Quote Originally Posted by VanChilds
You know Tyson probably did miss his calling as a MMA fighter....I personally have always felt the guy is vastly overrated as a boxer, but with an all around training in MMA he would have been a Fedor like fighter. That being said my issue with boxers, w/little to no MMA training, in an MMA fight is why would an all around fighter choose to "box" with him. Also I simply don't see boxing and mma striking as the same thing. I look at it like a baseball pitcher and a softball pitcher. Some end result and concept but with some fundemental differences. There are techniques taught in boxing that work b/c you don't have to worry about kicks, fighting from the clinch and takedowns. A prime Tyson had awesome handspeed and power so in any fight it would make him dangerous, but if I'm a MMA fighter or hell just plain old me the one thing I'm not going to do is attempt to "box" or trade punches with him. And if I'm a world class kickboxer like Mirko I'm going to use a variety of leg kicks and clinch fighting to slow down and frustrate mike then put him away with the most devastating strike in MMA....CroCop's left high kick. I don't give Mike anything more than a punchers chance against any top MMA HW
Actually, he would have been nothing like a "Fedor type fighter". Tyson is a striker. Fedor is a ground fighter. He has decent power, but all of his strikes are geared to work with GNP. If anything, Tyson would have been more like Mirko. Also, if Tyson were in MMA, Mirko's LHK wouldn't be the most devastating strike in MMA.

Even with no cross-training, I'd pick Tyson over Mirko. With no training, I could even see him giving Fedor all kinds of trouble. Fedor is not trained to deal with strikes that powerful, in that kind of rapid succession. If he got Mike to the ground, that would be bad for Mikey, but here's the thing... Tyson at 5'11 and 220 was very compact, and IMO way more Explosive than Fedor, taught a simple sprawl, that's a hard man to take down.