Is Chris Byrd Hall Of Fame Worthy?

Uh, hell yeah.

Wins over Vitali, Tua and Holyfield. And the guy was a super-Middle.

Brilliant fighter.

 

First ballot in the Hall of No Context.

 

Chris Byrd is under appreciated and I like his skills but I think he falls short of HOF status. Very slick fighter for a guy his size though.

 

That's a legitimately tough call.

His three best victories - over a prime David Tua, still relevant and in-contention Evander Holyfield, and previously unbeaten Vitali Klitschko - alone make his résumé stand head & shoulders above maybe 99% of heavyweights' in the last few decades.

On the other hand, there's a considerable drop-off between and his secondary & tertiary lines of quality, including perennial rankings-clogging mediocrities and wizened contenders-turned-journeymen (the likes of Jameel McCline, Bert Cooper, Jimmy Thunder, Ross Puritty, Fres Oquendo, DaVarryl Williamson, and Mo Harris) - and in the rest of his big matches, he came up short. Decisive losses to Ibeabuchi, Povetkin, and Wladimir Klitschko twice all weigh heavily against those nice three wins. Further damning is the fact that prevailing opinion, contemporaneously and in the years since, has always been that his draw with Andrew Golota was a robbery - of the Pole. Not a good look on his balance sheet when evaluating h2h greatness.

Those confidently smashing the "yes" or "no" buttons within 0.5 seconds of reading the thread title, I think maybe aren't giving all factors on both sides of the argument their due thought.

 

If you were to pick Lewis's top 5 wins, who is a clear ATG. Well then you soon see Byrd beat very similar versions of Lewis's best wins.

 

He beat a similar version of Holyfield that Lewis beat as well as prime Vitali and Tua. That's not some bloke fluking a title and then just losing it.

 

Well, three of them anyway.

 

Very often context = excuses.

 

That record already is better than any of Fury/Wilder/Usyk/Joshua.

 

Would it be a tough call if Byrd had beaten a LHW titlist and a cruiser titlist at those weights (he beat two future cruiser titlists at heavyweight pre-Ike) and ended up a "three weight world champion"? Would that have constituted a harder road than the one he took in his first 26 fights, 22 of which were against men weighing 200+ lbs? Holyfield gets a lot of credit for being a former 190 pounder competing successfully at heavyweight but Byrd was a smaller man still. That isn't properly taken into account.

Aside from Byrd's "boring" style, a factor that probably weighs against him is that he's perceived to undermine Lewis's record and boost Wlad's. Byrd and Lewis had 7 mutual opponents, with Lewis going 7-0-1 against them and Byrd going 6-0-1. From 1994-2004, Byrd lost twice (Ike, Wlad), as did Lewis (McCall, Rahman). And Lewis vacated the IBF rather than fight Byrd. I think these are significant reasons why he is underrated.

 

I'm not forgetting in my own personal calculus that Byrd found an effective style to safely not just survive but compete on even terms with powerful super heavyweights, no (well, aside from Ike). That is commendable. However, the results are what they are. Three fantastic ones, against five times failing to be the better man, in his eight biggest outings by far. I stand by it being a tough call.

As for Holyfield, it has always been my opinion that he was a huge cruiser and not ever some pint-sized underdog at HW like the fan mythology came to make him out to be:

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/evander-holyfield-small-heavyweight.241945/

 

Not this time.

 

Not quite, in my book. But they let anyone in these days, don't they?

 

That's the thing, there's worse in there. Résumé and h2h.

 

He most definitely is based on his Olympic Silver Medal, status as a two-time Heavyweight champion, and victories over Holyfield and Tua.