I'd give Holyfield a great shot of beating any of them. The two trickiest match-ups for him I think would be Fury and Wlad.
Good point however....I think a career with wins and results like W Tyson x 2 W Bowe W Foreman W Holmes D Lewis W Moore W Mercer W Rahman W Deleon W Does W P Thomas W Ruiz A de facto W vs Valuev ............proves EH could pull it off
I think it isn’t so much his wins, he is better then all of the fighters being mentioned in the question no doubt but he did have losses sprinkled through his career a byproduct of fighting the best so often no knock on Evander at all but that’s just my opinion my guy.
Easier said than done though. EH wouldn’t be fighting a zero defence big man that would concede his reach like Bowe and of course he has to worry about the punches coming his way.
Holyfield did hurt Lewis in both fights. Lewis has an average chin while Wlad has a glass chin. I guess that is where I am coming from.
He's picking up a loss or two. He's not beating them all. Thing with Evander is that he struggled more than people remember. Dokes gave him hell, when Dokes was on the comeback trail. Alex Stewart gave him a very good fight. He looked very ordinary against Holmes, and laboured to beat Cooper (a late substitute) and one or two others. He also looked horrid against Lewis in their first fight. Great fighter without doubt, but sometimes inconsistent, and sometimes laboured when he ought not to have.
Yes, if AJ or Fury came as close to being KO'd by someone like Bert Cooper as Holy did and struggled somewhat with come backing versions of Lewis and Vitaly (no, not perfect comparisons but they give some perspective), there would be no end to the posts declaring them hype jobs that would get boxing lessons from every champion after Burns. I think prime Holy is a decent bet against anyone, but it annoys me a bit a how he becomes invincible through rose tinted glasses nowadays. Before losing to Bowe he had only looked truly convincing against one world class HW - and that was a Douglas that looked woefully out of shape. Then he beat Bowe in a razor close decision, lost the title to a pudgy former LHW, lost the third to Bowe, just edged Mercer and looked ordinary against Czys. At this point everyone thought he was a washed up once pretty good champion. Then he turned everything around with the Tyson wins and a good run before his losses to Lewis (yes, stop calling the first one a ****ing draw) and, much worse, Ruiz. At that point he was old, so it doesn't count for all that much, but at no point was he ever a dominant kicking ass and taking names kind of champion as many other greats have been at one point or another. His greatness largeky lay in being able to win difficult fights and coming back from losses. Not looking like he was a level or two above the competition like Ali, Louis, Liston, Tyson etc did for at least periods. He always looked beatable, so to dismiss that any of these guys could do it on a given night seems a bit too revisionist for my taste.
I agree with everything you said. Holyfield was indeed special in many cases. Write all know that. But, let's be honest, against big men he struggled. Granted, they were very, very good big men, but then again so are his opponents in this thread. And as you point out, he looked ordinary sometimes against ordinary competition, like Bobby Czyz. He was not an all-conquerer by any stretch, but someone who had some great wins against formidable opposition. Fury, Wladimir, Joshua, Vitali, Povetkin, even Wilder...all would be very competitive against Holyfield.
