Ranking Mike Tyson's Best Knockouts of His Career

It's an instant, visceral reaction. Or at least it used to be.

Whenever the name "Mike Tyson" was mentioned, the mind immediately flashed to the carnage that often resulted from his fights as he climbed the heavyweight boxing ranks and ultimately reigned as the undisputed top man in the division.

His knockouts were violent. They were frightening. And, to a boxing fan, they were thrilling.

In fact, if Iron Mike had been performing these days in an age of social media and instant viral classics, it's difficult to believe the internet would have survived the strain.

Speaking of the internet, the 58-year-old will climb back through the ropes next week at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas, where he'll encounter a guy in Jake Paul who knows a thing or two about going viral and has convinced a few of his followers that he can fight, too.

Whether that latter part is true–and to what extent it'll be tested in Texas–remains to be seen, but the B/R combat staff took the opportunity to climb into the nostalgia machine while assembling a list of the best KOs of Tyson's career.

The significance of the moment and the opponent were considered, as were the car-crash nature of the finishes and how often they'd be replayed had they occurred 40 years later.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought in the comments.

Tyrell Biggs, in some ways, was everything Mike Tyson wasn't.

He was a traditional heavyweight in that he was tall (6'5") and athletic. He won a gold medal in the 1984 Olympic Games at Los Angeles. And he had the backing of a powerful promotional apparatus from the moment he turned pro, on network TV, later that year.

All of which probably fueled Tyson's ferocity when they met in 1987.

Biggs had climbed to 15-0 against middling opposition on the way to Convention Hall in Atlantic City, where he was chasing the IBF, WBA and WBC titles in a fight that was both the first defense in Tyson's three-belt reign and his last fight scheduled for 15 rounds.

But it didn't even reach halfway.

Biggs' suggestion that he'd bamboozle Tyson with height and reach never came close to reality and was replaced instead with a consistent fusillade of blows from both the right and left sides, ultimately punctuated by the left hook that ended matters at 2:59 of the seventh.

"He was doing so much talking that I wanted to make him pay with his health," Tyson said. "I don't want to sound egotistical, but I could have knocked him out in the third round. I wanted to do it slowly. I wanted him to remember this for a long time."

Given the eventual breadth of his reputation and persona, it's difficult to remember a time when Tyson was still trying to validate his status as a world heavyweight champion.

But that's where the then-20-year-old, still a month shy of full-fledged adulthood, found himself in the spring of 1987 when he stood across the ring from Pinklon Thomas.

Thomas, for those unaware, had been a one-belt champion less than 18 months earlier. And though he seemed on a downward trajectory by the time he stepped in with Tyson outdoors at the Las Vegas Hilton, he was still taller, longer and more experienced.

That didn't help much.

Though Thomas, who looked far older than his 29 years, managed to get through the first round by frustrating Tyson with short punches followed by clinches, the tide that began turning in the second had become a full-on wave by the sixth.

A left hook began a decisive sequence punctuated by a particularly vicious left-right-left combination, leaving Thomas flat on his back and soon after surrendered by lead cornerman Angelo Dundee.

"I knew it was not going to last," Tyson said. "He didn't have anything for me."

Tyson is known for first-round KOs, so it's about time we went with one, right?

His match with No. 1 IBF contender Carl Williams was a rematch of sorts, in that the 6'4" boxer with a pterodactyl-like 85-inch reach had sparred with Tyson six years earlier when Williams was in his second year as a professional and Iron Mike was a teenage amateur.

Williams had things his own way in those sessions thanks to long jabs and occasional right hands that frustrated the smaller man, leaving some to believe the scenario would repeat itself when things got going at the Convention Center in Atlantic City in the summer of 1989.

Spoiler alert: It didn't. Instead, it was essentially a one-punch ending.

Williams landed a solid left jab just past the one-minute mark of the first round and immediately went for another that was slipped by Tyson and countered with a hard left hook that landed flush on The Truth's jaw and sent him tumbling backward to the floor.

He climbed to his feet when referee Randy Neumann's count reached nine, but the veteran official waved it off when, in his estimation, Williams didn't do enough to show he was ready to continue. The win got Tyson to 37-0 and was his 33rd by KO.

"There is nobody that can beat me," he said. "I love doing this. No man is invincible, but I will take all comers to find out."

Seven months later, he met a guy named Buster.

If you sometimes wonder if boxing is too brutal to be a legitimate sport, here's a tip: Don't watch Tyson's fight with Marvis Frazier.

Though he'd won 24 straight and dispatched all but two opponents by the time he got in with the son of former heavyweight champ Joe Frazier, Iron Mike was still creeping into the mainstream with a Saturday afternoon date on ABC's Wide World of Sports flagship program.

By the time the fight–all 30 seconds of it–was over, he wasn't creeping anymore.

A hard right uppercut turned Frazier into a competitive noodle and preceded a frightening volley of shots that all but removed his head from his body, ultimately sending him to the ropes as a kneeling, semi-conscious heap and prompted a rescue from referee Joe Cortez.

It was as big a mismatch against a recognizable (albeit overmatched) foe as Tyson ever experienced, provided the quickest knockout of his career and, given that it occurred in Glens Falls, New York, validated the "Catskill Thunder" nickname hung on him by former Ring Magazine editor Randy Gordon.

"I had a great deal of confidence that I was going to stop him in the first round," Tyson said. "The punches I threw were very accurate. I thought he was a little reluctant about coming out. I saw a little hesitation."

And now, we get to the two KOs that everyone remembers.

There's little argument that Tyson's fight with Michael Spinks was the biggest of his pre-Buster Douglas career, coming when he was an unbeaten and undisputed three-belt world champion, fighting against a fellow unbeaten who had a legitimate, to some, title claim of his own.

Spinks, a month shy of his 32nd birthday, was a year and two weeks removed from a KO of Gerry Cooney that lifted him to 31-0 as a pro and 4-0 as a heavyweight, and further strengthened the championship cred he'd held since beating a then-48-0 Larry Holmes in 1985.

He'd already arrived at Atlantic City's Convention Hall as a 4-1 underdog and his promoter, Butch Lewis, didn't do him any favors with a protest over a bulge on the wrist of Tyson's left glove that left the 22-year-old furious enough to punch a hole in a locker room wall.

It didn't take long to do a similar number on Spinks, who was dropped with a body shot before rising, missing a punch and essentially ducking into a right hand that left him flat on his back, glassy-eyed and ultimately unable to beat referee Frank Cappuccino's count.

The official time was 91 seconds. And the hype train had officially left the station.

"My trainer told me before the fight that he bet both our purses that I would knock him out in the first round," Tyson said. "So I went out and knocked him out in the first round. And later I found out he was fooling."

In our estimation, it's the most significant combination of Tyson's ring career.

A hard right to the body, a missed right uppercut to the jaw and a left hook to the forehead of Trevor Berbick, who'd arrived minutes earlier as WBC heavyweight champion.

But he didn't stay that way for long.

The Canada-based Jamaican tumbled backward to the canvas like an axed tree and rolled over his left hip to his knees before crashing into the ropes as he tried to rise.

Berbick stood and stepped toward referee Mills Lane before pitching forward and hitting the floor again, then rose unsteadily into the corner and into Lane's arms as the official wave-off came at 2:35 of Round 2. One landed punch, three knockdowns, fight over.

And from there, HBO blow-by-blow man Barry Tompkins delivered the most memorable and well-timed line of his Hall of Fame broadcasting career welcoming history's youngest heavyweight champion to the throne room: "It's over. That's all. And we have a new era in boxing."

Did we ever, Barry. Did we ever.