Mike Tyson boxing for charity

Taking nothing away from Roy Jones Jr., Mike Tyson is considered one of, if not the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time...and his legacy continues to grow. However, let’s keep Tyson’s legacy in check.

He was beaten twice by Evander Holyfield...who in the prime of his life could not knock out a much older (42) George Foreman. Holyfield after the Foreman fight and again after Holyfield retired said, no one in his career beat him like Foreman did, no one hit him harder than an old George Foreman.

Anyone thinking Tyson is king, should take a harder look at the record, career, and knockouts that George Foreman left in his path. In 69 early fights Foreman only lost twice, once to Ali. Check out how many of those 69 fights were by knockout...65 fights were knockouts. Foreman was a beast!!

Would have been interesting to see all these guys fight during their prime years. Kings are only king for so long. Everyone, sooner than later, becomes a has-been.

Holyfield deserves his due as well, having boxed cruiser weight becoming champion and moving to the heavy weight division and also becoming champion. Holyfield himself was a force to be reckoned with.

All great boxers.

I love Foreman. Almost all, if not all, of his pro fights are on youtube. When he came out of retirement I expected it to be fake but he was real good, could really take a punch and give them too. And he rarely sat down between rounds and rarely got out of breath. Tough old bird.

Its awful hard to pick the best fighter ever if they fought in their prime. Ali was almost impossible to hit at his peek. but they each had their own thing. I'll throw Jack Johnson in the list of top 10 too. I love those old silent clips of him.

Tyson idolized Jack Dempsey...and said no fighter was ever as good as Dempsey.

For the time period the Tunney/Dempsey fights had huge crowds of 100,000 people. Imagine crowds like that today for a live fight.

I dont think Ive watched any Dumpsey fights. I have watched Marciano some and he was a punching bag but a good fighter too. I'll watch Dempsey this winter if any are on youtube.

They are on YouTube.

Cool. And oops, I spelled Dempsey wrong. I like watching fights when I do not know the outcome. Its like watching a new live fight that way. I do that with World series games sometimes. if I get back in the early 70s I cant remember who won and I watch a game. I watch them on an old black and white tv too, lol Gotta make it look just like it would have at the time. Im quite nostalgic about that stuff.

W, it's hard to believe you were old enough to watch TV in the early 70s. Did you actually have a TV station in your area at that time? I know we had a local statiion, Canadian station and Maine Public Broadcast Network.

We had 4 clear local stations, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS (not positive what year PBS came along here) we got at the time and a couple fringe stations from Minneapolis that were fuzzy, so we were luckier than most. We had a good rooftop antenna and that helped. We lived on comedy and western shows.

Ali on Jack Johnson.

Real good video. i watched it all the way thru. If you have a few hours to kill, this is an older documentary on him. Ive watched it twice before on DVD so did not test out the youtube video. Unforgivable Blackness is the title.

After Tyson/Holyfield I lost interest in boxing. Honestly, I liked Tyson as a young man but he lost me when he got his attitude. That was after D’Mato (spelling?) died. He was ruined as a role model after that. Since then he’s asked for forgiveness from a lot of people and tried to turn his life around some. Have no idea if he’s still living up to that. However, I was always a huge Evander Holyfield fan. Great role model to younger kids and role model in general. Brought up in the same are as Tyson...same neighborhood, but Holyfield never would cuss and act like a hood. He fought his way through the weight divisions and ultimately the top heavy weight champion and the oldest heavyweight champion. I didn’t even watch all of his fights after the Tyson/Holyfield fight. Just lost interest.

Don’t know anything about Jones Jr, other than his stellar record, speed, and similar punching style as Ali...the hands come from down low at all times...rarely are the hands high. Looks a lot like Ali did. You can’t talk about greats unless Ali is mentioned. Even he said he gave credence to Foreman, but he out smarted Foreman. Foreman was clearly the harder puncher, slower, and Ali was greased lightning in his feet and legs, leg strength, ability to move his upper body and head quickly and had a stinging constant jab that was bad to the bone. Take the ropes away though and there’s likely a different outcome. Of course, you use the rules to your advantage. Like Holyfield said about Foreman, he tied Foreman up the last round to keep Foreman from landing a bomb in the last round. Holyfield was smart enough to tie up his hands that last round.

I will watch that Johnson video soon. Two hours...wow.

Eeeeekkk!!!! Three hours plus.

Yes, its long, lol. I think its on PBS's website or app if you have a way to watch that on a larger screen. It might be in your library to loan out on DVD too as its a PBS documentary, at least I think so.

I agree with about everything you said. When he was in his prime nobody could hit Ali because he wasnt there, lol He was so quick it was scary.

...and for a big man to be that fast is scary.

This was interesting.

I do agree with his end assessment for a winner. Odds do favor the man most recent in the ring. Then again, it is Tyson and he’s looking more like the early Tyson than the latter. If the early Tyson shows up, and he looks like his old self early on, it could spell trouble for Jones Jr. Of course, they both have to determine to really throw down first.

However, I disagree with Tyson being the fiercest heavyweight fighter of all time. I mean, I feel this video commentator could be correct, but the numbers show a different case when compared to Foreman for example. Look at the shear number of fights before Foreman’s retirement. I’m not sure what the total of fights tallied up to be, but just from one of the earlier videos in this thread 69 fights...65 by KO. Knocked out is knocked out. Doesn’t matter if it’s the first round or the tenth. Tyson doesn’t even have close to those numbers. What he does have is lots of early knock outs that intimidated the rest of his opponents. If you’re scared to death and intimidated, then you won’t perform as well for as long. You won’t defend as well for as long either.

Ol’ George could take abuse and could most certainly deliver it. Tyson’s chin was exposed by Douglas...and from that point forward men were not as intimidated. Intimidation is a big factor in a fight. Michael Moorer was not intimidated by an out of retirement George Foreman, but maybe he should have been and he would not have lost against Foreman. Apparently he didn’t listen to Holyfield when he said Foreman hit like a freaking train and he looked much slower than he really was. Apparently the big man’s size made him look slow according to Holyfield. Holyfield is on record saying Foreman could have easily landed that big bomb in the last round of their fight had he not tied Foreman up. That fight went to the last bell. Two unintimidated bulls going at it with great respect for each other and still having that same respect today.