I was too young for Tyson

I don't remember seeing any live Tyson fights as a kid (we didn't have HBO), can any of you farts describe it? I found this .GIF and holy shit, thats devastating, how'd he not take this dudes head off?

My favorite Mike Tyson quote:

"When I retire, I'm just going to fade away into Bolivian"

But seriously, when he was 19 years old he looked like he was going to be unbeatable for a long, long, time. Not because he was fast or skilled (Floyd Mayweather) but because he was just so powerful and so ruthless.

Truly the scariest champ ever. Legit contenders were scared shitless of him.

All down hill after Cus D'Mato died. Then Robin Givens and Don King fucked with his head too.

I vividly remember watching the Douglas fight. Turning it on and assuming that it was going to be another Tyson mauling.....then slowly the reality setting in that Douglas had a chance. It seemed unbelievable at the time.

Watched it with my best friend, by the end we were yelling loud enough to wake my then wife up and we didn't care.

Their chicken is overrated.

LooseGoose wrote:I vividly remember watching the Douglas fight.   Turning it on and assuming that it was going to be another Tyson mauling.....then slowly the reality setting in that Douglas had a chance.   It seemed unbelievable at the time.

Watched it with my best friend, by the end we were yelling loud enough to wake my then wife up and we didn't care.

I watched it in the bar across from Joe Louis arena after a Red Wings game. It was kind of surreal because at the time I thought he was unbeatable. I was young and had no appreciation that a top-level performer needed as much mental discipline as physical prowess. Makes me appreciate Dantonio and Izzo that much more.

I remember going to big house parties in high school to watch Tyson fights. Most of the fights didn't last long, and I learned a valuable lesson once when I completely missed everything as I was still making my drink in the kitchen when it ended. One of those that only lasted about a minute or so. Complete bad ass in those early years.

beal99 wrote:I don't remember seeing any live Tyson fights as a kid (we didn't have HBO), can any of you farts describe it? I found this .GIF and holy shit, thats devastating, how'd he not take this dudes head off?

I have not seen anyone to match the young Tyson's violence in the ring. He truly looked like he wanted the other guy's spleen to go flying through the air with each punch. Most of his early "fights" lasted 2 rounds at the most. It was unreal.

beal99 wrote:I don't remember seeing any live Tyson fights as a kid (we didn't have HBO), can any of you farts describe it? I found this .GIF and holy shit, thats devastating, how'd he not take this dudes head off?

I mean, seriously, check out the look on his face when he hit that dude. He wanted him dead.

Boxing is boxing. This guy was violent.

SpartanInNH wrote:

I mean, seriously, check out the look on his face when he hit that dude.  He wanted him dead.

Boxing is boxing.  This guy was violent.

I think whats nuts is he seems to be moving laterally into that uppercut, the force behind that must have been Drago-like

I was caught up in the Sugar Ray, Spinks, and Holmes era. Then Tyson ripped through Spinks and Holmes like they were punks. He turned the boxing world on its head.

He was the real deal, or at least the media put it that way.  A good story of a kid taken in by an old boxing trainer.  Said all the right stuff about respecting the old boxers.  

Then came success, the death of Cus, his pulling away from the team that got him there, etc.  I have not personally done an about face with any athlete like I did with him (from bandwagon to loath).

I watched Buster bust his ass and it was glorious.  Tyson wasn't at the top of his game, but Douglas fought the fight of his life.  "Oh, the uppercut", Sugar Ray Leonard.

It was funny because I was going to Wrestlemania III at the Silverdome a week or so after the fight, and they had already booked Tyson as a guest referee.  BD took his spot.

beal99 wrote:

I think whats nuts is he seems to be moving laterally into that uppercut, the force behind that must have been Drago-like

Oh, no question: that's a gif, so we don't have the context, but I'm guessing that if you pulled that fight and took the entire sequence, you'd see exactly that. He's moving right to left and sending an uppercut that Rocky couldn't recover from -- in a freakin' movie.

He was the shit. As said earlier, Cus D'Amato's death broke him. He was really never the same after that.

What I remember about Tyson was that he kicked a lot of ass, and this guy named Little Mac kept fighting his way through other opponents to have a chance at Tyson, and he finally punched out Tyson and it was all over.

He also preferred having some short Italian guy named Mario ref his matches too, for some reason.

SpartanHT wrote:What I remember about Tyson was that he kicked a lot of ass, and this guy named Little Mac kept fighting his way through other opponents to have a chance at Tyson, and he finally punched out Tyson and it was all over.

He also preferred having some short Italian guy named Mario ref his matches too, for some reason.

  

SpartanInNH wrote:

  

It was a reference to an NES game featuring Mike Tyson called "Punch-Out!!!" Little Mac was the guy you played as you boxed with other opponents and Tyson was the final fight, with Mario from Super Mario Bros being the referee in the game.

I tried too hard.   

Rodeo Burger wrote:Truly the scariest champ ever. Legit contenders were scared shitless of him.

All down hill after Cus  D'Mato died.  Then Robin Givens and Don King fucked with his head too.

Perfect summation. No need to give a history or any account of matches that were unbelievably short and furious. He threw away what could have been an unbelievable career because he lost his guide. Sad really. Kid fucking dynamite.

SpartanHT wrote:

It was a reference to an NES game featuring Mike Tyson called "Punch-Out!!!" Little Mac was the guy you played as you boxed with other opponents and Tyson was the final fight, with Mario from Super Mario Bros being the referee in the game.

I tried too hard.   

I know.

And I don't know. I thought it was kinda funny.

Eight minutes of mayhem. (Well, less than that, when you cut out the introductions.) Tyson v. Spinks. I thought at the time, and think now, watching it again, Spinks was scared to death going into that fight. Most respect for getting into the ring, and even more for getting the fuck up -- once.

As much as I bitch about how fucked my generation got by fashion and social female trends during my HS/College years, the late 80's was a pretty cool time for a kid to be in MS/JH sports-wise. You had a couple of mythical icons developing in MJ and Tyson. And then MJ turning villain as the Bad Boys took over the league. Fun stuff.

My parents were too cheap to have HBO/Max/Showtime so I used to try to watch the fights through the scrambled broadcasts and then see actual highlights the next day. I remember when Douglas pulled the upset, it was like 1 AM or something (fight was in Tokyo) and I ran upstairs into my parents room and woke my dad up....

Me, in a hushed tone as I was shaking him: "Dad! Tyson lost!"
Dad, annoyed: "That's great, WBH. Go to sleep."

I hate to be the old guy that says stuff like this, but Tyson fights were truly an event, and I've never seen anything like it since. Any sports minded male 17 or over simply HAD to watch the fight. IIRC they were $40 back then (25 years ago), which was unheard of. People would have parties and charge $2 or $3, get the fight, and get keg. There were always WAY more people than expected, because EVERYONE wanted to see the fight, even though they knew the outcome.

The first Tyson fight I didn't see live in years was the Douglas fight. It was barely promoted because they thought it wasn't really a draw, and it was fought in Tokyo so it came on really late. I was in the dorms at MSU when someone said that Tyson lost. I went to bed thinking that the kid was lying, it just wasn't something that anyone thought was possible. No one had heard of Buster Douglas before that.

Douglas then landed a $40 million video game contract, and ate himself out of boxing, just as I would have done. He sure as shit wasn't considering a rematch with Tyson.

beal99 wrote:I don't remember seeing any live Tyson fights as a kid (we didn't have HBO), can any of you farts describe it? I found this .GIF and holy shit, thats devastating, how'd he not take this dudes head off?

You don't have boxing like this anymore. It's sad. Tyson, Hagler, just wow...

Tyson was ruthless, but he also used his elbows and other dirty tactics in close. Boxing purests often said that his style was not suitable for long-term success. The knock: survive the initial barrage in the first two rounds and he would gas. And that's exactly what happened against Douglas.

LooseGoose wrote:I vividly remember watching the Douglas fight.   Turning it on and assuming that it was going to be another Tyson mauling.....then slowly the reality setting in that Douglas had a chance.   It seemed unbelievable at the time.

Watched it with my best friend, by the end we were yelling loud enough to wake my then wife up and we didn't care.

For any of you too young to remember you should watch this.....

James 'Buster' Douglas recounts the biggest upset in boxing history

But whether he likes it or not, Douglas will always be indelibly linked with that one magical moment in time in Tokyo. Which is why ESPN's latest edition of 30 for 30 focuses on this historic upset through his eyes. "42-1," co-directed by Jeremy Schaap and Ben Houser, premieres Tuesday, Dec. 11, at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.

Tyson was a force of nature. Completely unstoppable when his head was on right.

thats the name of my next band: Too Young for Tyson.

goodbar wrote:thats the name of my next band: Too Young for Tyson.

I think you should abbreviate it to TYFT and never explain what it means. The intrigue will help sell millions of CDs. I mean downloads.

He was a phenom. But he also had gaps in his game. He went out, swung for the fences. KO or hurt a lot of guys early. As Douglas and Holyfield showed, if you could weather that first round barrage, he fell apart relatively quickly.

Most guys weren't prepared for the barrage, and therefore he has a lot of highlights like the GIF included in the OP.

TheReal_LWS wrote:He was a phenom. But he also had gaps in his game. He went out, swung for the fences. KO or hurt a lot of guys early. As Douglas and Holyfield showed, if you could weather that first round barrage, he fell apart relatively quickly.

Most guys weren't prepared for the barrage, and therefore he has a lot of highlights like the GIF included in the OP.

I agree with Bee here. Tyson's aura was as important as his punching power. After a few vicious knockouts, other boxers saw him coming and were scared. He was compact and powerful, but he was never a good boxer. Nobody had ever seen anyone like him and it served him well for a while, but his loss to Douglas wasn't just about him being fucked up in the head. It also exposed that his assets were his devastating punching power, and the fear that he inspired. Once the fear was gone, he was just a brawler. Ronda Rousey was the same, and that's why she's a wrestler now.

Betting lines were based on time in the first round he would get the KO.

Like Tiger in his prime... Him against the field.

I could never win Mike Tyson's Punchout. Came close but could never get past the big guy.

steveschneider wrote:I could never win Mike Tyson's Punchout. Came close but could never get past the big guy.

Had to get past the 1st round where Tyson would throw his bullshit instant knockout punches. Once you did that you could take him out in the 2nd or 3rd round.

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:

steveschneider wrote:I could never win Mike Tyson's Punchout. Came close but could never get past the big guy.

Had to get past the 1st round where Tyson would throw his bullshit instant knockout punches. Once you did that you could take him out in the 2nd or 3rd round.

I used to love that game. That one guy that would come out to Flamenco music and you'd beat his ass in one punch.

my favorite Mike Tyson quote (RE: Lennox Lewis): " I wanna eat his children"...

Now Lennox Lewis. That was a great boxer.

I was too young for Mrs Paul, but I bet that dame was the bee’s knees back in her day.

Rocinante wrote:Now Lennox Lewis. That was a great boxer.

Joe Louis was the greatest fighter they ever was.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Rocinante wrote:Now Lennox Lewis. That was a great boxer.

Joe Louis was the greatest fighter they ever was.

I met Dr. Martin Luther King once.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Rocinante wrote:Now Lennox Lewis. That was a great boxer.

Joe Louis was the greatest fighter they ever was.

Goose can hold his own against anyone.