I rate Holmes very highly. He came at the wrong time, simple as that. He came at a time where he was overshadowed by Ali, and then he was in a weak era, and then he was overshadowed by Tyson. Unfortunate for Holmes. Peak 4 peak, Holmes would of beaten Tyson, probably by stoppage aswell. I'm a huge fan of tyson by the way. I think Holmes would of beaten the likes of Frazier aswell. Holmes jab was perfection.
It's just tough for me, because I can't see Wlad beating Larry h2h and prime for prime...and it used to be that Larry had enough quality on his resume to buffer against Wlad's longevity, but with the addition of guys like Povetkin, Jennings and Pulev even that quality gap is shrinking, while the longevity part of the equation just swells to larger proportions.
I'm going to re-evaluate that some time in December. However, for now, I will refer to the words of my old pal Emanuel (whom I miss dearly, incidentally). Emanuel said something to the effect "Louis was the greatest heavyweight champion of all time, but Ali was the greatest heavyweight of all time".
I can see both sides of the coin on both the h2h and resume standpoints...ultimately I think it only makes sense to keep them rated close to each other, regardless of which one happens to get the edge as of now.
One spot ahead of Wlad Klitschko. When Wlad gets to 21 Defenses he is going one spot ahead of Holmes.
I would put Holmes somewhere in the 6-10 range. He won a very disputable decision against Carl "the truth" Williams.
What criteria are being used to define the rankings? Best of his day? Best all time, meaning he would beat boxers from other decades? I always look at how dominant a guy was in his time. That puts Louis, Ali ( pre layoff), Marciano, Holmes, Wlad, Tyson (pre Douglas), in a first tier. Guys like Johnson, Dempsey, Lewis etc in second tiers,
Just outboxed by a LHW. Not remotely the same. Lewis had unifed the belts and established a lineage. He shed two belts and had the third, which, because he was THE MAN, became the real title. Holmes never unifed and had to be handed the newly minted IBF title. On top of the other things that Holmes ****ed up he made it possible for a third ratings organiztion to come about. Maskaev and Briggs were not serious threats. Brothers don't fight, and he beat Chagaev who beat Valuev. The idea that Wlad needed to beat these losers, who were never ranked contenders for his belts, is absurd. Champions fight their #1 contenders. I am not sure why that is controversial.