Who ranks higher historically? Wlad or Mike Tyson

[gilgamesh]

Wlad is an ATG heavyweight. Some might think he's overrated, some underrated. But to argue he's not a great is churlish.

Definitely an ATG, but not in the higher echelons IMO. He's not up there with Johnson, Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Ali, Holmes, Tyson and Lewis.

Mike Tyson is not in that echelon either.

Ali, Louis, Holmes, Johnson, Dempsey.

He's in the tier under those guys. Just like Wlad.

Mike would be on the MT. Rushmore of Boxers if you're talking simply about Popularity and recognition, but if you're talking about Achievement in the Sport. He doesn't compare to any of those guys.

[DrDuke]

Only Jack is massively overrated. But, of course, we all know why. Only look at him, he wore those damn badass stylish hats.

[gilgamesh]

Yeah I don't think Jack Johnson hangs with a lot of the others as far as fighting ability, but of course as far as Historical significance. He's huge.

And he was certainly the best Heavyweight Boxing Champion up until his own time.

This could be a fun path to go down with another one. The 2 Jack's. Johnson and Dempsey.

[Ambling Alp II]

He "came back" fighting terrible competition. Usally wasn't impressive in doing so. Why is that so amazing?

Name one other ATG heavyweight that was stopped by three different non top 10 fighters in his 20s.
I can't come up with one.

It's not being churlish to argue that he was not an ATG heavyweight. ATG heavyweights have much more impressive victims lists and less embarrassing defeats. It's pretty much that simple.

It's not that doesn't have a weak case. He has no case at all.

While not the heavyweight division, I'm fairly sure that Billy Conn lost an awful lot of fights early on in his career. Still he's considered one of the top five light heavyweights of all time. There's a lot of good or great fighters from various weight classes that had embarrassing losses early on in their career, or even in the middle of their career.

The fact that Klitschko avenged the loss to Brewster and completely blew out Peter in their return match, goes to show there was a big improvement from the younger version. To dismiss or minimize this fact, is to not see Klitschko at all.

When analyzing a fighter for all time great top 10 ratings one has to look at the entirety of their career rather than focus on certain parts of their career. It seems to me that you guys focus on Mike Tyson's title reign and essentially disregard everything else.

Billy Conn was stopped three times, twice by Joe louis. The other in a fight when he had been a pro for four months. That doesn't remotely compare to Klitschko.

Klitschko's losses were after he had been a pro for several years and had a lot of experience. And it's not like he big wins to offset it. Maybe if he had actually fought and beat Lennox Lewis.....

Sorry if I'm not impressed with beating Samuel Peter and Lamon Brewster. Can't believe anyone is.

When rating a fighter, you should look at his whole career. However the very early years when he is inexperienced doesn't mean much. Or when he gets old. That is how it traditionally should be done, and how it should be done.

I don't think most people only look at his title reign. People bring up his fights before winning the title all the time. And the Ruddock fights after he lost to Douglas. Actually his 2nd fight against Bruno was one of his best.

The losses to Douglas and Holyfield are fair game. The ones to Danny Williams and McBride, no. And that's how it is with anybody.

Again, name one ATG heavyweight that had three losses like that during his 20s. Just one.

[oogiebe]

He "came back" fighting terrible competition. Usally wasn't impressive in doing so. Why is that so amazing?

Name one other ATG heavyweight that was stopped by three different non top 10 fighters in his 20s.
I can't come up with one.

It's not being churlish to argue that he was not an ATG heavyweight. ATG heavyweights have much more impressive victims lists and less embarrassing defeats. It's pretty much that simple.

It's not that doesn't have a weak case. He has no case at all.

While not the heavyweight division, I'm fairly sure that Billy Conn lost an awful lot of fights early on in his career. Still he's considered one of the top five light heavyweights of all time. There's a lot of good or great fighters from various weight classes that had embarrassing losses early on in their career, or even in the middle of their career.

The fact that Klitschko avenged the loss to Brewster and completely blew out Peter in their return match, goes to show there was a big improvement from the younger version. To dismiss or minimize this fact, is to not see Klitschko at all.

When analyzing a fighter for all time great top 10 ratings one has to look at the entirety of their career rather than focus on certain parts of their career. It seems to me that you guys focus on Mike Tyson's title reign and essentially disregard everything else.

Billy Conn was stopped three times, twice by Joe louis. The other in a fight when he had been a pro for four months. That doesn't remotely compare to Klitschko.

Klitschko's losses were after he had been a pro for several years and had a lot of experience. And it's not like he big wins to offset it. Maybe if he had actually fought and beat Lennox Lewis.....

Sorry if I'm not impressed with beating Samuel Peter and Lamon Brewster. Can't believe anyone is.

When rating a fighter, you should look at his whole career. However the very early years when he is inexperienced doesn't mean much. Or when he gets old. That is how it traditionally should be done, and how it should be done.

I don't think most people only look at his title reign. People bring up his fights before winning the title all the time. And the Ruddock fights after he lost to Douglas. Actually his 2nd fight against Bruno was one of his best.

The losses to Douglas and Holyfield are fair game. The ones to Danny Williams and McBride, no. And that's how it is with anybody.

Again, name one ATG heavyweight that had three losses like that during his 20s. Just one.

So you picked a stat that Wlad is alone in. Doesn't take away what he did in his overall body of work. he wasn't the best ever but he's a tough beat head to head for most HW's of all time. Stop being so one-sided.

[keithmoonhangover]

While not the heavyweight division, I'm fairly sure that Billy Conn lost an awful lot of fights early on in his career. Still he's considered one of the top five light heavyweights of all time. There's a lot of good or great fighters from various weight classes that had embarrassing losses early on in their career, or even in the middle of their career.

The fact that Klitschko avenged the loss to Brewster and completely blew out Peter in their return match, goes to show there was a big improvement from the younger version. To dismiss or minimize this fact, is to not see Klitschko at all.

When analyzing a fighter for all time great top 10 ratings one has to look at the entirety of their career rather than focus on certain parts of their career. It seems to me that you guys focus on Mike Tyson's title reign and essentially disregard everything else.

Billy Conn was stopped three times, twice by Joe louis. The other in a fight when he had been a pro for four months. That doesn't remotely compare to Klitschko.

Klitschko's losses were after he had been a pro for several years and had a lot of experience. And it's not like he big wins to offset it. Maybe if he had actually fought and beat Lennox Lewis.....

Sorry if I'm not impressed with beating Samuel Peter and Lamon Brewster. Can't believe anyone is.

When rating a fighter, you should look at his whole career. However the very early years when he is inexperienced doesn't mean much. Or when he gets old. That is how it traditionally should be done, and how it should be done.

I don't think most people only look at his title reign. People bring up his fights before winning the title all the time. And the Ruddock fights after he lost to Douglas. Actually his 2nd fight against Bruno was one of his best.

The losses to Douglas and Holyfield are fair game. The ones to Danny Williams and McBride, no. And that's how it is with anybody.

Again, name one ATG heavyweight that had three losses like that during his 20s. Just one.

So you picked a stat that Wlad is alone in. Doesn't take away what he did in his overall body of work. he wasn't the best ever but he's a tough beat head to head for most HW's of all time. Stop being so one-sided.

His overall body of work is strong, although his level of competition was poor. Unless someone can correct me, he never faced the #1 in the division, which says a lot. And Saad is right. Those defeats do matter.

[DrDuke]

Billy Conn was stopped three times, twice by Joe louis. The other in a fight when he had been a pro for four months. That doesn't remotely compare to Klitschko.

Klitschko's losses were after he had been a pro for several years and had a lot of experience. And it's not like he big wins to offset it. Maybe if he had actually fought and beat Lennox Lewis.....

Sorry if I'm not impressed with beating Samuel Peter and Lamon Brewster. Can't believe anyone is.

When rating a fighter, you should look at his whole career. However the very early years when he is inexperienced doesn't mean much. Or when he gets old. That is how it traditionally should be done, and how it should be done.

I don't think most people only look at his title reign. People bring up his fights before winning the title all the time. And the Ruddock fights after he lost to Douglas. Actually his 2nd fight against Bruno was one of his best.

The losses to Douglas and Holyfield are fair game. The ones to Danny Williams and McBride, no. And that's how it is with anybody.

Again, name one ATG heavyweight that had three losses like that during his 20s. Just one.

So you picked a stat that Wlad is alone in. Doesn't take away what he did in his overall body of work. he wasn't the best ever but he's a tough beat head to head for most HW's of all time. Stop being so one-sided.

His overall body of work is strong, although his level of competition was poor. Unless someone can correct me, he never faced the #1 in the division, which says a lot. And Saad is right. Those defeats do matter.

Who was #1, when he faced Povetkin?

[Ezzard]

Poll is roughly 60-40 which seems fine either way for me.

[DrDuke]

Poll is roughly 60-40 which seems fine either way for me.

19-11 for Tyson now. Quite reasonable indeed.

[keithmoonhangover]

So you picked a stat that Wlad is alone in. Doesn't take away what he did in his overall body of work. he wasn't the best ever but he's a tough beat head to head for most HW's of all time. Stop being so one-sided.

His overall body of work is strong, although his level of competition was poor. Unless someone can correct me, he never faced the #1 in the division, which says a lot. And Saad is right. Those defeats do matter.

Who was #1, when he faced Povetkin?

Klitschko. Haye was #3 and so was Chageav I think.

[DrDuke]

His overall body of work is strong, although his level of competition was poor. Unless someone can correct me, he never faced the #1 in the division, which says a lot. And Saad is right. Those defeats do matter.

Who was #1, when he faced Povetkin?

Klitschko. Haye was #3 and so was Chageav I think.

How come? Vitali has never fought since 2012.

[keithmoonhangover]

Who was #1, when he faced Povetkin?

Klitschko. Haye was #3 and so was Chageav I think.

How come? Vitali has never fought since 2012.

Wladimir was #1, but my point is he never beat the #1 in the world to do so. Almost all of the greats did it at some point.

[DrDuke]

Klitschko. Haye was #3 and so was Chageav I think.

How come? Vitali has never fought since 2012.

Wladimir was #1, but my point is he never beat the #1 in the world to do so. Almost all of the greats did it at some point.

What are you talking about?

Wladimir has been the man since the mid 2000s, after he had defeated Byrd and had started to unify.

Vitali was #1 contender during the reign of Wlad, until his last fight in 2012.

Povetkin had been #2 contender for years during the presence of both Wlad and Vitali. When Wlad, still being the man, faced Povtkin in Oct 2013, Povetkin clearly was #1 contender.

[keithmoonhangover]

How come? Vitali has never fought since 2012.

Wladimir was #1, but my point is he never beat the #1 in the world to do so. Almost all of the greats did it at some point.

What are you talking about?

Wladimir has been the man since the mid 2000s, after he had defeated Byrd and had started to unify.

Vitali was #1 contender during the reign of Wlad, until his last fight in 2012.

Povetkin had been #2 contender for years during the presence of both Wlad and Vitali. When Wlad, still being the man, faced Povtkin in Oct 2013, Povetkin clearly was #1 contender.

You're not getting this are you. Wlad never beat the #1 heavyweight in the world. He held that honour, but he never fought the #1 to get there. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

[DrDuke]

Wladimir was #1, but my point is he never beat the #1 in the world to do so. Almost all of the greats did it at some point.

What are you talking about?

Wladimir has been the man since the mid 2000s, after he had defeated Byrd and had started to unify.

Vitali was #1 contender during the reign of Wlad, until his last fight in 2012.

Povetkin had been #2 contender for years during the presence of both Wlad and Vitali. When Wlad, still being the man, faced Povtkin in Oct 2013, Povetkin clearly was #1 contender.

You're not getting this are you. Wlad never beat the #1 heavyweight in the world. He held that honour, but he never fought the #1 to get there. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

Lewis was the man until his last fight in 2003 against Vitali.

After the retirement of Lewis, there were two contenders for being the man of the division: Vitali, who fought a competetive fight vs Lewis, and Corrie Sanders, who defeated Wlad. As we know, Vitali defeated Sanders in 2004, and people started to see him as the best out there.

After the retirement of Vitali in 2005, there were several major contenders for a status of the man: Chris Byrd, Hasim Rahman, Lamon Brewster, Sultan Ibragimov, John Ruiz and Wlad Klitschko, who was the only one in this bunch to be consistent, to win almost every notable opponent of the bunch and to unify belts, what Wlad continued to do, when Vitali came back in 2008.

So, you are right, Wlad became the man without beating the man, but he's not the only ATG to do this, remember Max Schmeling and Floyd Patterson. Even the likes of Jack Johnson and Larry Holmes did that, until they met the previous lineal champion during his comeback from the retirement, so beating the man isn't always necessary to become the man. Furthermore, barely anyone cared about Spinks, after Tyson had unified 3 belts.

[Seamus]

And what happened to Wlad after that supposedly 3rd embarrassing loss at age 28 ? He continually improved to the point that he won 22 straight fights. Emmanuel Steward fine tuned him particularly on defense and he destroyed Brewster in the rematch, had a hard fight from Peter, then destroyed him also in the rematch, stopped Chris Byrd the 2nd time around, he even stopped Tony Thompson 5 rds earlier in the their 2nd bout.

What did Mike Tyson do after his 1st pro loss, at only age 23 ? More and more he abandoned his once outstanding head movement and started relying on one big punch to win fights, and that was occuring before the 4 year layoff. You could see one particular flaw in Tyson even in the Cus D'Amato period. Despite his power, handspeed, and head movement, Iron Mike always had a tendency to become frustrated when an opponent hung around too long. Plain and simple, Mike Tyson never had a plan B.

[keithmoonhangover]

And what happened to Wlad after that supposedly 3rd embarrassing loss at age 28 ? He continually improved to the point that he won 22 straight fights. Emmanuel Steward fine tuned him particularly on defense and he destroyed Brewster in the rematch, had a hard fight from Peter, then destroyed him also in the rematch, stopped Chris Byrd the 2nd time around, he even stopped Tony Thompson 5 rds earlier in the their 2nd bout.

What did Mike Tyson do after his 1st pro loss, at only age 23 ? More and more he abandoned his once outstanding head movement and started relying on one big punch to win fights, and that was occuring before the 4 year layoff. You could see one particular flaw in Tyson even in the Cus D'Amato period. Despite his power, handspeed, and head movement, Iron Mike always had a tendency to become frustrated when an opponent hung around too long. Plain and simple, Mike Tyson never had a plan B.

He beat a top contender twice (and arguably the most feared man outside Tyson) in Razor Ruddock, went to prison for 3 years and was never the same boxer after that. Tyson was the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World, The Lineal Heavyweight Champion and beat hall of famers.

How many of those statements can you make about Klitschko?

[Seamus]

You don't think Wlad would have beaten Holmes and Spinks ?

[keithmoonhangover]

You don't think Wlad would have beaten Holmes and Spinks ?

He wouldn't have beaten Holmes, even with the layoff. Wlad lost to Lamon Brewster, who was the same height and only a few lbs heavier than Spinks. Spinks would find a way to win IMO, especially in a 15 rounder. Just my opinion of course.

[Ezzard]

I don't see Wlad having a problem with Tyson's Holmes or Spinks. Spinks barely made the ring walk.

[keithmoonhangover]

Spinks barely made the ring walk.

Urban myths about Spinks make me chuckle. Only he knows his physical and mental health status, but everyone and there Aunty has there own theory. He handled Gerry Cooney with relative ease a year earlier. So I'm not sure what happened that made him scarcely able to walk to the ring.

[Ambling Alp II]

While not the heavyweight division, I'm fairly sure that Billy Conn lost an awful lot of fights early on in his career. Still he's considered one of the top five light heavyweights of all time. There's a lot of good or great fighters from various weight classes that had embarrassing losses early on in their career, or even in the middle of their career.

The fact that Klitschko avenged the loss to Brewster and completely blew out Peter in their return match, goes to show there was a big improvement from the younger version. To dismiss or minimize this fact, is to not see Klitschko at all.

When analyzing a fighter for all time great top 10 ratings one has to look at the entirety of their career rather than focus on certain parts of their career. It seems to me that you guys focus on Mike Tyson's title reign and essentially disregard everything else.

Billy Conn was stopped three times, twice by Joe louis. The other in a fight when he had been a pro for four months. That doesn't remotely compare to Klitschko.

Klitschko's losses were after he had been a pro for several years and had a lot of experience. And it's not like he big wins to offset it. Maybe if he had actually fought and beat Lennox Lewis.....

Sorry if I'm not impressed with beating Samuel Peter and Lamon Brewster. Can't believe anyone is.

When rating a fighter, you should look at his whole career. However the very early years when he is inexperienced doesn't mean much. Or when he gets old. That is how it traditionally should be done, and how it should be done.

I don't think most people only look at his title reign. People bring up his fights before winning the title all the time. And the Ruddock fights after he lost to Douglas. Actually his 2nd fight against Bruno was one of his best.

The losses to Douglas and Holyfield are fair game. The ones to Danny Williams and McBride, no. And that's how it is with anybody.

Again, name one ATG heavyweight that had three losses like that during his 20s. Just one.

So you picked a stat that Wlad is alone in. Doesn't take away what he did in his overall body of work. he wasn't the best ever but he's a tough beat head to head for most HW's of all time. Stop being so one-sided.

That's the problem , his overall body of work isn't as good as an ATG heavyweight.

One stat? That is a pretty important stat. It's not win/loss record or the number of meaningless title defenses.

We should weigh key losses against key wins when rating anyone.
Klitschko's losses are worse than any ATG heavyweight.
Every ATG heavyweight has a better list of fighters that they beat than Klitschko.
Therefore, if he worse than every single ATG heavyweight both categories, he should not be rated with them.
Why is this such a difficult concept?

[Ezzard]

Spinks barely made the ring walk.

Urban myths about Spinks make me chuckle. Only he knows his physical and mental health status, but everyone and there Aunty has there own theory. He handled Gerry Cooney with relative ease a year earlier. So I'm not sure what happened that made him scarcely able to walk to the ring.

Neither do I.

[Ezzard]

How do people here position the top Heavies of the past say 40 years?

[keithmoonhangover]

Spinks barely made the ring walk.

Urban myths about Spinks make me chuckle. Only he knows his physical and mental health status, but everyone and there Aunty has there own theory. He handled Gerry Cooney with relative ease a year earlier. So I'm not sure what happened that made him scarcely able to walk to the ring.

Neither do I.

I was being sarcastic.