Tyson is down on boxing, offers advice to save it

[montrealsuper]

Interesting read. Tyson knows boxing is heading the wrong direction and explains why it's happening and how it can fix itself. http://spam.com/2016/12/29/mike ... o-save-it/

[RScarf1]

Good article and I agree with Tyson.

[montrealsuper]

Good article and I agree with Tyson.

Fully agree too - Tyson knows the sport better than anyone

[gilgamesh]

[Grailer]

WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker wants to unify the belts and become undisputed . I believe he has the heart of the champions that Tyson is talking about

[Kalan]

A lot of phony intellectual idealism from Tyson as usual.. His advice is ephemeral. When he was fighting Buster Douglas he wasn't looking for immortality.. He was crawling on the canvas looking for his mouthpiece.. When he fought Evander Holyfield he wasn't looking to be aligned with the Gods.. He was looking for an ear to bite off.. When he fought Lennox Lewis he wasn't looking to reign with giants.. He was looking like a punching bag.

Tyson was a great fighter but offers no solutions to Boxing's 2 biggest problems: fighters like Canelo, Pacquiao, Stevenson, Wilder, Parker, Khan, Selby, Mares, Saunders, Cotto, and Santa Cruz ducking and avoiding the best opponents ,,, and horse-crap decisions from judges.

A solution to the first problem is similar to Tennis and Golf... Create a worldwide association that every boxer wants to be a part of... Barring injury, the association would match the best against the best of the top 16 ranked fighters in each division... That would be your mandatory fight -- you couldn't fight anybody else unless your opponent became injured or retired... This would get rid of tune-ups... mismatches... protected names... and shrinking violets like Amir Khan... You wouldn't have the disaster of the best fighter in a division chasing a Lineal Title shot for 7 years -- and the other top fighters avoiding him like the plague.

A solution to the 2nd problem is for super rich promoters like Ryabinsky, Arum, De La Hoya, DiBella, and Haymon to pool 20 to 30 million dollars to search out judging candidates... Requirements would be a strong interest and knowledge of Boxing... 20/20 vision... great spatial vision...high intelligence - particularly for inductive and deductive reasoning... great short term memory... honesty and integrity... impartiality... and great powers of concentration.. They would be tested for those.. The top 3% of candidates would study the scoring criteria and videoed examples of clean effective punching on a large screen with instructors going over examples clip by clip.. They would also study many examples of defensive skills, effective aggressiveness, and ring generalship.

They would then be asked to judge obscure fights that have been pre-studied and accurately scored frame by frame to an exact count of punches landed and missed with their effectiveness prejudged... Each fight would take days for a team to break down and analyze, but it would be well worth it... The candidates would watch the fights in normal speed and write down how many punches each fighter landed and missed following each round and their numerical perception of how effective each fighter was from 1 to 100 -- for instance: Round 1: Blue 15/40 60... Red 18/38 75... and quickly jot down their overall perception of the round and the winner.. After 5, 10, and 15 fights candidates with low scores would be let go.. The candidates with the highest scores would be given more extensive training that would be full time for several months... This would get rid of 3 day training courses and insider relatives being certified as professional judges who's decisions make a laughing stock out of Boxing.

[Impractical Poster]

Well, now that Floyd and Hopkins, as great as they were, are out of the picture, hopefully we can get a real exciting face of boxing. With the exception of Andre Ward, the current P4P guys are all looking pretty promising.

[BAD INTENTIONS]

Tyson is back on it again.
Total nonsense.

The only reason boxing sucks now is the scarcity of quality fights due to promoter bu11shit.
If the best matches were made, people would be more tolerant to slower styles and technique.
But since we gotta enjoy the little we get, everything has to be the BEST THING EVER!!!

[caldo2025]

Excellent article. Say what you will about Tyson but this guy is brilliant. He may not sound it and his path doesn't help his cause but I've been so impressed with a lot of his ideas and reactions that i've read. He's absolutely right and I've said it for awhile now, Floyd may be the highest grossing boxer in history but he has single handedly killed this sport for years with the way he's chosen to conduct himself as boxing's top fighter.

I agree with Mike that Boxing will come back and it's not a death sentence. The sport will gradually come back to where it was and I think the decade of ducking fights and running in the ring will be gone for the most part. A boxing phenom will appear in the next few years that will change the climate of the sport. There's always one that comes along and boxing is due.

[jezzamundo]

A lot of phony intellectual idealism from Tyson as usual.. His advice is ephemeral. When he was fighting Buster Douglas he wasn't looking for immortality.. He was crawling on the canvas looking for his mouthpiece.. When he fought Evander Holyfield he wasn't looking to be aligned with the Gods.. He was looking for an ear to bite off.. When he fought Lennox Lewis he wasn't looking to reign with giants.. He was looking like a punching bag.

Tyson was a great fighter but offers no solutions to Boxing's 2 biggest problems: fighters like Canelo, Pacquiao, Stevenson, Wilder, Parker, Khan, Selby, Mares, Saunders, Cotto, and Santa Cruz ducking and avoiding the best opponents ,,, and horse-crap decisions from judges.

A solution to the first problem is similar to Tennis and Golf... Create a worldwide association that every boxer wants to be a part of... Barring injury, the association would match the best against the best of the top 16 ranked fighters in each division... That would be your mandatory fight -- you couldn't fight anybody else unless your opponent became injured or retired... This would get rid of tune-ups... mismatches... protected names... and shrinking violets like Amir Khan... You wouldn't have the disaster of the best fighter in a division chasing a Lineal Title shot for 7 years -- and the other top fighters avoiding him like the plague.

A solution to the 2nd problem is for super rich promoters like Ryabinsky, Arum, De La Hoya, DiBella, and Haymon to pool 20 to 30 million dollars to search out judging candidates... Requirements would be a strong interest and knowledge of Boxing... 20/20 vision... great spatial vision...high intelligence - particularly for inductive and deductive reasoning... great short term memory... honesty and integrity... impartiality... and great powers of concentration.. They would be tested for those.. The top 3% of candidates would study the scoring criteria and videoed examples of clean effective punching on a large screen with instructors going over examples clip by clip.. They would also study many examples of defensive skills, effective aggressiveness, and ring generalship.

They would then be asked to judge obscure fights that have been pre-studied and accurately scored frame by frame to an exact count of punches landed and missed with their effectiveness prejudged... Each fight would take days for a team to break down and analyze, but it would be well worth it... The candidates would watch the fights in normal speed and write down how many punches each fighter landed and missed following each round and their numerical perception of how effective each fighter was from 1 to 100 -- for instance: Round 1: Blue 15/40 60... Red 18/38 75... and quickly jot down their overall perception of the round and the winner.. After 5, 10, and 15 fights candidates with low scores would be let go.. The candidates with the highest scores would be given more extensive training that would be full time for several months... This would get rid of 3 day training courses and insider relatives being certified as professional judges who's decisions make a laughing stock out of Boxing.

Some things I agree with, some way to difficult to implement. I'm surprised you list Parker among the fighters avoiding the best opponents - he has been matched tougher than Joshua to date and he's younger.

[Jaywheel]

Yeah but since Joshua is the best thing to happen to the division since Chamberlain...

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Boxing is never going back to the mainstream in the us. Not going to happen. It's booming elsewhere. I'd love to see more American fighters heading abroad.

[Syntax Error]

Yeah but since Joshua is the best thing to happen to the division since Chamberlain...

I think you mean 'Too Tall' Jones?

[davie]

I wonder if he's he's happy to see Andy Murray at no 1.

A big fight fan himself.

[5burowz]

Boxing is fine.

Unless you can't bother to pay attention to anything other than American boxing.

[Kalan]

A lot of phony intellectual idealism from Tyson as usual.. His advice is ephemeral. When he was fighting Buster Douglas he wasn't looking for immortality.. He was crawling on the canvas looking for his mouthpiece.. When he fought Evander Holyfield he wasn't looking to be aligned with the Gods.. He was looking for an ear to bite off.. When he fought Lennox Lewis he wasn't looking to reign with giants.. He was looking like a punching bag.

Tyson was a great fighter but offers no solutions to Boxing's 2 biggest problems: fighters like Canelo, Pacquiao, Stevenson, Wilder, Parker, Khan, Selby, Mares, Saunders, Cotto, and Santa Cruz ducking and avoiding the best opponents ,,, and horse-crap decisions from judges.

A solution to the first problem is similar to Tennis and Golf... Create a worldwide association that every boxer wants to be a part of... Barring injury, the association would match the best against the best of the top 16 ranked fighters in each division... That would be your mandatory fight -- you couldn't fight anybody else unless your opponent became injured or retired... This would get rid of tune-ups... mismatches... protected names... and shrinking violets like Amir Khan... You wouldn't have the disaster of the best fighter in a division chasing a Lineal Title shot for 7 years -- and the other top fighters avoiding him like the plague.

A solution to the 2nd problem is for super rich promoters like Ryabinsky, Arum, De La Hoya, DiBella, and Haymon to pool 20 to 30 million dollars to search out judging candidates... Requirements would be a strong interest and knowledge of Boxing... 20/20 vision... great spatial vision...high intelligence - particularly for inductive and deductive reasoning... great short term memory... honesty and integrity... impartiality... and great powers of concentration.. They would be tested for those.. The top 3% of candidates would study the scoring criteria and videoed examples of clean effective punching on a large screen with instructors going over examples clip by clip.. They would also study many examples of defensive skills, effective aggressiveness, and ring generalship.

They would then be asked to judge obscure fights that have been pre-studied and accurately scored frame by frame to an exact count of punches landed and missed with their effectiveness prejudged... Each fight would take days for a team to break down and analyze, but it would be well worth it... The candidates would watch the fights in normal speed and write down how many punches each fighter landed and missed following each round and their numerical perception of how effective each fighter was from 1 to 100 -- for instance: Round 1: Blue 15/40 60... Red 18/38 75... and quickly jot down their overall perception of the round and the winner.. After 5, 10, and 15 fights candidates with low scores would be let go.. The candidates with the highest scores would be given more extensive training that would be full time for several months... This would get rid of 3 day training courses and insider relatives being certified as professional judges who's decisions make a laughing stock out of Boxing.

Some things I agree with, some way to difficult to implement. I'm surprised you list Parker among the fighters avoiding the best opponents - he has been matched tougher than Joshua to date and he's younger.

Nothing would be difficult except getting promoters from different cultures and countries to work together in everybody's best interest, and the interest of the fans -- and for no other reason than you like Boxing and want to see it prosper on a global basis. Boxing has an inbred mentality that everything has to be easy. Cooperation to grow the sport will not be easy. The United Nations wasn't easy to create, but the majority of humans like other people -- and also like their line of work and want it to prosper -- and that's why any cooperation or anything positive happens for any global sport.

Parker fought tougher opponents than Joshua fought to date---and didn't do that well---but he ducked Joshua... and when they do fight he'll get stopped.

[davie]

A lot of phony intellectual idealism from Tyson as usual...His advice is ephemeral.

Tell me you meant that

[Caractacus]

a professional Boxer should be that a professional
and train 24-7 52 weeks a year.
also maybe they should limit pro fights to just 4 rounds
and championship fights to 8 rounds
so a pro boxer can have more fights in a year.
if you are training in earnest for a fight but get hurt
the next schedule person behind you takes up the slack
and fights for the championship.

[Kalan]

Any changes will be better thought out than Caractacus is able to do it.

[Sequitorian]

Mike Tyson is a mental-case and an imbecile ...

... study boxing ...

http://www.boxingarts.com/

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[NateJR]

As a fan I like to see the best face the best. Fighters of the past rarely faced the best, hell most of the boxers before the 60s were lucky to face a top fighter every 5 fights. Today we get much more higher caliber figjtaich more consistently but we don't get nearly as many fights. Quality over quantity, is always better IMO. I look forward to the future of boxing and seeing how thing pan out with the current crop we have. The truth alot of so called boxing fans are simply impatient little twats and some of the biggest fornicating crybabies I've ever seen.

There's no doubt there are some issues present with the current state of boxing, but alot of people overexagerate and will simply never be pleased because they have a standard set for the sport that will never be reached and never has been.

[Kalan]

Boxing is a noble sport to be sure... It's gentlemanly not to hit your opponent when he's down, and not engage in clinching, hugging, and wrestling -- which is ugly for 2 men to be doing from a certain viewpoint. The cerebral aspect of boxing lends character to it, and it's combat without necessarily getting to the kill, which means there's a reprieve for the loser who entered the arena -- and nobody has to issue a thumbs up to save his life.

One of the things I've always remembered is Gene Tunney being introduced as a great fighter... Before the interview started Tunney said, "I just want to correct one thing.. I was never a fighter - I was a boxer.. Why is that important to me?.. I've been introduced as a fighter so often that it bothers me and it shouldn't. I've been hit so often I'm a bit fuzzy and cantankerous -- but fighting is kicking, wrestling, butting, elbowing, biting, eye gouging, hitting low, doing whatever you can to disable and vanquish your enemy. Fighting is warfare and there are no rules. A boxer strikes his opponent above the waist, in the front of the body, with padded gloves, if you get knocked down, like Dempsey knocked me down, your opponent stands off like a gentleman and gives you a chance to regain your feet. Boxing is respectful. I've always respected my opponents, and almost always they've respected me."

[punchoutsb]

Boxing is a noble sport to be sure... It's gentlemanly not to hit your opponent when he's down, and not engage in clinching, hugging, and wrestling -- which is ugly for 2 men to be doing from a certain viewpoint. The cerebral aspect of boxing lends character to it, and it's combat without necessarily getting to the kill, which means there's a reprieve for the loser who entered the arena -- and nobody has to issue a thumbs up to save his life.

One of the things I've always remembered is Gene Tunney being introduced as a great fighter... Before the interview started Tunney said, "I just want to correct one thing.. I was never a fighter - I was a boxer.. Why is that important to me?.. I've been introduced as a fighter so often that it bothers me and it shouldn't. I've been hit so often I'm a bit fuzzy and cantankerous -- but fighting is kicking, wrestling, butting, elbowing, biting, eye gouging, hitting low, doing whatever you can to disable and vanquish your enemy. Fighting is warfare and there are no rules. A boxer strikes his opponent above the waist, in the front of the body, with padded gloves, if you get knocked down, like Dempsey knocked me down, your opponent stands off like a gentleman and gives you a chance to regain your feet. Boxing is respectful. I've always respected my opponents, and almost always they've respected me."

Speaking of boxing, what weight class were you? What would you consider your best height and weight?

[Sequitorian]

Boxing is a noble sport to be sure... It's gentlemanly not to hit your opponent when he's down, and not engage in clinching, hugging, and wrestling -- which is ugly for 2 men to be doing from a certain viewpoint. The cerebral aspect of boxing lends character to it, and it's combat without necessarily getting to the kill, which means there's a reprieve for the loser who entered the arena -- and nobody has to issue a thumbs up to save his life.

One of the things I've always remembered is Gene Tunney being introduced as a great fighter... Before the interview started Tunney said, "I just want to correct one thing.. I was never a fighter - I was a boxer.. Why is that important to me?.. I've been introduced as a fighter so often that it bothers me and it shouldn't. I've been hit so often I'm a bit fuzzy and cantankerous -- but fighting is kicking, wrestling, butting, elbowing, biting, eye gouging, hitting low, doing whatever you can to disable and vanquish your enemy. Fighting is warfare and there are no rules. A boxer strikes his opponent above the waist, in the front of the body, with padded gloves, if you get knocked down, like Dempsey knocked me down, your opponent stands off like a gentleman and gives you a chance to regain your feet. Boxing is respectful. I've always respected my opponents, and almost always they've respected me."

Speaking of boxing, what weight class were you? What would you consider your best height and weight?

... excellent, Kalan ... (idiotic, punchoutsb) ...

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[punchoutsb]

Boxing is a noble sport to be sure... It's gentlemanly not to hit your opponent when he's down, and not engage in clinching, hugging, and wrestling -- which is ugly for 2 men to be doing from a certain viewpoint. The cerebral aspect of boxing lends character to it, and it's combat without necessarily getting to the kill, which means there's a reprieve for the loser who entered the arena -- and nobody has to issue a thumbs up to save his life.

One of the things I've always remembered is Gene Tunney being introduced as a great fighter... Before the interview started Tunney said, "I just want to correct one thing.. I was never a fighter - I was a boxer.. Why is that important to me?.. I've been introduced as a fighter so often that it bothers me and it shouldn't. I've been hit so often I'm a bit fuzzy and cantankerous -- but fighting is kicking, wrestling, butting, elbowing, biting, eye gouging, hitting low, doing whatever you can to disable and vanquish your enemy. Fighting is warfare and there are no rules. A boxer strikes his opponent above the waist, in the front of the body, with padded gloves, if you get knocked down, like Dempsey knocked me down, your opponent stands off like a gentleman and gives you a chance to regain your feet. Boxing is respectful. I've always respected my opponents, and almost always they've respected me."

Speaking of boxing, what weight class were you? What would you consider your best height and weight?

... excellent, Kalan ... (idiotic, punchoutsb) ...

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Oh great, you're back again. Current scene quality just dropped another ten points