Do you people finally agree that this is another golden era for Heavyweights?

Lewis is a top 10 heavyweight for sure, but I have Holyfield outside the top 10 given his number of losses through the 90's and beyond, although I’d rate him higher pound-for-pound for his cruiserweight achievements.

It’s going to be hard not to rate Oleksandr Usyk inside the top 10 when his career is finished, especially if he goes out unbeaten or adds wins over the next generation like Itauma. And yes, Fury and Joshua are probably outside the top 15 all-time, but even being in that conversation is still reasonable in the context of over 130 years of heavyweight history.

As for the 90s names, they were all very good fighters, but I think they are comparable in many ways to the talent we see today with Itauma looking like a young Mike Tyson, Dubois being a reborn Frank Bruno and Wardley channelling Ray Mercer. Both eras had depth, both had standout names, and both had great fights, with many still to come in the current era.

I think the comparison is already fairly close, and this era still has a number of major fights left to further define it.

 

It's an argument I've had before in the classic forum. The same with RJJ, a fighter shouldn't get a pass or be able to freeze a point in their career and everything after that can be ignored. Holyfield chose to continue fighting and thus, chose to tarnish his legacy. If he had won all of those fights, would you have counted those toward his legacy?

Even if you ignore the losses in the 2000's though, his losses in the 90's were many and showed his inconsistency at the weight. Two losses to Bowe, two losses to Lewis, a loss to Moorer. I think people rated him so highly because he was in such great fights, which makes objectivley judging his greatness cloudy. He was a great cruiserweight and a really good heavyweight, who happened to be in great fights.

If you rate him highly that's fine, but for the above reasons I have at least 10 fighters rated higher at heavyweight.

 

You’ve given Holyfield a lot of passes there to fit him into the mould of a top 10 fighter. His losses count just like every other fighter’s losses count. It’s not like he wasn’t competitive in many of those post-2000 fights either.

What it sounds like you’re arguing is that if Holyfield had won those fights, they would count towards his legacy, but because he lost them they should essentially be excluded. I don’t really see how that standard applies consistently. Which other fighters is that true of?

By that logic, you end up with a very distorted picture. Frazier would effectively be unbeaten after Ali I, Ali’s career would be judged as ending after Foreman, and Joe Louis would only be rated up to Walcott II. You can apply that kind of filtering across almost every ATG and it breaks down quickly. Holyfield and Roy Jones Jr. seem to get this kind of treatment more than most, which is why I don’t really agree with it.

As for Bowe, his measuring stick was Holyfield and Golota to a large extent, since they were among the only elite-level opponents he consistently faced. And yes, peak Lewis is a more understandable loss, but it’s still a loss. Losing to top fighters doesn’t automatically elevate a resume to elite tier status, otherwise you end up in a position where fighters like Derek Chisora are being overvalued on paper simply for longevity at a high level.

 

That's kind of missing the point though.

No one is saying Usyk has fought every top heavyweight available at all times. The point is that the division’s elite are clearly identifiable and he’s beaten the main ones in his era so far, which is Fury and Joshua, plus Dubois as a younger top contender. If he closes out his career by beating Kabayel and Itauma, he'd have beaten the present and future top fighters of the division.

But also, this idea that you need to fight a long list of names to validate an era doesn’t really hold up historically. Lennox Lewis didn’t fight everyone in the 90s either, and plenty of those names people list were either avoided, rebuilding, or not active at the same time at the top level.

 

The idea that Lennox Lewis “cleared half the division” while Oleksandr Usyk only beat the “big 3” is misleading. Lewis’s ranked wins were spread across a long, fragmented period with different stages of fighters’ careers, while Usyk is still active and hasn’t finished his run yet.

Quantity of ranked opponents also isn’t a great argument for greatness or era strength on its own, otherwise you’re just equating volume with quality.

On the skill point, I think you’re overstating the gap. Frank Bruno was fundamentally sound, but Dubois operates in a different style and context, not necessarily a lesser one. Likewise, Parker has shown more technical adaptability than people give him credit for.
With 90s contenders like Ruddock, Mercer, Tua, and Morrison, they were very good but also had clear limitations, just like modern fighters do. You’re emphasising their strengths and downplaying their flaws, using too much rose-tint in your comparisons.

So I don’t think it’s as simple as the 90s being a higher-skill baseline across the board. Both eras have elite fighters and limitations depending on how you frame it.

The point about Itauma makes no sense. He's literally ranked now what do you mean he isn't part of the era? So if Usyk beats him for his last fight are you saying that wouldn't count? He's said a lot of things, what counts is what happens not what is said.