Lennox Lewis vs Evander Holyfield. Who was greater?

I am not talking about who was the best in their prime. I’m talking who was the greater of the two?
For me it’s Evander.

 

I agree, i rank Holyfield higher

That being said, I believe I'm a minority in that department

 

I have Lewis above him as a Heavy but P4P things might be looked at differently.

 

Lewis, just. I'd rank him a few spots ahead of Holyfield at Heavyweight, and essentially beat him twice, albeit the timing of those fights suited Lewis more.

Holyfield's Cruiserweight exploits narrow the gap a little, but aside from Qawi none of his wins below 200 lb are really legacy-boosting.

 

Holyfield. And that's just at heavyweight.

 

Holyfield.

 

I give it to Holyfield, because he was a more complete fighter early on. To me Lewis didn't achieve greatness until after the turn of the century.

 

Holyfield he convincingly beat Mercer beat Bowe and defeated a far better Tyson than Lennox did. Also Lennox couldn't knock out a fading Holyfield any ATG could've put that version of Holyfield away.

 

^^^^^^^ pretty much this

I have Lewis in 3-4 at HW and Holyfield at 7-9. Not a huge disparity but for me it is Lewis by a Clear margin. P4P I would have Holyfield ahead by a Clear margin

 

I feel like Bowe did real damage to Lewis' legacy with that duck. He should have become undisputed champion 8 years earlier than he did.

The IBF and WBA belts that Bowe, Holyfield, Moorer, Foreman and Tyson played with in the 90s were really just paper belts compared to the real championship that Bowe threw in that trash can.

 

p4p I rank Holyfield clearly ahead. Both are top-10 in my HW all-time ranking.

 

Not exactly. The lineal title was still Bowe's. The WBC became paper belt for a long time instead

 

Holyfield, he had those exceptional wins against Bowe and Tyson. Lewis had some great wins but not enough to put him above that imo, winning back his titles was great as well as the Vitali fight later in his career, but that still doesn't put him above Evander for me. If Lewis wiped Holyfield out in their fight it might make a difference but all I thought was Holy a couple of years younger would have won that rematch.

 

Always a tough question. For me, I prefer what fighters did during their title reign. I know LL got poleaxed twice by single shots in the heart of his prime, and at times played it safe when he couldn't knock someone out early, but he had a dominant reign as WBC champ and again as Undisputed champ.

Holyfield has the better wins overall, maybe second only to Ali at heavyweight, but he has some damaging losses as well. He didn't prove as dominant as LL did at heavyweight. Dominance for me ranks highly and the reason I have Mike Tyson ranked #1 head-to-head and #6 overall.

I have a feeling I'll look at things differently in the future because Holyfield fought EVERYONE and had done so multiple times. Bowe x 3, Tyson x 2, Lewis x 2, Moorer x 2, Holmes, Foreman, Mercer, Ruiz x 3, Dokes, Byrd, Rahman...the list is long.

 

Holy easily for me