imagine the career of holyfield in the golden era.

I mostly agree with your assessment of the 1970s, but the original post asked "what if Holyfield turned pro in 1960". That would make his prime mid-late-60s.

Nah.
You get big hitters in any heavyweight division.
Golota was a one-fight wonder ... well, two fights, that he lost by DQ.
Morrison wasn't much good.
Ibeaubuchi was a promising fighter.
The depth is the division wasn't that good, but never is really, at heavyweight. Things move slow at heavyweight.

 

The 90s like every other decade flucutated with quality. There was some serious talent but lots of drawbacks like Evander's health problems, Bowe's abrupt free fall, Tyson's prison term, Lewis' long setback..etc.

At any rate, Holyfield would have another very long career of highs and lows, fighting every contender who would get in the ring with him at least twice. On the right night, he would most definetly get his hands on the title. Early 60s, he might take his time getting to the top since he won't have a cruiser division to test the waters, maybe beat a Chuvalo, Cooper, or the aging Machen and Foley.

Late 60s/70s I imagine he would still buff up a bit and look to physically spoil, he would most likely face and beat tough guys like Quarry and Lyle and could very well split wins with Frazier, Norton, or even Foreman. Yeah, 1/3 against Ali is fair. On his way down, he would probably lose to upstarts like Young and Holmes...maybe even fight some of the belt holders in the 80s.

 

Very interesting question. In this era Holyfield would probably peak at 190-195 lbs and not go much north of 200 lbs at any point in his career. In other words he would be in the same size bracket as other technical, skillful fighters like Machen, Folley, Ellis etc. This would make for many interesting match-ups.

In the 70's he would probably mix bad perfomances with good ones, like he did post 93. I can possibly see an old Holy upsetting Foreman, but getting comfortably outboxed by Young for example.

 

With guys like Williams and Liston out there at 215 pounds, and Clay/Ali growing into the same weight bracket, I think Holyfield would bulk up just as he did in the 80s/90s.

 

I personally don't think so. Weight training (which he would have had to do to bulk up convincingly) wasn't used in boxing at all at that time, and even if he had used I don't think it would have been very effective at that time. When Holy bulked up in the late 80's there was this whole science around it, he even trained with a ballet instructor to keep his mobility. Those cross training methods didn't exist 25 years earlier as far as I know.

 

There's no way that Holyfield would have escaped getting demolished by the young George Foreman.

 

Way, way too much...Evander's fighting heart and always porous defense would spell doom for him. He would he executed like Norton was.

 

I'd give even an older Holyfield a pretty good chance to beat George. He would probably be badly hurt a couple of times, perhaps visit the canvas, but his heart, chin, experience and skill could very well see him through.

He's 205 for this one, ripped to shreds. Have had a couple of pretty unconvincing comeback wins since losing his rubber match against Frazier in '73. Foreman views his challenge merely as a well paid tune up for his showdown against Ali, but gets handed the rude awakening of a life-time.

The supermeet in Zaire becomes Holy-Ali instead of Foreman-Ali. Two aging warriors fight once more for the biggest prize in sports, but this time Ali is the challenger and Holy the champ. A legendary battle is about to commence...

 

If you didn't have a certain amount of defense wizardry, you weren't going to survive big George...and Evander, sorry to say was too much of a warrior to fight that way. Heart can only get you so far. Foreman of '73-'74 was an animal....with confidence in his awesome power.

 

I think he fought a very savvy fight defensively against Tyson. I envision the same here; Holy closing down the spaces George wants for his swings, countering, butting, holding. Eventually he draws a complacent and somewhat underprepared Foreman into deep waters.

But Foreman winning by early KO is of course not unlikely either.

 

And after a great battle,Muhammad stops Evander around the tenth stanza.