I noticed he gets overrated by casuals, but in turn get's underated by Veterans. I'm even guilty of this myself.
The numbers aren't in his favor, even the facts aren't - but we still have intangibles.
Tyson did lose to his best competition. Tyson also lost in his physical prime, so the argument of his prime was basically "when he was serious", which unfortunately is only about 2 years.
We do have evidence that he had drug problems and a lot of life problems however, and he's not the first boxer to have a career that sort of takes a nose dive because of it.
My argument is this though, he did bulldoze some rather decent competition (Spinks, and Holmes). I say Decent because Spinks was a "light heavyweight" coming off a layoff and Holmes was coming off a very long layoff. Both of these wins are very overated but the fact still remains he did stop Spinks in one round, which is impressive.
How does everyone think he would actually do, when he was hungry and mentally focused? He seemed like he had some fight in him and he proved his chin was pretty good as well.
For example, Tyson vs Bowe? If Tyson is undefeated and is coming in confident, how does this fight play out? Does he win a decision?
Tyson vs Lewis, is a really tough one because of Lewis' track record of not always showing up. Lewis never looked that great vs Holyfield, and that was years after the Tyson vs Holyfield fights.
I think this type of situation starts showing up because by the 90's boxing had already turned into a marketing heavy sport where the best were dodging tough fights in order to make more money and have a longer and safer career.
Holyfield was one of the few fighters that fought everyone, hes also the guy with almost 10 losses on his record, which is pretty similar to every fighter from past eras. It's getting to the point where losses can almost mean a fighter is more proven than a fighter with no losses and had a heavily risk managed career.
Anyways back to Tyson, it's just bothersome how he has this massive intangible floating over his career, where nobody actually knows how good he was. You can't accurately predict how Tyson would do vs other great fighters.
A win / loss ratio on a record is pretty much a statistic for casuals. To properly judge a fighter you need to be able to break down his resume and determine the value of each win based on the circumstances.
The numbers aren't in his favor, even the facts aren't - but we still have intangibles.
Tyson did lose to his best competition. Tyson also lost in his physical prime, so the argument of his prime was basically "when he was serious", which unfortunately is only about 2 years.
We do have evidence that he had drug problems and a lot of life problems however, and he's not the first boxer to have a career that sort of takes a nose dive because of it.
My argument is this though, he did bulldoze some rather decent competition (Spinks, and Holmes). I say Decent because Spinks was a "light heavyweight" coming off a layoff and Holmes was coming off a very long layoff. Both of these wins are very overated but the fact still remains he did stop Spinks in one round, which is impressive.
How does everyone think he would actually do, when he was hungry and mentally focused? He seemed like he had some fight in him and he proved his chin was pretty good as well.
For example, Tyson vs Bowe? If Tyson is undefeated and is coming in confident, how does this fight play out? Does he win a decision?
Tyson vs Lewis, is a really tough one because of Lewis' track record of not always showing up. Lewis never looked that great vs Holyfield, and that was years after the Tyson vs Holyfield fights.
I think this type of situation starts showing up because by the 90's boxing had already turned into a marketing heavy sport where the best were dodging tough fights in order to make more money and have a longer and safer career.
Holyfield was one of the few fighters that fought everyone, hes also the guy with almost 10 losses on his record, which is pretty similar to every fighter from past eras. It's getting to the point where losses can almost mean a fighter is more proven than a fighter with no losses and had a heavily risk managed career.
Anyways back to Tyson, it's just bothersome how he has this massive intangible floating over his career, where nobody actually knows how good he was. You can't accurately predict how Tyson would do vs other great fighters.
A win / loss ratio on a record is pretty much a statistic for casuals. To properly judge a fighter you need to be able to break down his resume and determine the value of each win based on the circumstances.
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