In a recent interview, Hall of Fame trainer Teddy Atlas has questioned the all-time great label that many observers place on former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

Tyson, the youngest boxer to ever win a heavyweight championship, was the first heavyweight to hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles simultaneously.

In his younger days, Atlas assisted legendary trainer Cus D'Amato in developing the skills of a teenage Tyson. Atlas was removed from the camp in 1982 following an altercation with a 15-year-old Tyson. Atlas claimed Tyson had been sexually inappropriate with an 11-year-old female relative of Atlas - which led to an incident where Atlas put a handgun to Tyson's ear and threatened to kill him.

While Atlas gives high praise to the skillset of Tyson, he's not convinced that Tyson was an overall 'great' fighter.

“I don’t know if he was ever great,” Atlas said on the Lex Fridman Podcast. “I know he was sensational. I know he was the greatest mix of maybe speed and power ever. I know he was one of the greatest punchers from either side of the plate, left or right. There’s been great punchers with just the right hand like Earnie Shavers and Deontay Wilder and Max Baer. I don’t know if there’s ever been anyone who could punch as good as [Tyson] did on either side with either hand other than Joe Louis and a few others.

“I don’t know if there’s ever been such a combination of speed and power to that pure level that he had, and it was a pure level. I don’t know if there was ever as good a fighter as Tyson was for maybe one night he was great. He wasn’t tested, but he might have been ready to be tested that one night against Michael Spinks when he took him apart in 90 seconds. I think I saw a great fighter that night. I don’t think you can be great unless you have all the requirements of being great.”

Atlas went further to explain what it takes to be regarded as an overall 'great' fighter.

“To not rely on someone else’s weakness to be strong, to be strong on your own,” Atlas said. “Too often, [Tyson] relied on other people’s weakness, whether it’s by being intimidated or whether it was because his talent was so much greater than theirs that it was like putting a monster truck in there with a Volkswagen.

“The Volkswagen was going to get crushed. No matter how much horsepower the Volkswagen might’ve had under the hood, it was going to get crushed. The monster truck was not going to allow it to be a contest. To be able to find a way when your talent wasn’t enough – he didn’t find a way when his talent wasn’t enough.”

To further his viewpoint on the matter, Atlas cited Tyson's upset loss to Buster Douglas in 1990, and a pair of upset defeats to Evander Holyfield in 1996 and 1997.

“A fight is not a fight until there’s something to overcome,” Atlas said. “Until then, it’s just an athletic exhibition contest. Yeah, who’s a better athlete? Who’s got more quick twitch fibers? Who’s more developed in those physical areas?

“But a fight is not a fight until there’s something to overcome. So, if you go by my definition, not Webster’s, pretend it means something, Mike Tyson was only in five, six fights in his life. The fights where there was something to overcome, he didn’t overcome it.”