Whats up with people overrating Chris Byrd?

Lets go point by point:
1. People almost dont talk about Chris Byrd.
2. Byrd was being dominated by Klitschko until Klistchko broke his right hand, I saw the fight on HBO.
3. Byrd was the Pernell Whitaker of the Heavyweights, Excellent skills, not much power, unless you are named Jeff Pegues.
4. Byrd was a good fighter in an era of super huge Heavyweights. No Tyson Fury-huge but they were already being produced real huge.

That is how I see it.

 

Byrd's got some of the biggest stones in heavyweight history. He was never really a legit heavyweight yet take a look at the freaks he willingly took on despite being way undersized. The man has some serious guts.

 

Chris Byrd has better top wins than Vitali Klitschko (Tua & Vitali himself). Top 5 dude for 5 years straight. Top 3 dude for 4 years straight. Best heavyweight in the world for a short period of time. Stylistic nightmare for anyone not named Wlad or Ike. All of that while being undersized coming from super middleweight. If anything, he's underrated. When it comes to Lennox ducking him - we can make any excuse in the world to why Lewis chose to pursue the rematch with the man he treated as punching bag instead of facing his number 1 contender, but a duck is a duck, and we should hold champions accountable.

 

Go ahead and subtract punching power from the other heavies. Give them Byrd's defense & ringsmarts. Overall, I definately think there is improvement w/ the heavies and not subtractions.

 

Tua doesn't do that well in fantasy fights here. It's not like anyone would pick him over Holmes or Louis.

 

Or named Golota.

 

Golota had a lot of trouble with Byrd (he was missing A LOT) and at the end of the day drawed with him in the close fight.

 

I would say he gets his flowers on this forum.

But maybe not outside of it. So maybe rightly rated?

 

He wasn’t even a top ten heavyweight at the time. It’s the only time he left without an L against a top ten heavyweight.

 

The fact he took on Vitali with a weeks notice in his backyard who was an undefeated giant with everything against him says what type of fighter Byrd was.

 

This was the biggest issue for Byrd, his anti-marketability and lack of flash both in terms of personality and style. A promoter's nightmare.

Had he stayed at light heavy, it might've been easier to sell the idea because he wouldn't be dwarfed by guys several inches and dozens of lbs bigger. His power also wouldn't have been marshmallow bag level. Imagine if Floyd Mayweather was affable, mild mannered, smiled a lot, and never talked trash or showed off jewelry, never showboated in the ring or tried to embarrass opponents. Very few outside the hardcore fan base would come to his fights due to his lack of power or excitement. That's kind of what Byrd was.

 

Make the poll then. But he was better than Brock.

 

Imagine if Floyd never beat the crap out of several hofers.

 

That's irrelevant.