Exactly this.
Mike overall is overrated, but before he got all rapecharged up he was a different animal altogether.
I personally think that version beats Holyfield but not Lennox. Tyson looked a little beatable against taller fighters at times, and Lennox was tall AND elite.
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Tyson apparently did beat up Lennox a couple years prior in the gym though.
I thought Lennox basically admitted to it on JRE when he said they had different timelines. He leaked much later and Mike much sooner
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Different timelines is the perfect way to put it.
Prime vs Prime is how I usually see things but thats a fair way to put it.
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I always heard the opposite with relation to Lewis in sparing when they were young. I also heard Tysonâs camp paid Lewis a million dollars to step aside during mikes âprimeâ to take an easier fight.
I get so fucking tired of hearing âwhen Cus was aliveâ talk. Cus wasnât in the ring, did he give Mike some kind of magical powers?
Ali was a different fighter after his exile but he was still a world champion. The Ali that beat Sonny Liston in the first fight was literally unbelievable. Unmatched footwork and hand speed. He didnât have Tyson power but Mike never wouldâve touched him.
The only two fighters Mike ever fought with âall timeâ potential were Lewis and Holyfield and he lost to both. Did Evander cheat? Yeah, so fucking what, if you arenât cheating youâre not trying.
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Onion farmer.
Nigel Benn. My childhood hero, absolutely loved watching him fight. Used to be bouncing round the room as a kid, adrenaline fuelledđ. Always ready to go to war.
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Well it only took 136 posts for this kind of Tyson talk to come up.
I knew it would sooner or later.
Tyson canât be goat because he fell too far, for too long.
But peak Tyson would be a tough fight for anyone.
Lewis and Holyfield never fought peak Tyson.
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Iâm not so sure about this.
Watch the second Foreman/Frazier fight in '76.
Frazierâs defense was good â bobbing and dodging Foremanâs punches. b
But he wasnât countering, just delaying the inevitable.
Tyson was a different animal.
He would have been countering HARD to the body, and often, setting up more counters to the head. Tyson would have made Foreman pay for those misses every time, and Tyson was faster, more technical, and more powerful than Frazier.
Itâs easy to say so-and-so fighter would have beat peak Tyson, because we all saw a very dangerous, but also beatable Tyson in the 90s.
The plodding headhunter version of Tyson from the mid 90s in, was not the same fighter as the guy who became the youngest HW champion ever.
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Holyfield has admitted as much himself.
He said (and Iâm paraphrasing) that nobody had anything for peak Tyson, because he was unpredictable. Later on after Kevin Rooney, Tysonâs trainers gave him a cadence â a predictable rhythm that the Holyfield camp was able to study, predict, and train for.
It was a significant difference.
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Who knows, but it was more about Jim Jacobs and Kevin Rooney.
Obviously Cus got the ball rolling. He saw something in Tyson, and was right. Tyson loved Cus and Camille for sure.
But Tyson was 12-0 when Cus died.
IMO the first Frank Bruno fight kind of represents the last of âpeak Tysonâ.
That fight made Tyson 36-0.
So Tysonâs peak title run happened largely after Cus died.
Jim Jacobs was also a positive influence for Tyson, and Tyson loved Jacobs. Kevin Rooney was also continuing with Cusâs methods.
Jim Jacobs died in March of '88.
Kevin Rooney was fired not long after.
Three fights later, Tyson would lose to Buster Douglas.
This is not a coincidence.
Tyson went from being managed by good people who cared about him â to being managed by thugs and yes-men â who would only feed into Tysonâs most self destructive impulses.
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I donât know, peak Tyson was pretty tough.
Obviously Frazier just represents a different level of determination and will in the ring.
He was special in that aspect.
But peak Tyson was not the easily frustrated fighter we would see in the 90s.
He was disciplined and stuck to his gameplan, even if he didnât come out and dominate right away.
He also had a hell of a chin. Frank Bruno wasnât George Foreman, but Bruno hit damn hard, and Tyson ate a clean one and just kept going.
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They would both be different fights for sure.
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The headbutts are real lol.
Holyfield had that down to a science.
Last I heard Tyson and Holyfield are still friends.
There was a show a few years back and Tyson went with Evander to one of his sonâs fights.
They kind of looked like 2 old friends.
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In regards to Cus. Mike was an animal. A wild street kid that Cus shaped into the youngest heavyweight champ ever.
He is famous for being absolutely nuts out of the ring. Wild parties etc. There are countless stories about him
Itâs obvious he was a completely different fighter post prison. He surrounded himself with black power leaches and was on prescription drugs. He was completely different. Just watch video on young Tyson vs post prison Tyson. Two completely different fighters.
I disagree about Ali. Tyson was a more explosive and athletic Joe Frazier. Frazier did more than touch Ali, he beat him
Ali has many losses despite everyone always acting like he was the best ever and it being undisputed.
Teddy Atlas agrees with you though. He said Mike didnât have the mental toughness to overcome true challenges and would never win a war that was evenly matched for that reason.
But he also has a vendetta.
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Substance abuse is a bitch.
Can bring even the toughest men to their knees.
Tyson would have been a tough fight for Ali for sure.
Yeah I take everything that dude has said over the years with a grain of salt.
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I am glad you said it. I used to bring it up on the old site and people just couldnt handle the truth about Ali, in a Bruce Lee sort of way.
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Young Comacho was really fun and being PR with family in the Bronx, I have great memories of getting together for some of his fights.
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| Fight | Opponent | Date | Aliâs Age at the Time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joe Frazier | March 8, 1971 | 29 years old | Fight of the Century â Frazier knocked him down and won by unanimous decision. |
| 2 | Ken Norton | March 31, 1973 | 31 years old | Norton broke Aliâs jaw, won by split decision. |
| 3 | Leon Spinks | February 15, 1978 | 36 years old | Spinks, only 7 pro fights in, shocked the world. |
| 4 | Larry Holmes | October 2, 1980 | 38 years old | Holmes dominated him; Ali looked slow and was basically a shell of himself. |
| 5 | Trevor Berbick | December 11, 1981 | 39 years old | His final fight. Clear decision loss. Ali officially retired after this. |
For comparison sake Aleksander Usyk is still dominating, undefeated and 38 years old.
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Spinks, Holmes, and Berbick are Ali past his prime though.
And comparing primes by age doesnât really work. Ali had wars in the ring and took a lot of damage.
The Joe Frazier fights alone might be the main reason Ali has Parkinsonâs Syndrome.
I still have Ali as the GOAT.
And nobody is unbeatable.
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One other counter to my point is Ali won with speed when he was younger, when that speed goes you are done
Fighters that win with cunning or never had the speed/explosion to dominate with last longer because the mind doesnât leave.
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I think prime Tyson was better than Frazier. He may have been a front runner and not a grinder, but he was so good for a short time. Not many fighters that were 21 could beat him
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Yeah, and Frazier beat Ali. So saying Tyson wouldnât touch Ali is something I completely disagree with.
I think Foreman would have murdered Ali in a rematch if he hadnât been a head case
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Ali was tough as nails man.
Itâs one of the reasons I have him as GOAT.
Yes he won with speed and technique, but he had the heart and will to go with it.
When it comes down to it, Ali was every bit as tough as Frazier.
The man just imposed his will in the ring.
He also got into Foremanâs head.
Had an advantage before the fight even started.
Just the total package.
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The majority of Aliâs losses came when he was obviously past his prime. He might have been the same age as âinsert nameâ but he had a lot of miles on his brain.
He already had signs of Parkinsonâs when he fought Berbick.
Much like âpre prisonâ Tyson, Pre exile Ali was a totally different animal.
Iâd argue Frazier wouldnât have touched Liston Ali.
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