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

With his full steroid induced prime he's a gate keeper

Lennox Lewis didn't knock out a lot of guys because of safety first approach

Universally Ali is number one

The next four slots are trickier

Forget bums like Louis or Holmes

Louis couldn't handle a anyone with talent

Holmes fought no body and got exposed by a lhw

For rankings 2-5 it's a pick em between

Lewis
Liston
Foreman
Tyson
Vitali

 

Between 10 - 15.

 

Yeah, that's the most absurd aspect of it.
Some sort of agreement/conspiracy no doubt, probably smuggling their PEDs in there.

 

Unfortunately no ,and he is missed.

 

One of the most credible and posters here, who, despite old age, has a rare form of Internet Boxing Charisma.

This is a misconception. The only fight where he went full safety first mode was the Tua bout. When your opponent is powerful, but as tall as Warwick Davis, doing anything else would be silly. Against Holyfield he opted to box. This is in contrast to the following fights which were all wars, knockouts or where he pushed for the knockout: Biggs, McCrory, Mason, Ruddock, Mercer, Tucker, McCall I, Weaver, Morrison, Bruno, Golota, Briggs, Botha, Grant, Rahman I, Rahman II, V. Klitschko. Given that he fought in the era of punchers, that's a pretty large list of aggressive fights.

 

Ah, think I've rooted out my own confusion here. You mean Ring had the still active Lewis #32 all-time as of 1998. Gotcha. I didn't realize that paragraph about Lewis' ranking was still extending the all-time notion. I thought you were making a different point (that Lewis was completely irrelevant and therefore not around to diminish Holyfield's shine as the man in the division) than you actually were. Just a misread.

 

Unforgiven, we cannot prove a negative. But there is no good reason to say most HWs used PEDs, let alone most of the best ones, besides Holyfield.

Morrison, Toney, a few others & of course some guys will have done so undiscovered.

But Tyson was naturally a keg from early teens, Lewis had the bone structure to add much muscle, Bowe a big guy...

Given the minuses suggested + buying more HW success with drugs, earlly-mid teens seems very fair.

 

I have Holyfield in the 8-12 range and more often missing the top 10 by thatmuch. I see him in that range with Frazier, Liston and Dempsey...but who does he replace? And do you put him over Tyson, a man he beat twice but could never replicate Tyson's dominant reign? What about Frazier(?) who only lost to the best...or Liston who basically cleaned out the division before winning the title...or Dempsey who reigned for 7 years with 6 defenses but mostly sat on the belt?

 

Yes I meant Lewis wasn't ranked all-time top-10 (or by someone like The Ring top/30:-() back in 1998. And in fact he did the best in 1999-2003, unifying the titles, winning fights vs Holyfield and shot (but still legendary name) Tyson, regaining his crown to become 3 times HW champion, and, of course, his win over future dominant HW Vitali Klitschko.

 

started this thread a little over a year ago, and I just got arond to going through all six pages of it. Interesting how some can have Evander Holyfield as high as #1 and as low as #17. Probably one of those most erratically rated heavys of all time.. I originally had him between 6-10 but rethinking it he might well break #5. That record has virtually zero padding.. Lots of top flight heavyweights, hard fought performances and most of the defeats came past prime or under unfavorable circumstance ( like his health issues against Moorer and Bowe 3 )..

 

I can see him being ranked anywhere from about 6 -12 but for me I would place him in the top 10, somewhere between 7-9.

Louis, Ali, Holmes, and Lewis occupy the top 4 stops are far as I'm concerned. then the next tier of fighters would be Dempsey, Marciano, Johnson, Liston, Foreman, Holyfield, Tyson and Frazier, and Wlad. He fits somewhere within that group.

 

I tend to think Holyfield is unfairly rated by people based on his later career defeats.

 

Not sure, but you could be right. In my mind at least, he ranks a lot higher than someone like Lewis does on a P4p basis, but as a heavyweight he's hard to rank. I think his comp matches up with anyone besides Ali, it's just that against Bowe and Lewis for example he was 1-2 against Bowe and should have lost both fights against Lewis, (that said this was an old version of him) But his wins against Tyson were both good, although again, this was post prison Tyson, who in my view never was the same fighter as pre-prison Tyson.

But you're right I do think when a fighter goes on fighting too long past his best, people tend to forget how good he was in his prime. I think Jones suffers from that affect as well.

 

I still sometimes think Evander doesn't get just due. He just seems to me to get overlooked on occasion.

He is one of the few whom I think would be competitive versus anyone, name your man.