{<Where is Evander Holyfield in ATG HW rankings?}>

No FitzSimmons? laughable

Holyfield belongs in the top 10, I believe ahead of Tyson, his ability was astonishing as was his achievements.

 

I'm still thinking about a lot of things on a heavy list and it is still developing. It's quite difficult to do, and I'm not sold on Dempsey's lofty position. The more I look into the more I think...no.

I would have Ali over Louis. I prefer his resume, and really...I find it difficult to see how Joe Louis beats Ali. That is a strange pick that I can never quite get my head round on a H2H basis. Nevertheless, these are a clear top 2.

Thats all I would commit to at the moment...not very ambitious I know.

 

I would sooner list Fitzsimmons at LHW, but point noted.

Bowe would be within the top 40, alongside the likes of Oliver McCall, Henry Cooper et al.

 

I know, it's pure logic.. but in a thread on the classic forum 90% of the people had Tyson in front of Holyfield :nono

 

Probably around 12 - 18. P4P he's higher than some of the guys ahead of him because of his exploits at cruiserweight and because he was a small heavyweight for the era, but his resume at HW just isn't as impressive as some make it out to be:

0-1-1 vs prime Lennox (should have been 0-2 though)
1-2 vs prime Riddick Bowe
2-0 vs post-prime Tyson (but not completely shot Tyson)
1-1-1 vs prime John Ruiz
1-0 against 'second prime' (but 42-year-old) George Foreman
1-0 against nearly shot Larry Holmes
1-1 against blown-up LHW Moorer (who's lost to pretty much every other B+ level or higher HW he's faced)
1-0 against post-prime Rahman (but not completely shot Rahman)
1-0 against post-prime (but not completely shot) Pinklon Thomas
1-0 against prime Dokes
1-0 against "prime" Mercer (whatever that means)

And that's not including all those losses he had to good to decent HWs late in his career after he faded. I still think he's the #1 cruiser of all time, but outside of the Bowe win (who he lost twice to) and the Lewis draw (which by most standards was a robbery to even get the draw), his heavyweight resume doesn't have that much substance to it. Basically, it's 2 wins over Tyson, who quickly showed thereafter that he wasn't as good anymore as he used to be before going to prison.

 

I think he means that a lot of his big wins when he won them don't look nearly as good now. Bowe subsequently should have lost twice to Golota. Tyson subsequently lost to every other good fighter in the division. Mercer subsequently lost to every good fighter he faced. Moorer subsequently lost to every good fighter he faced. And to top it all off, he lost a bunch of fights in a row late in his career, including in a few cases to people he probably shouldn't have lost to.

 

He lost to Lewis twice - the first was a schooling, the second a close encounter.

 

I corrected the Ruiz thing. The first time I had Bowe listed twice for some reason (but one of them was his record against Ruiz). I noticed that, then deleted one of the Bowe lines. Now that you pointed it out, I added Ruiz back. Still, going 1-1-1 against John Ruiz doesn't do a whole lot to enhance one's legacy.