Happy 40th Mike Tyson

John Daly, too.

 

D'oh!

 

As long as Cus D'Amato and Kevin Rooney were in charge, Mike Tyson was the greatest fighter in the world. He was the youngest champion in history, he unified the title, he destroyed the "people's champion," Michael Spinks.

He could have gone on indefinitely. He could have ranked right beside Ali, Louis and Marciano as the best of all time. Even after losing to Buster Douglas, he still could have redeemed himself. He was only 23 years old at the time.

Of course, he chose instead to remain on the path that had already begun to turn him into a walking circus, which he remains to this day.

 

Is the cake shaped like an ear?

 

After Tyson's second loss to Holyfield, former Boxing Digest editor Herb Goldman compared Tyson's place in history to Jack Dempsey's. Gene Tunney defeated Dempsey twice, but when we think about the dominant heavyweight of that era, we think of Dempsey, not Tunney. So it is with Mike Tyson.
Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield were both better fighters than Mike Tyson. I really don't think anyone but the most die-hard Tyson fan can argue otherwise. Put whatever spin you want on his losses to them, but he was 0-3 against them and it can be argued that Tyson lost the only real fights he ever had.
At his best, Mike Tyson was far better than Buster Douglas, Danny Williams and Kevin McBride, but they were better than he was on the nights that they fought.
We all have an image of what the heavyweight champion of the world should be. Muhammad Ali fit that image. Larry Holmes didn't.
Mike Tyson fits that image (though don't you think the heavyweight champion's voice should sound more like Robert Parish's than Michael Jackson's?). Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield don't fit that image.

 

Mike Tyson never beat anyone that was as good as he was or better. Ever.
Still, though, it's hard to believe he's only 40.

 

I hear he always votes a straight Democratic ticket.

 

Tunney only beat Dempsey once.

Dempsey was robbed by the long count in the first fight.

 

To be fair, at least part of the long count had to do with everybody's unfamiliarity with the then-new rule about retiring to a neutral corner.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/features/si50/states/colorado/flashback/

That said, Tunney did get about a 20-count to clear his head.
What can I say? As is the case in many contests in many fields, sometimes, the wrong guy gets all the breaks from the officials and wins.

 

Some would argue Luis Firpo was similarly robbed in 1923 after he knocked Dempsey out of the ring and the champ benefited from a slow count. I've read he actually needed 14 or 15 seconds to get back in.

Others have said Tunney would have been up sooner had he needed to be. I haven't seen the film but apparently Tunney waited on one knee until the ref's count hit nine, implying he may have been able to rise before 10 even if the ref had started right away.

 

The referee did exactly what he was supposed to do in that case. Tunney won the fight.
You aren't going to tell me Tyson was robbed by the long count in the Douglas fight, too, are you?

 

Tunney beat Dempsey easily by decision in their first fight, at Philadelphia on Sept. 23, 1926.

The long count occurred in their second fight, at Soldier Field on Sept. 22, 1927. Dempsey often admitted that he screwed up by not going to a neutral corner. I've read the New York Times account of that fight and it appeared that Tunney was winning handily until the knockdown and he floored Jack in the next round.