What's the highest we can reasonably rank Evander Holyfield at heavywieght?

Lufcrazy:rofl

 

:good:good

Subjectivity always plays a part in H2H too, so nah, I personally cannot rate fighters that way.

 

True. In a world where Douglas' plane crashed on his way to Tokyo, nobody sane would have said, "If tragedy did not happen, and Douglas fought Tyson in 1990, Douglas would KO Tyson!"

The same goes with Braddock and Baer, and Rahman Lewis 1. It has to happen in order for us to even comprehend it, so ranking H2H is a very subjective matter. If those bouts didn't happen, nobody would have ever picked Braddock and Rahman to win against Baer and Lewis.

 

It obviously depends on what you like.

He has a lot of good names on resume and some big wins but scores badly on dominance, consistency, H2H, and having an 'untidy' record (lots of losses albeit the majority coming when post prime).

He was never "the man" in the division for any sustained period of time which I feel goes against him.

I think a reasonable argument can be made to have him up at 8 but any higher than that is really pushing it. He's around the 10-13 mark for me.

 

it's been a while!

 

Yeah, there must have been a trend of this going on at the time, where they were just creeping up and up. This was the worst case. Possibly it's like looking back at old fashion or something, the extremeness of it becomes apparent only years later.

The last couple of times I've tried watching the fight, I couldn't get past this. It's a complete absurdity. The fact that the referee and Holyfield's camp had no problem with this makes it even MORE problematic, imo.
It seriously impacts of the integrity of this as a sporting contest.

There's no target area on Lewis below the chest. That's highly irregular, surely.

 

Well said :good

 

No top ten for me. On fair cards Holyfield is 1-4 vs Bowe and Lewis.

Holy's best win was Riddick Bowe via razor thin margin. However the fight had controversy. There was a 17 minute break midway through the match. This allowed a sometimes gassed Holyfield time to completely re-fuel. Holyfield also defeated a post prison Tyson, Moorer, Mercer, old Foreman and Holmes, and Ruiz. These are some nice wins!

But he also lost and drew to Ruiz, lost to Moorer, and was in some trouble vs Bert Cooper. So he was an uneven performer. This combined with the performances vs Lewis and Bowe exclude him from the top ten.

Due to hanging around the game too long, an entire generation of new fans only saw Holy at his worst, losing to James Toney ( KO Loss ), Chris Byrd, Larry Donald, and Sultan Ibragimov.

 

Holyfield is 11 and Tyson is 12.

They do not make my top ten because I do not think they can beat the guys above them. Resume means nothing to me when I rank fighters in a particular weight class. They is always somebody they ducked or not enough title defenses etc.

I go by who I think can beat who prime for prime.

 

If he retired after the Tyson fights he could easily be in the top five of all-time. Boxing is a business and he obviously needed to keep fighting for financial purposes. But in doing so for too long he sullied his legacy a bit and lost to fighters he could have beaten earlier. I still say he's in the lower top-ten of all-time though.

 

:huh

Lewis' ratings in the 90's:

1991 - #9
1992 - #2
1993 - #3
1994 - #5
1995 - #5
1996- #2
1997 - #2
1998 - #2

(all courtesy of Ring Magazine)

 

More likely he was robbed to set up the rematch.

And, rather than penalizing him for it, I suppose his ludicrously high foul protector could be classed as "generalship".


... or simply "defense".

 

~~~