ESPN on Tyson

[C-Lo]

Now that some people have put their input in, I'll add my own.

Personally, if he had kept his focus, he might have been the greatest heavyweight of all time. He had tremendous speed, a great chin, good head movement, an underrated jab, and I don't even have to mention his power because that was an OBVIOUS given. Arguably the hardest hitter of all time. The fear he instilled in his opponents were like no other and compared to all other fighters than may have done that before or will do in the future, no one could do it better than Tyson.

But because of his losses to Douglas, Holyfield, and Lewis I viewed him as the personification of "the school bully." The case where the school bully had thier way with anyone they targeted. But eventually, someone stands up to the bully. And when someone does that, everyone witnessing is in awe with their mouth gaped wide open, which is exactly how people watched when Tyson got knocked out.

In summation, I see Tyson as an ATG heavyweight, but COULD'VE been the greatest.

[HattonTheHammer]

Now that some people have put their input in, I'll add my own.

Personally, if he had kept his focus, he might have been the greatest heavyweight of all time. He had tremendous speed, a great chin, good head movement, an underrated jab, and I don't even have to mention his power because that was an OBVIOUS given. Arguably the hardest hitter of all time. The fear he instilled in his opponents were like no other and compared to all other fighters than may have done that before or will do in the future, no one could do it better than Tyson.

But because of his losses to Douglas, Holyfield, and Lewis I viewed him as the personification of "the school bully." The case where the school bully had thier way with anyone they targeted. But eventually, someone stands up to the bully. And when someone does that, everyone witnessing is in awe with their mouth gaped wide open, which is exactly how people watched when Tyson got knocked out.

In summation, I see Tyson as an ATG heavyweight, but COULD'VE been the greatest.

spot on, it was almost as if after the holyfield fights people finally woke up to the fact that the dragon could indeed be slayed and tyson himself was never the same animal that we knew and adored in the mid to late 80s.

The feeling you used to get around a tyson fight was undescribable and has still not been seen since, it was almost as if you were throwing some poor fella into a tigers cage, surrounding it with 18,000 fans and then watching the chaos unfold.

Tyson was an entity, it didnt matter whether you loved boxing or had no interest in the sport you still watched what unfolded because of that blood thirsty impact we as humans are programmed to have.

All time great - maybe
legend - probably not

but for pure entertainment tyson is way out ahead of everyone else!!

[Master]

Woulda, Coulda and Shoulda been an ATG but he never made it.

[porkypara]

There has not been a how good or how bad Tyson was debate on this site for a while.


Apart from winning the HW championship at a very young age what other great things did Tyson do?


He was the most exciting fighter IMO who ever put the gloves on but that does not qualify him to be an ATG.


Can sombody tell what Tyson acheved or did to make him an all time great in there opinion?

[Bomp]

There are many ways to look at it. You can look at his early title winning form and say he could have been a legend if he'd kept his head and if certain people and circumstances hadn't got in his way. But you could also easily argue that perhaps his early great form was the anomaly, and it was the cummulation of good fortune that landed him with the perfect trainer to teach the perfect technique for a guy of Tyson's stature, and without that good fortune he may never have been anybetter than the unreliable power puncher he became later in his career.

As for his achievements, I personally believe his wins in the 80s grant him a place in the top 10 in history. He did genuinely clear out the division in those brief years and was a truly undisputed champion for a short period of time. Not many fighters can claim to have done that, Patterson, Liston, Foreman, Frazier never achievd this, and neither did the majority of the champions pre-Louis who pulled the race card to avoid fights (including Dempsey). I'd still rate some of those guys above Tyson as you can give them a pass due to the quality of the division at certain times, but IMO top 10 or 15 ever heavyweight fighter qualifieshim for the tag od ATG.