What really caused Tyson's decline?

age

his style didn't lend itself well to an aging fighter, like Lewis's did, for example, or Ali's.

he just got old. probably couldn't train hard enough. and lost his endurance.

all of his knock-downs were due to fatigue. we know that. he always had a good chin.

 

The dude was 23 years old when Douglas knocked him out. Age may explain the latter loses, but not Douglas.

Everyone talks about how Tyson would have beaten Holyfield or Lewis in his prime. Tyson must of had the earliest end to his prime of any modern era fighter. Apparently his prime ended just short of his 24th birthday.

 

Not true. Lewis even said Tyson beat him up and made the comment after the fight with Tyson when they were older about how he was older and much better than when they met when they were kids.

 

Lewis has never said that. He said something along the line that one had a fat lip and the other had a swollen eye.

 

excessive amount of chocha......


Moderation is the key....

 

Oliver McCall KO'd Lewis when Lewis was very young. Did that denote his downfall? Or Rahman for that matter?

Tyson won many fights after losing to Douglas. His loss to Douglas IMO was an isolated incident, probably due to personal problems and poor preparation. It's not like Douglas didn't fight a perfect fight either. And let's not forget that he was nearly knocked out in spite of Tyson's compromised preparation.

So I don't think your mentioning Douglas does anything to refute the fact that it was age, and the toll it took on Tyson that destroyed his ability to train hard and achieve the endurance he needed to win.

 

dsimon writes:

:: That is true. Well Tyson got started early for one thing and he swung from one extreme to the other in terms of habits and training. Still when talking about absolute greatness your comments loom large. It is why Tyson may not make some lists in that regard that and his level of comp.

 

Yep. That's all I ever heard about it from Lewis.

 

age? Tyson didn't do too badly in the division right up until his early 30's :dunno: surely keeping some better movement and technique would have prolongued this even longer?

 

Tyson did pretty good after prison to be honest. Beating Bruno for the WBA title and Seldon(without landing a punch) for the WBC belt. The Seldon fight was his last hurrah as a respected and legitimate force in the division.

 

Link please.

 

that's my point. he performed well with his ever-increasing age slowly diminishing his ability to perform.

 

The Tyson who fought Holyfield was still 95% as physically gifted as the one who fought Spinks. It's true that some fighters styles don't age well, but these are generally fighters like Benitez and Hamed who rely on their reflex' to a large degree. Tyson just went off the rails mentally, that's the bottom line. Keeping Tyson's head together was like spinning 15 fucking plates on sticks - you need the right team who know what they're doing, who are dedicated to keeping those plates spinning, know how to keep those plates spinning. He had that early in his career, but as the team broke up so did the plates!::

 

:bears: Nice. He was gifted, no doubt about it. But he made the wrong choices in life; to either stay with Satan(Cayton) or go the way of the Devil(King). Seeing that Tyson was as dumb as a doorknob and incapable of rational thought, he was easy pickings for King. And there was nobody to protect him after Jacobs' death. King used Givens and her mother to keep Tyson in check too.
Simply put, white people tried to help Tyson. Black people f*cked his life up.
opcorn: