Was the Douglas fight the smartest fight Tyson ever took.

[res]

Think about it

Boxing enthusiasts aside, Tyson has a stellar reputation as a Boxer within mainstream culture, he is seen as virtually unbeatable in his prime. I was thinking about this "what if" scenario yesterday though. What if Tyson hadn't fought Douglas?


From what I hear Tyson was supposed to fight Holyfield after that fight.
Imagine if Tyson hadn't taken the Douglas fight and had gone right to Holyfield. Now Tyson was obviously on the slide as a fighter at this point but what if he had to contend with Holyfield instead? Because of the quality of fighter James Buster Douglas was people on the street dismiss the fight and say (rightfully) that it shouldn't be taken seriously, and then proceed to argue that prime Tyson was unbeatable. But what if Tyson hadn't taken the Douglas fight and gone straight to Holyfield? If Holyfield had taken him, things might have gone much differently. Unlike Douglas, Holyfield went on to become a legendary fighter in his own right.

If it had been Holyfield that beat Tyson, the world may just have seen it as a legitimate loss for Tyson forever shattering the unbeatable image of prime Tyson.

The Douglas fight was the best move the Tyson camp ever made.

What do you think?

This is a thread more about perception than reality.

[Verstyle]

I guess in a way you can call it smart, but no excuses. Mike LOST. Everyone has issues and what not. He's not excluded.

[Benny Leonard]

I hear what you are saying but still, for such a smart choice of fight he got his ass kicked by Buster throughout the fight. It would have been smarter to not have made the choices he made that led to the Douglas fight.
I also think Holyfield would have at least gave him a rematch.

[Benny Leonard]

I guess in a way you can call it smart, but no excuses. Mike LOST. Everyone has issues and what not. He's not excluded.

I agree. At the end of the day, Tyson lost. Being a Pro Boxer is not just about what you do inside the ring during the fight, but how you prepare leading up to that fight. Tyson made the wrong choices for his career and that is on him. He may not have been at his best for Douglas, but whose fault is that? Tyson's.

When you go over "Why" and go over the Reasons that is something different. That's only there to give someone the understanding of what to do and what not to do and give an understanding of what happened. That's for the history books. That's for the students of boxing to serve as a lesson. The disappointment is Tyson was a student of boxing and he still blew it.

[DarchinyFAN]

From what I hear Tyson was supposed to fight Holyfield after that fight.
Imagine if Tyson hadn't taken the Douglas fight and had gone right to Holyfield. Now Tyson was obviously on the slide as a fighter at this point but what if he had to contend with Holyfield instead? .

Tyson was on the slide as a fighter at the age of 24? or are you talking about when he eventually met Holyfield later on?

[Greatwhitehope]

I think he is referring to outside the ring as much as anything else.

[MANGLER]

I agree he was on the slide at the time, but on that particular night in Japan, he might as well have not even shown up. A lotta that had to do wit who he was fightin. Had he been fightin Holyfield, he woulda respected his opponent enuf to actually train properly and lay off the bitches and parties. This is the advantage every underdog has, knowin that the star/champ ain't takin them seriously, and thus will likely not be at their best. Not to say that Holyfield could not have defeated him anyway, cuz it was possible, but that Douglas loss was a combination of gr8 Douglas and terrible Tyson. Although as someone else said, Tyson can't blame anybody for that **** but himself, it is what it is.

[Knighte]

At the time I thought the loss to Douglas was a fluke, but after Holy, Lewis and others knocked him out in more or less the exact same manner, it became obvious to me the guy just wasn't that good a fighter. His terrific handspeed and strength allowed him to be a big fish in a small pond for a while, but on the whole I think you guys vastly overrate his "talent"

[Benny Leonard]

At the time I thought the loss to Douglas was a fluke, but after Holy, Lewis and others knocked him out in more or less the exact same manner, it became obvious to me the guy just wasn't that good a fighter. His terrific handspeed and strength allowed him to be a big fish in a small pond for a while, but on the whole I think you guys vastly overrate his "talent"

Your hate and ignorance is funny.

Like I said, you don't have to go by me or some of the others on this board, you can go by many historians, fighters, and trainers that all note that Tyson was a different fighter after Spinks, after he left Rooney.

I hope you know that a big part of the reason that Tyson was good was because he was properly trained under a system that worked for him. Take that system away from him and he is just 5'11, 215+ pound street-fighter.
I kind of agree with Teddy Atlas: Had he not wound up in Catskill, he probably wouldn't have been Champion. 5'11, 215+ pounds in the era he fought wasn't that big...actually, he was "small" compared to the other fighters except for Spinks although Spinks was taller.

.................................................. .......Here is a start:

THE SCHOLAR CONSIDERS:
An Interview With Boxing Historian Herbert G. Goldman


Another man-- a shame what’s happened to him, and I’d say the only man who could have beaten him eventually did beat him, and that was himself—Mike Tyson. Now Mike Tyson’s style—talking about a boxer learning from boxers of the past—and it’s amazing that more has not been made of this. Mike Tyson’s style is Jack Dempsey, completely. The way he comes in quickly with a bob and weave, ducks down low and comes up with a smashing left hook to the larger man’s head and face, that’s Jack Dempsey. When Tyson turned pro he even came into the ring with the sides of his head shaven in emulation of Jack Dempsey. There is no doubt about this. No socks, low shoes, black trunks. This was a young man who studied old fight films like crazy. And he found that the style of Jack Dempsey was more conducive to his own abilities than any other style. And that’s what he developed.

KD -- I always felt that Tyson was a small heavyweight and he was often misunderstood and under-rated in terms of the level of genuine skill that he brought into the ring.

HG -- That’s right. A lot of people did not understand what they were watching when they saw Mike Tyson. He was not some slugger as such.

KD -- He was not a super-power in terms of his physical strength

HG -- Oh no. One thing about Mike Tyson that I don’t think a lot of people understand because of, let’s say his psychological-social problems, a lot of people think he’s some kind of ****** brute. He’s not. He happens to be, as far as I can see-- and I don’t know the man but I have had a couple of conversations with him-- an intelligent young man. He’s probably one of the most intelligent fighters, certainly in terms of boxing, that we’ve seen. His emulation of the Jack Dempsey’s style. His knowledge of boxing history is considerable, by the way, and when you listen to him, this is not a ****** man. He’s a very misunderstood boxer, and people also do not understand that his skills eroded after a certain period. People will say Ah he was never anything,. They start to question him all the way back. No. He peaked when he knocked out Michael Spinks in the first round. But beginning about a year after that he really started to go down hill.

KD -- That was a period when he had separated from Rooney, his remaining D’Amato trainer, and he no longer had a real trainer who understood his style.

HG -- Right. Tyson was a fighter who needed a certain edge. He needed to be on edge. And when he lost that he lost a tremendous amount. He still has too much power and over-all ability for ninety or ninety-five percent of all the fighters out there. There’s no question about that. But at his peak I can’t imagine—and I say this with all respect and deference for Evander Holyfield—but at his peak I can’t imagine Tyson being defeated by Holyfield. At his peak he would have been a terrific fight even for the peak Muhammad Ali.
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There was also a funny video with Roger Mayweather and he touches on the topic with Tyson and leaving Rooney and why it's not good for a fighter to leave the system that made him Great in the first place.



Like I said: Would any version of Tyson after Spinks, after Rooney, have beaten the version of Tyson that was Champion from Berbick to Spinks?

Answer that question and get back to me.

[PLATE]

At the time I thought the loss to Douglas was a fluke, but after Holy, Lewis and others knocked him out in more or less the exact same manner, it became obvious to me the guy just wasn't that good a fighter. His terrific handspeed and strength allowed him to be a big fish in a small pond for a while, but on the whole I think you guys vastly overrate his "talent"

You are 100% spot on.

I'm so sick of Tyson ballsack lickers mistaking their man's (once)quick reflexes and handspeed for technical acumen. He made his mark because he was a magnificent physical speciman; sure he could bob and weave a bit under Rooney's tutelage, but a trained monkey could've been taught the same thing. He had NO ring intelligence, NO heart, NO discipline, NO self control, and NO ability either to learn from his mistakes or to avenge his many embarassing defeats.