Up until February 1990, Mike Tyson was not only an unstoppable force but the heavyweight division’s immovable object.
From his 28th professional fight onwards, “Iron” Mike ripped world titles from his opposition with a level of destruction boxing had not witnessed since the days of Sonny Liston.
After battering Trevor Berbick to win the WBC title, Tyson unified the division against James “Bonecrusher” Smith in a forgettable 12-round affair before seizing undisputed glory with a points victory over Tony Tucker.
Before and after those defining nights were countless examples of Tyson’s brute force and chilling accuracy, performances that earned him the tag of “the baddest man on the planet”.
The shock defeat to James “Buster” Douglas burst the Tyson myth and shattered his aura of invincibility, but his meteoric rise to the summit of boxing remains unmatched. What his career arguably lacked, however, were a consistent run of elite rivals capable of truly testing him.
Muhammad Ali, who captivated fans throughout the 1960s and 70s, was never short of worthy dance partners. Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Ken Norton stood as defining rivals, while Larry Holmes later inherited the division. Holmes’ reign followed a quieter path, but one still marked by skill, durability and elite competition.
In an interview hosted by Bryant Gumbel, the quartet of Ali, Frazier, Norton and Holmes were asked whether, in their primes, they could have beaten Mike Tyson. As Ali jokingly pretended to snore, Holmes dismissed the suggestion outright.
“Who?”
Gumbel reminded “The Easton Assassin” that Tyson was the man who knocked him out in four rounds in 1988, a defeat some framed as revenge on Ali’s behalf after Holmes stopped Ali in 10 rounds back in 1980.
Holmes, however, remained unmoved, insisting that at their best he and his peers would have handled ‘Iron’ Mike.
“Everybody in this room here would have been able to beat Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson was born right. You would have never heard of him [if he was in our era].”
