Tony Bellew says the most ruthless fighter he has seen is the version of Mike Tyson who fought Michael Spinks.
The former cruiserweight champion made the case to Fight Your Corner, pointing to the 1988 bout in which Tyson took 91 seconds to finish an opponent who had beaten Larry Holmes twice.
That Tyson that goes in against Michael Spinks, terrifies him before they’ve even got in the ring, and deals with the Michael Spinks who had just beaten Larry Holmes not once, but twice. I don’t think I’ve seen a more ruthless heavyweight in my lifetime.
In the history of boxing, I don’t think I’ve seen a more ruthless fighter. The Mike Tyson who beat Michael Spinks and Trevor Berbick, I’ve never seen anything like that. The speed, the ferocity, the variety in his punches, the head movement, the footwork. I just thought he was the perfect machine.
He named one limitation.
The only thing that hurts him is the lack of size.
Tyson beat Trevor Berbick in two rounds in 1986 to become the youngest heavyweight champion in history at 20. He stopped Holmes in four in 1988, months before facing Spinks.
The name usually raised in this conversation is Roberto Duran, who was unbeaten until Sugar Ray Leonard stopped him in the eighth round of their 1980 rematch, after Leonard had lost the WBC welterweight title to Duran on points earlier that year.
