Mike Tyson

[baz 463]

if any of you have espn on sky sports, there is a series on showing all of tyson,s fights, from his first pro fight . its up to his eigth fight now, ,,,,,it also has the greatest boxersever on, watches a documentry last night about jack johnson " the first black heavy weight"......good veiwing

[Running 7]

i cleared up on a bet with dougles vs tyson

[trader 0]

A famous old fight commentator once said...." you judge a fighter as great buy the great fights and great fighters he had and beat "

 

Tyson fought 2 fighters who although not greats on an all time scale were great in their own era.....and he lost convincingly to both of them....and in his own era of dominance tyson never fought anybody good let alone great...and was dominant at a time when the division was at its all time weakest....wbc champ was trevor berbick ! wba champ was bonecrusher smith ! ibf champ was michael spinks !....top challengers were frank bruno,tony tubbs,carl williams etc....not a hard division to unify was it...not exactly ali/liston ali/frazier foreman/frazier patterson louis.....hagler/duran leonard/hearns or any others regarded as greats !

you can only fight whats put in front of you

[Irish Lurcher 1,013]

I remember telling him to fook off once and then I called him a nancy boy, then I called him the biggest p***k I had ever seen, and then I fooken hung up the phone

 

Great fighter, hard man.

[gaz 284]

Ive always been a big boxing fan,i cut my teath watching the great battles with hagler,duran,hearns and the like...the good old days in boxing and then up to the young tyson came on the scene there seemed to be a gap with good exciting fighters being a rarity,but by feck did this young raw brawler take the game by storm and gave it a much needed injection of intrest again,but although some just class tyson as a animal using intimatation aswell his brutal style to defeat maybe not world class opponents but good pro's who lined up to fight him in his early days, a lot imo dont give him credit for his skill as a boxer....tyson in his prime was all the above but with his low centre of gravity and his good head movment always coming forward was very hard to hit,adding to this the power the guy could hit you with both hands was awsome,tyson wasnt trying to knock people out he was trying to end your life with those punches although in his early days or prime he wasnt so reckless, with his handspeed being very good and timing with his punches spot on,he became reckless and more one paced when he went off the rails when he ended his days with jacobs....who onced said in a interview when he still trained him "no boxer alive will beat mike,the only person to beat mike will be himself" makes you think,doesnt it..........

 

If tyson did fight some of the great heavyweights when he was stable and in jacobs camp before he lost the plot i think he would have stopped a few of them,take lewis and holyfield as they got him after he was already on a downwards spiral but both wouldnt have went long with tyson if they took the fight with a him in his prime imo,ali and frazier would have been more intresting as these were a better class of boxers but i wouldnt right off a young mike tyson with these guys either.

[FJager 0]

Great thread Jasper, I was a huge Tyson fan, absolute animal in the ring, whoever fought him, once they tasted one of his hits they didn't want a bar of him, just pure strength and aggression. As a young fighter he was the sh#t. I have most his fights on tape and occassionaly when the lads are around for a few beers we stick them on, never grow tired of his knock out shots, just awesome.

[gnasher16 30,065]

It always amazes me why people are so hell bent on giving tyson so many excuses for losing.....he wasnt the only fighter to have problems outside the ring....he didnt have half the problems ali had,yet did you see ali biting peoples ears off because he couldnt beat them ?....when tyson lost to buster douglas everyone was banging on about the death of jacobs and his leech of a wife.....douglas lost his mother 13 days before the tyson fight !

Part of what makes a great fighter is mental strength as well as physical strength,tysons downfall was the fact he was a mentally weak cur......when fighting a man he couldnt beat he didnt want to be there,thats a cur in anyones book.....this never showed itself in his early career because he was fighting dead bodies....as soon as the class of opponent improved his weaknesses came to light and they were obvious weaknesses that would have showed in any fighter who had them...so why people love to give his so many excuses is beyond me.....a few friends died...his wife was a bitch....don king was a b*****d.....where do you draw the line...his shoes were too tight ?.......look through history at some of the problems other fighters had outside the ring...it was never given as an excuse for quitting inside it !

[wildfowler-2007 0]

tyson is a legend mate

[gaz 284]

gnasher,ive read a few posts youve wrote about boxing and you seem to know your stuff on the game and i woulnt be suprised if youve had the gloves on a few times but come on now you cant say tyson is well down the ranks with the great heavywights from the past,take trevor berbick for instance,he wasnt in the class of the ali's or frazier's ect but he was a good expierenced champ..and tyson stepped into the ring that night and took him apart...not beat him...utterly destroyed him,now for a young kid to do this to a very good pro with the ease he done it,in my book thats a very talented boxer,lennox and holyfeild couldnt even have stepped into the same ring with a fighter of this stature at this age but i have to agree with you about tysons mental strength during his career being weak to sustain a long career at the top,this was always going to be his downfall as lets be honest although a lot of top boxers come from the same backgrounds most still had a very sharp brain but tyson on the other hand wasnt far from retarded,thats why you wont see the damage from boxing on tyson now like other champs because the damage was already there with tyson,but take the tyson who was under the wing of cus d'amato and jacobs for the 5 or 6 years or so when he was lethal in the ring against anybody who stood infront of him...this is the fighter a lot of people would have liked to have seen against the very best fighters but unfortunally we will never know as they werent there at the time,so it all boils down to opinions...some say tyson was one of the greats,some say he could'nt have lived with the greats but imo tyson WAS one of the greats and at the top of his game would have beat a lot of the past top ten heavyweight champs from the past.

[jasper65 6]

Cracking post Gaz , You've said it all mate that I wanted to say but couldn't get it down on paper ....

 

Jasper

[gnasher16 30,065]

gaz most of what you say i totally agree with.....i agree,tyson was great in his prime....but then so was ali in his,frazier in his,louis in his etc etc......but to go down as an all time great you have to have beaten other great fighters thats just common sense...and tyson didnt !.....lets be honest trevor berbick,bonecrusher smith,tubbs,biggs etc etc in any other era apart from that one would not even have been top ten fighters...so it really doesnt prove anything other than the fact tyson dispatched them with unquestionable power....but that doesnt make him an all time great fighter......incidentally,as regards berbick being a good experienced champ,he lost to tyson on his first defence,it was at a time when the titles were swapping hands like sweets....tyson had a lot of flaws to his game,the obvious one being his lack of guts,many people saw this early on in his career and were not surprised when he started chucking fights in later on....but also his lack of a jab,his ring generalship was not good,when backed up he didnt know how to handle it....he was fantastic against fighters who allowed him to be the boss...but better class opponents simply dont do that....ive always felt a lot of folk see tyson as great in the same way they might see ronnie o sullivan a great snooker player....they are exciting yes,they get you watching,they get the adrenaline going..... thats great and is great for entertainment value....but on the whole they are not as good as many others in their respective sport.....being great entertainment and being an all time great are very different things.

and yes i did a bit as a younger chap and still try to keep a foot in the door...when tyson was in his prime i was just about ready for the scrapheap...so maybe a bit of the green eyed monster ...but i still think he was very overrated....good sharing opinions with you mate.

Edited March 20, 2008 by gnasher16

[KingOfHunters 0]

he was one hell of a fighter

[Guest WILF]

Gnasher and Gaz...........great couple of posts lads

[the keeper 0]

ive got three tyson videos one is called the heavyweights, in it he talks to harry carpenter about other heavyweights ali, dempsy, joe louis etc, he really knows boxing and doesnt rate himself as good as them, but this was while he was still with cus, not only his mentor but the father figure he never really had, after cus his life broke apart and he was never the same.

[gaz 284]

gaz most of what you say i totally agree with.....i agree,tyson was great in his prime....but then so was ali in his,frazier in his,louis in his etc etc......but to go down as an all time great you have to have beaten other great fighters thats just common sense...and tyson didnt !.....lets be honest trevor berbick,bonecrusher smith,tubbs,biggs etc etc in any other era apart from that one would not even have been top ten fighters...so it really doesnt prove anything other than the fact tyson dispatched them with unquestionable power....but that doesnt make him an all time great fighter......incidentally,as regards berbick being a good experienced champ,he lost to tyson on his first defence,it was at a time when the titles were swapping hands like sweets....tyson had a lot of flaws to his game,the obvious one being his lack of guts,many people saw this early on in his career and were not surprised when he started chucking fights in later on....but also his lack of a jab,his ring generalship was not good,when backed up he didnt know how to handle it....he was fantastic against fighters who allowed him to be the boss...but better class opponents simply dont do that....ive always felt a lot of folk see tyson as great in the same way they might see ronnie o sullivan a great snooker player....they are exciting yes,they get you watching,they get the adrenaline going..... thats great and is great for entertainment value....but on the whole they are not as good as many others in their respective sport.....being great entertainment and being an all time great are very different things.

and yes i did a bit as a younger chap and still try to keep a foot in the door...when tyson was in his prime i was just about ready for the scrapheap...so maybe a bit of the green eyed monster ...but i still think he was very overrated....good sharing opinions with you mate.

 

Likewise mate never boxed myself but now being too old i regret not giving it shot in my younger days,too wraped up in the football see,and nearly made a career out of it aswell but thats another story two of my brothers boxed,one being average and the other being quite decent but he was lured back to the fitba aswell and i think he carries a bigger regret than me now as he was told he was wasting a talent for the sport....it would be good to be able to wind back the clock sometimes !!