Who was the biggest opponent Mike Tyson beat?

The Game Room
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(Man, if you laid odds on me starting two Mike Tyson threads… :grin:)

The discussion about the impending trainwreck between Mike Tyson and the nauseating waste of oxygen hellspawn of the month got me to thinking about Tyson’s actual fight history. It always struck me as unusual that for all the talk about his incredible speed and power and the fear he instilled in his opponents, the subject of who he beat rarely came up. Throughout sports history, the true greatness of the icons has always been measured by their fiercest rivals; ask anyone who had the privilege of seeing Nicklaus-Palmer, Evert-Navratilova, Gracie-Shamrock, or Musashimaru-Takanohana unfold in real time. But while Muhammad Ali had at least two absolutely legendary wins, The Rumble in the Jungle over George Foreman and The Thrilla in Manila over Joe Frazier, it seemed that every time Tyson got a chance to make his mark, he failed miserably.

Complete record a ways down this page, newest to oldest. No Internet in the early days, and my parents were too cheap for pay-per-view anything, so I never got to see most of them. So just picking through a few:

Trevor Berbick, James Smith, Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tucker: If you’re going to discuss big wins, may as well start with the kingmakers. I don’t recall any one ever discussing these fights, so insights appreciated.

Larry Holmes: Never that great…certainly not in the same echelon as Frazier or Foreman, let alone Tyson…but managed to hang on for an eternity, mainly by getting all kinds of undeserved decisions. (I’m fairly sure he was the one who invented the “blocked lots of punches” excuse. :man_facepalming:) Definitely over the hill at this point, but still the only real big name I’m seeing in the win column, so…

Buster Douglas: The thing that stood out to me about this now mythical fight is that for all of Tyson’s struggles, had he made the damn adjustments his handlers kept pleading for him to, he would’ve won a pretty easy decision. The first indication that his head was in completely the wrong place.

Donovan Ruddock: The Jeff Tarango of boxing. Just a colossal embarrassment, and he seemed to get more cringeworthy with each successive appearance. Noteworthy for being Tyson’s last two wins before his imprisonment.

Buster Mathis Jr.: I saw this one. He actually showed pretty good movement but never had a chance. Just overwhelmed by Tyson’s power.

Evander Holyfield 1: This was Tyson’s first chance at a statement win post-imprisonment, and he got humbled. Holyfield was just too tough, too slick, and too smart. Tyson’s silly rookie mistake in the 6th should’ve set off alarm bells.

Lennox Lewis: Had his way with him. Kept working the jab and snarling Tyson up whenever he tried to close, and he had no answer.

So…Tony Tubbs (whoever that was)?

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Michael Spinx. Spinx wasn’t the champion because of the usual boxing organization bullshit but he was the true champion by being the one who beat Holmes.

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I watched Tyson fight Jose Ribalta on TV as a kid, and he stood in there with peak Tyson like nobody I ever saw since.

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1984 Olympic heavyweight (actually called “superheavyweight”; “heavyweight” is 91kg, which is more like cruiserweight, which didn’t exist as a name in amateur boxing back then) champion. Not as much of a name at the time as, say, Mark Breland, Evander Holyfield, or Pernell Whitaker.

The one thing I remember about the Douglas fight was, it was in Japan, and the crowd was just dead. I think Tyson feeds off of the crowd.

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I’ve always said, that is the best boxing match I’ve ever seen. Lewis had completely analyzed Tyson’s style, and came up with a game plan to jam him up, and was relentless and nearly perfect in implementing that plan. Just brilliant.

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I find this thread confusing. Is it asking who was the best boxer that Mike Tyson actually beat? Because I think he lost to Lennox Lewis and Buster Douglas. Did Mike Tyson ever beat a great boxer in that boxer’s prime?

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Larry Homes is the most under rated fighter I can think of. He never dodged anyone. Like most fighters he continued to fight past his prime.

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I agree. He just wasn’t an exciting boxer to watch and that hurt his legacy.

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Tyson has said in interviews that Pinklon Thomas was his toughest fight.

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Thanks for the responses! I honestly wasn’t sure there was any fuel left in this train.

Based on what little surviving footage there is (Thanks again, YouTube! :grin:) I’m going to have to give the nod to Michael Spinks. I’d go so far to say that if he came along a few years later, he would’ve been the first to beat Tyson, albeit not in their first meeting. The only other biggish name I’m seeing is Larry Holmes, and looks more like a joke the more I learn about him.

As for Pinklon Thomas, I just watched most of the fight. He did have a hell of a chin and I could see Tyson’s frustration (think Ivan Drago in the final round against Rocky Balboa), but I just couldn’t see how he had any shot of winning. Mostly a lot of pawing shots that clearly weren’t hurting Tyson. It was like those Battlebots matches where one machine is not doing a ton of damage but clearly dominating the fight, so the driver’s plays conservatively, prevents any chance for big comeback, and takes victory however it comes. The way I see it, Tyson admitting that he was the toughest opponent meant that he was the toughest to put away, which wasn’t an issue for Holyfield or Lewis because he never beat either.

RittterSport - Just spitballin’. I wouldn’t care at all if it weren’t for that dumb exhibition coming up.

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In the 1980s, William “Refrigerator” Perry was well over 300 pounds, and stood out since relatively few football players were that big.

These days, a lot of players exceed 300 pounds. Indeed, the average weight of NFL centres, guards and (defensive) tackles exceeds 300 pounds. So tons of players are bigger.

Boxing isn’t football. Boxers obviously tend to be very lean. Still, I have always been mildly surprised by the lack of heavier weight classes. Once you’re over 200 pounds there isn’t a lot of nuance and that doesn’t seem massively heavy. I understand in 2020 the WBA and WBC introduced “super cruiser” weights and bridgerweights of 224 lbs., but not all federations did this. I also understand heavyweight is unrestricted. Still, one might have thought boxers on the whole would also get bigger over time.

There is clearly something I am not understanding. What is it?

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I remember at the time the Spinks fight was the one everyone wanted. He wasn’t the official champion at the time but he was the lineal champion. The question was if he could go toe to toe with Tyson. He couldn’t. Spinks was more of a natural light heavyweight. He was tall and lanky. At the Olympics he won the gold at middleweight. He was a good boxer but he wasn’t big and strong enough for Tyson. At that point no one was. His brother Michael was a monster and Tyson knocked him out too. Tyson beat the ones that were put in front of him. By the time Lewis and Holyfield came around Tyson was having problems maintaining training and his mental health. I can’t help but think if he was able to stay away from Don King at that part of his career it may have ended differently

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Tyson fury, I’m pretty sure, is bigger than everyone else in this thread.

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Beyond a certain weight, the lack of mobility removes the advantage of mass.

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Boxing is also a cardio sport. Not as much as soccer, but far more so than American Football, which is a game of short sprints. (The occasional long, dramatic run notwithstanding; it’s a serious event whenever it happens.) Boxers have to be ready to go many rounds, and they have to keep moving or be hit. There is a fine line to be found where maximum power meets declining stamina.

I seem to recall that Valuev fought over 300 lbs. But he was also 7 ft. tall, so his reach changed the dynamics dramatically. Compare him to Tyson Fury, at 6’9" and 270. Fury can just stay on his bike until the right opportunity comes up.

Ruiz has fought massively overweight, but he was just french fries and ice cream big. It affected his performance. When Klitschko fought Sam Peter it was similar. Peter was like four inches shorter and forty pounds heavier or something. In the end, Peter was hurting from the hits he’d absorbed, but he was also just totally winded for the last three rounds.

Honestly, I was rooting for McBride in that last fight with Mike Tyson. (Got to see that one live here in DC.) But it was a bit embarrassing when he came out with his belly hanging over his belt. That was maybe the worst I’ve ever seen, and not a peep has been heard from him since that I know of. But watching Mike Tyson be the one to go down, that was stunning. There’s no question that McBride was playing the old fashioned chess game while Tyson tried to thug it out.

I’ll be really interested to see this new fight if it happens. I’d like to see if Tyson has learned anything.

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The first really impressive win I saw from Mike Tyson was against Marvis Frazier, Joe’s son. He came out in his usual black trunks and towel with a headhole cut into it and left Marvis crumpled in the corner in the first round.

The Berbick fight was a big win because Tyson was only 21 at the time in his first title fight. Of course, Cus D’Amato’s previous champion was Floyd Patterson who won the title at 22. Berbick was a big strong opponent who fell victim to the young Tyson.

Michael Spinks was a great fighter who doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He defeated Larry Holmes twice, who had an unbeaten record one win shy of Rocky Marciano’s professional record of 49-0 at the time. Though a natural light heavyweight, Spinks beat many big heavyweights (Gerry Cooney) with his speed and unique punching rhythms and angles. He only lasted 91 seconds against Tyson. On a personal note, I had the great pleasure of meeting Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes, Archie Moore and “Jersey Joe” Wolcott while hanging out at both fighters’ training sites in Atlantic City.

James “Bonecrusher” Smith was the first to figure out how to survive Tyson’s knockout power by wrapping him up and not letting go. This fight changed his nickname to “Bonehugger” and made for several boring fights in a row until Tyson learned to free himself.

Larry Holmes was a passing of the torch, much like he had done with Muhammad Ali years earlier. No one expected anything from this fight. Larry got $6 million for the fight, but didn’t just lay down. He lasted 4 rounds and got off the canvas three times.

The best fighter that he faced during his bum-of-the-month run was probably Carl “The Truth” Williams, who owned one of the most impressive jabs of his time. I thought he would be able to keep Mike away while picking him apart from a distance. Of course, I was dead wrong and Williams was knocked in 93 seconds.

I always wished the fight against Riddick Bowe would have happened. In their primes, this was a match made in heaven and they both crashed and burned around the same time as well. There was beef between them but also a budding frenemy situation. I would have liked to have seen that fight.

Yes, there were no great rivalries for Tyson but I think that’s because nobody could hang with him.

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I was a big Lennox fan but it was pretty obvious Tyson was past his prime when they fought. You can certainly argue that was down to Tyson dodging Lewis for years, and I suspect Lewis would have won anyway.