Why is Mike Tyson ranked above Holyfield?

I’m a huge fan of both fighters…but I would rank Holyfield higher …however any heavyweight top ten list that has both Tyson and Holyfield on it …will get a like from me

 

Tysons prime in the 80s is put on a pedestal and Holyfield was never dominant at HW. He could win or lose to any of the top guys and has twice as many losses as Tyson. Despite stopping Tyson Holyfield rarely stopped his title opponents at HW. Holyfield was 2-2 going into the Tyson "title fight' and would not have been fighting Tyson if not for his lifetime subscription to title shotsplus that no other HW great received. This is why Holyfield is the only fighter to win a HW title 4x and got 4 different chances to win a 5th. Despite this Tyson has more title defenses than Holyfield.


Tyson was considerably shorter than Holyfield and fought his whole career at HW while Holyfield started at CW where he was considerably better. Theres also Holyfield struggling against 40+ year old Foreman and Holmes at the absolute peak of his HW powers. Not saying I don't have Holyfield higher(barely) but its a reasonable discussion. Tyson has most advantages except H2H and one could suggest if Tyson was the same height he'd have beaten Holyfield and done better against Lewis(who is 8 inches taller than him).

 

Is he? I rarely see the lists where Holyfield is below Mike.

 

Holyfield is ahead of Tyson on my list and on most lists I have seen as well.

 

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Here you have a list of 24 members who voted.
And Tyson is one spot above Holyfield (by very few points), just because one of those 24 members voted Tyson HW ATG No.1. Which is completely unrealistic.
If it weren't for that one member, Holyfield would be above Tyson.
P.S. It's pointless for me to upload this same video 20 times already.

 

Any order is fine. Tyson's reign tho short but extremely dominant and filled with high ranked contenders and other champs while Holy lasted forever and won the H2H.

 

Is he?
If so, it’s only because Tyson is more famous and popular.

 

I consider Holyfield exempt from ATG rankings personally. He achieved quite a bit more than Tyson & would easily place above him at Heavy, but then you have to consider the blatant PED use, which makes his career difficult to quantify.

 

I still think it's a solid top 3. Why? because no one below has such achievements - defeating 5 current world champions, outclassing 3 Olympic champions, outclassing a linear champion, defeating 5 former champions, the most brilliant series of victories over valuable rivals since 1986-1991, covering fights more or less from beating Ribalta to beating Razor , there are a dozen or so very valuable victories with one defeat. Larry Holmes was the only one in his 30-year career to knock out... ..Holyfield never looked so good in his prime. He did not reach this level, his greatness lies in the fact that he did not fall as low as Tyson, who at one point looked like a 3rd league fighter and was earning and generating buzz like a star.. damn, it happens even today - the fight with Jake Paul.. Failures Tyson was overshadowed by the achievements I wrote about because they were very loud, unexpected and scandalous. And finally, embarrassing... but even if he had 100 more of them, they wouldn't change what he was like at his peak - better than anyone, maybe with a few exceptions, which is not certain

 

It's an unfair historical comparison as Mike entered the scene when you could theoretically have 5 champions reigning at once: WBC, WBA, IBF, The Ring and lineal. Compare this to the two belt era, where usually, there was still one champion, or even before where there was indeed a one champion. You just can't do that.

 

Not a potent one either. WBA in the 80's was a joke, just like when they recognized Earnie Terrell, not Muhammad Ali as the world heavyweight champion in the 60's.

 

of course I have to agree, but I'm not leaving the context - Joe Louis won the title once and I value him higher than Tyson. But you keep hearing that Ali won the title 3 times, Holyfield won 4 and Foreman was the oldest world champion, right? If Ali hadn't lost to Spinks, he would have had 2 wins, if Holy hadn't lost to Bowe, he would have had one less, and anyway, who considers the fight with Ruiz an achievement when it was a vacant title and Holy was weaker in the fight he won... well, the context matters, then true but most people judge stereotype. Let's focus on Tyson's series of victories, who he won against, in what style... you won't find another series like this, interrupted by JBD, but still impressive. Foreman after Frazier had someone like Joe Roman, Ali fought with the injured Clev Williams, Coopman, Wepner, Frazier had a great fight with Ali but then Ron Stander, I don't mention Holmes because there were a lot of journeymen there. Bowe fought with the survivors of Ferguson and Dokes. In the first defense, Holyfield fought with Bert Cooper and his performance was not great. The list goes on and on. Tyson's weakest rival was probably Bruno when it comes to his prime in the 1980s. I keep hearing that the fight with Spinks doesn't count because he was LHW, but I don't remember anyone saying that Holy lost to LHW Moorer... why is it said that Moorer II was one of Holy's greatest victories?

 

This is why winning the belt 2x,3x,4x is a silly honor. It requires and rewards losing multiple times. The ideal fighter to hold the belt the most times is guy whose in a split decision every fight.