Okay, it's a history/fantasy match-up, but it's a quiet week, so lets run with it.
The commonly held view (by general public at least) is that a prime Tyson would have gone through Lewis, and, to be fair, I used to think this myself. But it seems a little disingenuous to Lewis for him to get the butt end of any Tyson/Lewis debate when the guy does actually possess a "W" over him on his record.
The idea of Lewis fighting prime Tyson also takes away from the fact that the Lewis that was around during prime Tyson era would have been a relative novice and not in HIS prime.
I think it's pretty much a given that Lewis would have beaten any version of Tyson post-jail, if only by comparing their common opponents. Triangular logic proves nothing, styles mean everything, but from 1993 on Lewis was taking out opponents with ease that Tyson was ... not labouring with... but taking a longer time about it. He also of course beat Holyfield.
Anyway, I was looking at my Tyson DVDs the other day and it's easy to overrate prime Tyson just on how exciting he looked. Sure, he's fast, explosive and all the rest of it, and his boxing skills are underrated. But he struggles with taller, unintimidated opponents that fight back... just look at his fight with James Tillis, which was perhaps closer than the cards had it.
Bottom line is, Tyson was perhaps an extremely enjoyable hype, a tremendous, tremendous boxer, but one who never had the mental fortitude to fight back from adversity and had only an aged Larry Holmes and a blown-up Light Heavy as the best names on his ledger. I say this not to detract from Mike, whom I love, but just to get it in perspective. His fights are infinitely more exciting to watch than Big Len's, but taking out the likes of Sammy Scaff and Ricardo Spain isn't top ten all-time heavyweight list.
So the question... who would have won?
The commonly held view (by general public at least) is that a prime Tyson would have gone through Lewis, and, to be fair, I used to think this myself. But it seems a little disingenuous to Lewis for him to get the butt end of any Tyson/Lewis debate when the guy does actually possess a "W" over him on his record.
The idea of Lewis fighting prime Tyson also takes away from the fact that the Lewis that was around during prime Tyson era would have been a relative novice and not in HIS prime.
I think it's pretty much a given that Lewis would have beaten any version of Tyson post-jail, if only by comparing their common opponents. Triangular logic proves nothing, styles mean everything, but from 1993 on Lewis was taking out opponents with ease that Tyson was ... not labouring with... but taking a longer time about it. He also of course beat Holyfield.
Anyway, I was looking at my Tyson DVDs the other day and it's easy to overrate prime Tyson just on how exciting he looked. Sure, he's fast, explosive and all the rest of it, and his boxing skills are underrated. But he struggles with taller, unintimidated opponents that fight back... just look at his fight with James Tillis, which was perhaps closer than the cards had it.
Bottom line is, Tyson was perhaps an extremely enjoyable hype, a tremendous, tremendous boxer, but one who never had the mental fortitude to fight back from adversity and had only an aged Larry Holmes and a blown-up Light Heavy as the best names on his ledger. I say this not to detract from Mike, whom I love, but just to get it in perspective. His fights are infinitely more exciting to watch than Big Len's, but taking out the likes of Sammy Scaff and Ricardo Spain isn't top ten all-time heavyweight list.
So the question... who would have won?
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