Where does Tyson actually rank

[QueensburyRules]

dont you ever get bored? you are the most useless poster on here yet you continue to post day after day. Aren't you tired? lol

I can just picture your daily routine, retired or on disability - logs on, talks ****, takes a sip from the bottle etc etc

Even Rusty has an opinion at least lol

- -What, gotta tell U I rate Tyson very high as a record setter cleaning out the stink of the tubby Lar/DKing era.

Because of circumstances beyond his control, could only fight a half of the three decades he was active in.

How many x U need to be told the obvious?

[Jefferson Jazzw]

Unfortunately you have to rank someone off of what they actually did, not their potential. I would say maybe top 35 all time but im not sure

[The Old LefHook]

Tyson whips three out of four heavyweights!

[The Old LefHook]

Tyson whips three out of four heavyweights!

That's one hell of an assessment.

[Tatabanya]

The Holmes that beat Mercer and went life and death with Holyfield was not the same version Tyson stopped. Holmes had been retired from boxing for a long time and was brought in on short notice to face Tyson for a big pay day. There was no way he was mentally prepared for that fight. By the time Holmes got in with Mercer and Holyfield, he was well warmed up into his comeback.

I was reconsidering this paragraph. Don't you think that, using the same criteria, Holyfield's wins against Tyson should then be greatly diminished?

Tyson had been jailed for three years; that alone destroys psyche and automatisms. When he got out of the slammer, Don King paved a comfortable road for him with McNeeley (enough said), blubbery Buster Mathis, scared-as-hell Frank Bruno and Bruce Seldon, who was probably paid to go down. Tyson himself looked dead serious after both the McNeeley and Seldon farces. He knew that there was something wrong with King's dealings.

Therefore, he was not ready at all against Holyfield, in spite of being a WBC/WBA titlist. He fought EIGHT rounds total against the four above mentioned opponents; that doesn't qualify as being "warmed up" for someone like Holyfield. Much less being "mentally prepared", in fact Tyson entered the first Holyfield fight convinced of blowing him out in one or two rounds like the others.

On the other hand, Evander was considered shot in 1996, so there you go... Yet another example of impossibility of a precise ranking of Tyson.

[JAB5239]

- -What, gotta tell U I rate Tyson very high as a record setter cleaning out the stink of the tubby Lar/DKing era.

Because of circumstances beyond his control, could only fight a half of the three decades he was active in.

How many x U need to be told the obvious?

What circumstances were beyond his control?

[thebrownbomber_]

Lol considers overrated hypejobs like David Tua and Ray Mercer to be "ATG Fighters" that Tyson "ducked".

[thebrownbomber_]

Lets see how "good" the 90s were:
> Tommy Morrison- Overrated hypejob only notable win against a 40 year old Foreman and knocked out by Ray Mercer and some dude named "Michael Bent"
>Ray Mercer- Overrated hypejob. Only good win against tommy morrison in which he literally got lucky that Morrison didnt know how to clinch. Loses to Old Holmes in his peak and 80s journeyman Jesse Ferguson (whom Tyson pounded 6 years earlier)
> David Tua- Knocked out nobodies and a past his best LHW Michael Moorer. Lost in all his big fights and couldn't win a world title even after Lennox retired

If Old Holmes and Old Foreman could be at the top, and a shot faded mike tyson could win a title, same with a shot Bruno, I see this era to be very overrated.

[thebrownbomber_]

I was reconsidering this paragraph. Don't you think that, using the same criteria, Holyfield's wins against Tyson should then be greatly diminished?

Tyson had been jailed for three years; that alone destroys psyche and automatisms. When he got out of the slammer, Don King paved a comfortable road for him with McNeeley (enough said), blubbery Buster Mathis, scared-as-hell Frank Bruno and Bruce Seldon, who was probably paid to go down. Tyson himself looked dead serious after both the McNeeley and Seldon farces. He knew that there was something wrong with King's dealings.

Therefore, he was not ready at all against Holyfield, in spite of being a WBC/WBA titlist. He fought EIGHT rounds total against the four above mentioned opponents; that doesn't qualify as being "warmed up" for someone like Holyfield. Much less being "mentally prepared", in fact Tyson entered the first Holyfield fight convinced of blowing him out in one or two rounds like the others.

On the other hand, Evander was considered shot in 1996, so there you go... Yet another example of impossibility of a precise ranking of Tyson.

Evander was considered "shot" but defeated Michael Moorer who had beaten him in his prime. Also, Bruno was shot in the 90s. The Tyson 89 fight took alot out of him.

[QueensburyRules]

I believe he should be ranked in the top 10-15 ATG HW's. Not in the top 10 at all, his resume is too lacking. H2H matchups are not how you rank greats, and even then he falls short against many greats.

The fact of the matter is he fought in the strongest or second strongest HW era of all time and he did not beat any primed greats, lost to the ones he did face or simply avoided fighting all the other great fighters of his time.

The most damning of course is how he badly lost to Holyfield and Lewis and had the opportunity to get other great wins against Bowe, Foreman etc. but never faced them. This is an empty, weak resume.

That forces me to penalize him worse than other HW champs who never beat any greats but they did not have any greats to face in their own era's.

Tyson's career was carefully crafted for him, there were many powerful punchers with great chins in his era, those would pose big problems but he ducked every single one of them.

His fans gloat about about his run in the second half of the 80s, where he indeed fought all comers except for one man who specifically came out of retirement to face him: George Foreman. Ducking his toughest style matchup in his precious "prime" also ruins the so called mystique of his 80s title run. He has no excuse here because he had no problem facing another aging former champ in Holmes. But Foreman who was calling him out all over the media and would have made it a huge PPV fight was avoided.

So that's his ranking. A man who did not beat anyone great when he had 15 years of time to do so, and who's best wins are Ruddock and Tucker, and who never faced punchers with chins when there were tons of them around. And the only counter arguments I've gotten are excuses. well he is not excused here. Nothing but facts.

- -No excuse for U not studying up.

The Foreman fight was a done deal when the Chinese offered $25 mil in 1990. Before consummation, the Tiananmen massacre occurred. The Buster fight was the poor replacement.

No matter that post prison now entering the cruel joke phase of his career as a sharecropper for DKing, yeah, he ducked George, yet in his 18 yr old debut, he was a record setter cleaning out the stink of DKing and Tubsy Lar to consolidate the 4 belts.