Does Mike Tyson belong in the Hall of Fame???

[dan1030]

Good point about nevr avenging his defeat by Douglas (or Holyfield, or Lewis). That's certainly a good reason--among others--to leave him off your all-time greats list, but not so convincing for keeping him out of hte HOF. He may not be a lock, but he's the next best thing to it, and I figure he did enough to deserve it--despite the fact that I believe even a prime Tyson has been over-rated.

[Marciano Frazier]

With all this Talk about Tyson,Tyson, Tyson I'll think i'll add a little bit more...

I say that he doesn't really deserve to get in based on his accomplishments ...but he WILL get in because he was a big celebrity....

Comments?

Oh come on. Any linear heavyweight champion of the world belongs in the HOF. Even Jess Willard is in the HOF, and he didn't accomplish as much as Tyson, nor was he as good a fighter.

[zurdo]

It is the called Hall of fame you know..
And Tyson is certainly the most famous boxer of the last 20 years....

[Eric the Viking]

OK, so the general consensus (if I may be so bold ;)) is that he belongs in the HOF, but his status among the ATGHWs is dubious. I say on a good day, when I'm feeling very generous towards Mikey and focusing on his early career and promise more than the last 15 years, he just might crack the top 20. (I have Lewis and Holyfield at #11 and #12, by way of contrast.)

Another fighter who hit his all-too-brief prime in the same era and who it would be interesting to judge in a similar fashion as one does Tyson is Bowe - I need to think about him some more before rendering my verdict, as it were.

Opinions?

[TheRiverCityHippy]

interesting as ever eric,
what criteria are you using to compile your heavy list, how they would fare head to head or how they did against their contemporarys.
either way i would be interested whom you consider the ten heavyweights who would beat lennox lewis or the ten heavyweights who dominated the division better than lennox?

[harley_man]

Viking,

Are you plucking fighters out at their prime and dropping them into a fantasy tournament to determine your top 20? If so, Tyson's last 15 years mean nothing. If you grant he had potential on top of what he showed in the late '80s then he has to be a solid top 20. Otherwise, comparing careers can quickly become mind boggling. '96 Holffield beat Tyson. Would '86 Holyfield (still a cruiserweight) have beaten '86 Tyson? No way. Not even in '96. Of course this speculation quickly becomes mired in subjectivity, my own included. Even in one's own era it becomes difficult. As Thomas Hauser said recently, Frazier and Norton gave Ali fits but Foreman destroyed them. And, of course, Ali felled Foreman.

That said, Holyfield's accomplishments outstrip Tyson's because he did fight all his contemporaries and deserves a better ranking than Iron Mike. But prime Tyson and Lewis never happened. Nor did Lewis-Bowe. I wonder how low Bowe or Lewis would fall if that fight had happened.

[zurdo]

Eric The Viking brings up an interesting point ..Tyson was very impressive for a short period of time but so was Riddick Bowe...

You could make a strong case that Bowe's best three years were just as good as Tysons best three years...

[Eric the Viking]

what criteria are you using to compile your heavy list, how they would fare head to head or how they did against their contemporarys.
either way i would be interested whom you consider the ten heavyweights who would beat lennox lewis or the ten heavyweights who dominated the division better than lennox?

I don't believe mythical head-to-head is an appropriate way to judge the historical greatness of a fighter, *especially* at heavyweight, where better nutrition, healthcare and training gives most of the modern-era guys a massive size advantage over the oldtimers. IMO the only fair way to judge a fighter is how he fared vs. his contemporaries, of course factoring in the perceived strength of his competition and the stage of his career when he fought the various notables on his re'sume'.

There was a nice thread along these lines in the British Scene Forum a few months ago:

http://www.boxrec.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14921

My top-20 list (or at least nearly 20) is in a long post I made there. Here's the gist - see the actual post for my reasoning:

Who the hell is left that rates above Lewis?

These nine guys definitely do:

Ali
Louis
Holmes
Marciano
Johnson
Foreman
Liston
Frazier
Dempsey

These guys (together with Lewis) are on the cusp of top-10 greatness (I list them in strictly alphabetical order):

Charles
Corbett
Holyfield
Jeffries
Lewis
Sullivan
Tunney
Walcott

(I may have forgotten one or two guys who should be in that second list - I hope not, but I'm not ruling it out.)

And one guy I did forgot to put in the second tier above at the time of the original post: Floyd Patterson. that makes 18, and I'm sure I can come up with at least two more guys who deserve to be in the top 20 more than Tyson and Bowe, based on actual career accomplishments vs. their peers. I'm tempted to say Norton belongs in the top 20, but need to think about that some more - Norton was known mainly for his performances vs. Ali, but the only other top heavies he beat were Jimmy Young and Jerry Quarry.

So now that I've had time to think about it, I'd say that neither Tyson nor Bowe was at his respective peak long enough to make the top 20 ATGHW, though both clearly are in the top 50.