closed doors, ba-boom, it was on. People would ask me if I learned any sexual tips from the Japanese women, but I didn’t have time to learn. This was no sex education course; this was a guy trying to get his rocks off.

I didn’t even have to pay the maids. But I did tip them heavily because I had a lot of that Monopoly-looking money they had over there. They must have been appreciative because they’d come back and sometimes bring friends.

“My friend would like to meet you, Mr. Tyson, sir. She would like to accompany us, sir.”

Besides having sex with the maids, I was seeing this young Japanese girl who I had had sex with the last time I was in Japan. My wife would go out shopping and I would go downstairs to the back of the hotel where this young girl had a room. She was only seventeen then and her father was very wealthy.

I had her do the same thing this time. There were too many people on my floor and I didn’t want Don or Rory or John or Anthony to know my business. They might have scared her; she was very shy around people. In the two years since I had seen her, she had matured a great deal.

So that was my training for Douglas. Every once in a while, I did show up to work out and spar. I was sparring with Greg Page ten days before the fight and I walked right into a right hook and went down.

A few days later, Don opened up one of my sparring sessions to the public for $60 a head. I never saw any of that money, of course. We were supposed to spar for two rounds but I looked so bad that we stopped it after one and closed the session. Don was pissed off. He wanted to make a buck. He had no idea I was so out of shape. Don knew nothing about fighting. He couldn’t tell the difference between a guy in shape or out of shape. He didn’t even know how to tie a boxing glove.

The day before the fight I weighed in at 220½ pounds, so I got my bonus. The day before the fight I also had two maids at the same time. And then two more girls, one at a time, the night before the fight.

I wasn’t following the story but apparently Douglas had a lot of motivation to do well in this fight. In July of 1989, he had been born-again. And then his wife left him, his baby momma got a terminal disease and early in January, while he was in camp his mother died. I didn’t know any of that and I didn’t care. HBO was making a big deal about Douglas fighting for his mother but my arrogance at the time was such that I would have said that he was going to join her that night.

We fought at nine a.m. because of the time difference back in the United States. Half of the arena’s 63,000 seats were empty. Don was a lousy promoter. As soon as I got with him, everything just sunk. He was a dark cloud.

It wasn’t the usual Tyson going into the ring. It was obvious to anyone who was watching that I really didn’t want to be there. The fight started and I fought horribly. I was punching as hard as shit because I knew if I caught him right he wasn’t going to get up, I didn’t care how big he was. But I was hardly throwing. It was the least amount of punches I’d ever thrown in a fight. He used his jab and his reach to throw me off my game and then when I tried to throw body shots, he just held me. He fought very well that night. But I was an easy target for him. I wasn’t moving my head at all.




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