Tyson Says Manny Pacquiao Is the Next Tyson

Mike Tyson is everywhere these days, what with the release of the much-celebrated documentary, Tyson, which is receiving critical accolades from just about everyone who sees it.↵Consequently, everyone is suddenly very interested to find out what Iron Mike thinks about almost everything, and that naturally brings us to the topic on the minds of most sweet scientists this week – Saturday’s megafight in Las Vegas between Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton.↵
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↵Over the weekend, The Examiner’s Michael Marley caught up with Tyson at the Tyson premiere and got his prediction for the Pac Man/Hatton throwdown.↵Like most of the world, Mike likes Manny, so much so that he actually deigned to compare Pacquiao to himself, which one imagines is quite a compliment in Tyson Land.↵“Pacquiao will win,” Tyson told Marley. “I like Ricky Hatton but he is just not elusive enough to handle Manny’s pressure attack. With Manny, it’s something like I used to be… the punches come in bunches.”
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↵Myself, I don’t see a tremendous similarity between the styles of Pacquiao and Tyson beyond the fact that “ferocious” is a word often used to describe both men.

The content of that ferocity, however, bears little resemblance. From his earliest endeavors in the ring, Tyson possessed enormous power in both hands and could use either to put you in a temporary coma. For most of his career, Pacquiao was all about the straight left and almost nothing else. Only recently has he developed into a two-fisted puncher, and though his right is formidable now, one still imagines that any time he puts a man on his back, it will be the work of his left hand.↵
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↵And though Pacquiao is, like Tyson was, the kind of guy who dishes out hellacious beatings, the way that Manny beats guys up is much different than the way that Mike↵did. The lashing that Pacquiao laid on Oscar De La Hoya is very characteristic of his standard assault, a frenetic whupping from various angles that adds up quickly over the course of eight or nine rounds and gets people to thinking about retiring on their stools (and, in Oscar’s case, just retiring, period).↵
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↵Tyson, meanwhile, just killed people, no accumulation necessary. They didn’t retire – he retired them, and fast. Tyson’s power was simply in a different league than Pacquiao’s. In fact, it was in a different league than most fighters we’ve ever seen, and that was why he fascinated us. Chicks (not to mention dudes) dig the long ball, as they say.↵
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↵Although, as I write I realize that there’s another baseball analogy much more fitting to this discussion. The central similarity between Tyson and Pacquiao comes down to the fact that both men were like fiery closers in their youth possessed of 100-mph fastballs. Tyson, however, never learned another pitch, and when, aided by the rigors of wine, women and song, he inevitably lost a little pop on the high, hard one, the rest of the league started to time his heat, at which point the great mythology of his dominance folded like a deck of cards.↵
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↵Pacquiao was something of a one-trick pony himself in his early career, but under the tutelage of Freddie Roach he’s since developed into a terrifyingly complete fighter. He may have lost a little of his high heat, but not that much, because he takes good care of himself. He can still bring it in the upper 90’s.
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↵Add in that he now throws just about every pitch in the book, and combine it with the fact that he can still break out a 97-mph bean-ball whenever he needs it, and it all adds up to a more multi-dimensional fighting machine than Tyson ever dreamed of being, even when he was at his very best. ↵In short, Mike… I watched your every fight, I worshipped you. But you, sir, were no Manny Pacquiao.↵