How do you think " Iron " Mike Tyson would have done in UFC?

[Luck911]

Quote: Originally Posted by NOBLE

Nooooooo. Just because someone learns ground work, it does not mean that person would be able to pick it up crisply and perform it six months to a year later. It's not about aptitude, it's about pure repitition. Most kids learn amateur wrestling and BJJ in their early teens and by their mid-twenties they know what to do by heart. For example, Kimbo Slice trained extensively with Bas Rutten - Pancrase legend and MMA HoF - and still looked like a duck out of water when it came to ground work. Melvin Manhoef has been working on his BJJ for years and he too, still struggles on the ground. There have been a lot of top strikers in other combat sports only be average at MMA because of the ground game. Not everyone is prodigious like BJ Penn, who got his black belt in three years or Cro Cop, who had the best takedown defense I've ever seen. And considering the time in which Tyson fought (1985-2000), it's really hard to believe that he would have found great coaches considering MMA was in it's infancy in the US in the early 90s (during his prison sentence) and grappling dominated throughout most of that time. A recently released-from-prison 29-year old Mike Tyson is going to suddenly pickup takedown defense in the medieval period of UFC when fighters, let alone coaches were hard to find? Again, Tyson would have done decent work back then the dark ages because of how most fighters were simply one-dimensional and BJJ wasn't as popular as it is now. However, guys like Pete Williams, Don Frye, Shamrock, and Vitor Belfort would have KILLED him.

I am not total disagreeing with you but they are too many factor involve just to dismiss tyson as scrub and would not have done anything.I don't want to play the what if game.What if it was Royce gracie teaching a young mike tyson instead of cus amato.Some people are looking at like if mike tyson decided to make switch from boxing ,i am looking at like if mike tyson got some ground work in basics mma and got the fundamentals down.We don't how it would go it is just guessing.

If tyson would not succeed in mma it would not be because of physical tools,it would be because of his mental one he has been proven later on career the inability to adapt in his fights and his reckless style and mentality would leave lots opening for other fighter to take advantage of.

Still with that i can still said people being silly and trying to standing with tyson and pre jail tyson would have a very good chance against anybody striking.

[Inhocmark]

If Tyson hit anybody then all bets are off, he could very well win some matches if people weren't smart enough. But he'd be so one dimensional that top fighters would (at least you'd think) be able to counter the only weapon in his arsenal.

The other concern is as others have stated, he has no formal training outside of the boxing world and likely doesn't have the intellegence to be able to transform his athletic gifts into other disciplines.

I'm not saying he's stupid, but just look at his history. He was a strong brawler who none of us would've ever heard of had it not been for D'Amato taking an extreme interest in him as a boy and Tyson's desire to please him being one of the biggest reasons any of the training sunk into his head. All you have to look at are the fights after D'Amato had passed away and Tyson was in King's camp (prior to the rape charge) to see he wasn't the same fighter.

I just don't see him being willing (or perhaps able) to get even the rudimentary ground skills required to survive even against lower tier UFC fighters let alone the top tier.

[PlatooN]

if tyson was wearing those ufc gloves he would be putting people into retirement..i'm not saying tyson would be a title holder..but you think Chuck had knock out power? let's not forget iron mike used to put people to sleep with 1 left hook with a glove on.

[NFLHITMAN]

The difference is that most Boxers like to punch at a distance and most kickboxer strike from a distance except some knees in close combat. Tyson loved close combat and he would take away teh bigger fighters advantage by getting close so they couldn;t use all there power. Tyson could take a punch and his close combat punches were just as powerful as any punch ever seen. The video you posted Noble was a really sad display of a boxer LOL. That guy is no where near Tyson would have been.

[Acedeck]

In a straight up fist fight, Tyson would make almost every single UFC fighter look like a amateur (in his hay-day). Tyson knocked people out with a single punch so many times, and that was with huge gloves on. I can't imagine him using those small UFC gloves.

Keep in mind, Tyson came from a street fighting background. Guess where UFC came from? The same place. It wasn't until rules started getting implemented that it really started becoming a "technical" sport, one that wasn't just a no holds barred battle in a cage.

[Pappy Knuckles]

Tyson would've been a murderer. He could've been a sickening version of Rampage. I think wrestling would've came naturally to him and he could've learned enough BJJ to stay out of trouble and power out of a lot of situations. MMA hasn't seen anyone with the raw punching power that he had. He wouldn't have been undefeated or anything like that, but I believe he had the potential to be very dangerous in this sport.

[Acedeck]

When it comes to any other boxer coming into MMA, I can understand people who say they wouldn't fair that well. However, Tyson would have. Take the best ever one-punch fighter in MMA and then multiply that power by about 2 or 3 and that's Tyson during his prime. Sure, he might lose a fight or two here and there, but he would have destroyed people. In fact, I have no doubts he would have injured people badly in many cases.

[Inhocmark]

Tyson's main attribute was the speed at which he delivered his punches which I'll concede would put him a step above most strikers in the UFC however, the fact that all he would have is his strikes a competent grappler would be able to counteract his power.

And anybody who tries to tell me that UFC in particular is like a Street Fight needs to look no further to how bad Kimbo Slice was exposed by a rather average mixed martial artist.