Where does Mike Tyson rank in boxing's pantheon?

This might be a controversial opinion but I don't think Tyson is even a top 10 heavyweight of all-time.

I was a kid at the time so I don't remember, but did he ever beat anyone who was actually world-class, or did he just rock the frick out of a bunch of chumps? I know in his later career he couldn't beat the best in the business and had to resort to... unorthodox... tactics.

No Rushmore, more like 9th or 10th. There were just too many great heavyweights.

Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Marciano, Louis, Johnson, Holmes, Norton; I'd put all of those ahead of Tyson

The problem with Tyson, was that nearly everyone in the Heavyweight division were tater bags, just garbage, over weight tater bags. Spinks was not a Heavy Weight, and he took a dive instead of beating

The division had bottomed out, some really shitty boxers. C'mon, Buster Douglas was crap.


Great boxer, but man did he pad his win totals with tater bags.

Also, one could say the best fighter he fought, beat him on the square(holyfield) both times. so?

Top 10 in my opinion. Tyson gets dinged for a so-called down division but some of that criticism can be absorbed by the fact that it was down because he plowed through it. He also is a big time case for "what if." Once Cus D'amato died, Tyson stopped boxing and became more of a rich man's Butterbean in terms of style.

He used to have a really good defense and was a superb counterpuncher. When he was getting all the pub for the knockouts and Cus wasn't there to ground him, he stopped having a well-rounded game. Then the money rotted him from within. To paraphrase Bane, victory defeated him.

I was the biggest Tyson fan in the world until I reflected on his career a little bit. Tyson never really beat anyone, just knocked out a whole bunch of tomato cans.

I like Tyson a whole lot, I just don't hold him in as high regard as I used to.

Mount Rushmore?

For ALL weight divisions?

Not even close.

For Heavyweights?

Nope.

He was a comet that blew up tomato cans...and then faded against his two real opponents...Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.

He's not Top 10 and it's not controversial. Nobody puts him in the Top 10 but idiots. Ring Magazine, Boxing Mag, Bert Sugar, whomever...boxing historians don't put Tyson in the Top 10.

For just Heavyweights, every list I've seen Tyson is around 11-15.

I love Iron Mike, but in their primes:

Ali
Frazier
Foreman
Louis, Joe
Lewis, Lennox

would beat him in his prime.

The fact that hardly nobody except a couple of people mentioned Sonny Liston and Jack Dempsey being in over Tyson tells me all I need to know about the knowledge of boxing in this thread

Top 10 would be

1. Ali
2. Joe Louis
3. Sonny Listen
4.Larry Holmes
5. Jack Johnson
6. Jack Dempsey
7. George Foreman
8. Joe FraIer
9.Rocky Marciano
10. Lennox Lewis

Based on successful title defenses