Where Do You Rate Holyfield?

#9

 

The greatest CW ever, I don't think he's top 20 at HW though. Definitely top 50 though

 

On HW achievements alone, maybe somewhere between 20-30. P4P, I have to rate him higher than that because he's arguably the GOAT cruiser.

I'm trying to not let my fandom influence me here. I was always a big fan of him. Exciting in the ring, a polite guy outside of the ring, dodged no one. The avoiding opponents during in the current era irks me. I miss guys like Holyfield.

 

I have him about Top 3-5 all Time. If you consider Legacy and H2H.

- Noboy faced so many quality opponents in the 90s.
- H2H monster because he was so versatile and was able to adjust his style so well.
- Multiple time HW Champion!

Thats why i rank him above Lewis! Just my opinion.
If it's an irrefutable fact that he was on the roids while most of the other guys were clean...things will look different.

 

I am not a fan of top 10s etc but understand reasons why folk like them

My view is Holyfield in his prime would have given any heavyweight a tough day at the office, and beaten the majority, so to me that puts him at the top table of our sport, that is good enough for me.

 

Good post, in agreement.

 

Definitely some compelling points there. I guess my only rebuke is that greatness isn't something easily quantified in statistics.

I think Holmes is an atg. I go back and forth between where to position him and holyfield. Ultimately, I just think holyfield did greater things in his career. Defied the odds. Fought as the smaller man. Fought all comers in one of the toughest eras. Beat mike Tyson when very few ppl gave him a chance and most thought he should retire.

Its very close tho

 

Fair enough and like I say, we likely just have different criteria and/or apply it differently, as opposed to it being a case of one of us being right and the other wrong.

For example, for me, Holyfield's comparative lack of size, relative to the HW era in which he fought, counts for him in my p4p evaluation of him, but its irrelevant to how I rank him at HW.

 

I think Holyfields wins over Bowe, Tyson, Foreman, Holmes, Moore, Mercer are great wins and against Lewis’s best wins of Vitali, Holyfield, Mercer, Tua, Rahman they stack up pretty good.

 

Yeah for sure. I can see that logic but again I'm differentiating between h2h rankings and ranking greatness. So holyfield being a p4p talent does factor in his greatness to me. I also apply the same logic for inverse, where I think Vitali Klitscko could be a h2h nightmare for any hw but because of his natural gifts I think he should have been able to achieve a resume more akin to his brother, so I don't rank him as an ATG heavy. I'm also a big Holmes fan so I don't want to come off like I'm denigrating his ATG resume either.

 

A top ten heavyweight all time …any heavyweight list that has Holyfield and Mike Tyson on it ..is ok with me

 

Yeah, looks like we have different criteria, which is no biggie. Size factors into my p4p rankings/greatness but not my divisional rankings/greatness.

I agree Vitali ranks below Wlad at HW on account of a lot less depth in his win resume.

 

90s heavyweights are considerably bigger than heavyweights of prior eras so it seems unrealistic to expect prior greats in many eras to compete successfully giving away 40-60 pounds. That doesn't necessarily make it a better era though.

 

Fair enough. I don't think I could separate p4p greatness and general greatness myself. For example, if we remove p4p context, then Toney's win over Barkley is more impressive than Duran's because Toney absolutely dominated and stopped Barkley whereas Duran won a close decision. But WITH the context of Duran being a past-prime lightweight and Toney being a natural SMW on his way up I think it's clear that Duran's win is greater.

 

I have top 20's in each of the original 8 weight divisions that are based solely on fights contested in and around those weight divisions and disregard size completley.

I'm working towards a top 50 p4p which absolutely factors in size.

I'd give Duran a lot more credit for his win over Barkley on my p4p list than I would Toney for his, because Duran was naturally much smaller, as you allude to.

If I was ranking Duran at MW (obviously he gets nowhere near my top 20 there) then he would get no extra credit for being smaller than Barkley.