the same can be said for pacquaio opponents. Morales was past it and still beat him. Same with barrera. Margarito was definitely past it. Cotto was weight drained. Dlh was weight drained and shot. Mosley was old. Rios is ****. He lost to marquez 4 times. He lost to mayweather in his legacy defining fight.
actually, two years before pacquiao-cotto, if you had said that pacquiao will stop cotto, you would have been laughed off of eastsideboxing. and if you had said in 1987 that holyfield would drop and stop tyson, you would have been laughed off of eastsideboxing. two atg's, but i voted for holyfield. man, that guy faced some murderous punchers. no established, long-time cruiserweight will ever do what holyfield did.. never ever again. (of course pac accomplishments will be nearly impossible to duplicate also.. the flyweight handling bradley is really underrated.. but holyfield faced the bombs)
I'd say the Evan Fields issue with roids hurt Holyfield more because he was supposedly a follower of Christ. Not to mention planting his seed and sprouting close to 20 children out of wedlock. Wouldn't you say that's the reason Evander gets picked on a bit more?
I think it's remarkable that Holyfield was able to maintain a robust sperm count while compulsively using steroids.
At age 30 Holyfield had been undefeated for 8 years. He was 28-0 (22) overall, 10-0 (7) in world title fights, and 5-0 (2) vs. Hall Of Famers. He had been the Undisputed CW Champ and was the Undisputed HW Champ. He had been outweighed by 49 pounds in a world title fight. Not bad for a guy who ended his amateur career as a LHW and was now fighting "Super" HWs. From age 30-34 he went 6-3 (2) overall and 3-2 (1) in HW world title fights. He went 1-2 vs. Rid**** Bowe and lost a questionable decision to Michael Moorer. He also beat Alex Stewart for the 2nd time, Bobby Czyz, and Mike Tyson twice. From age 35-39 he went 4-2-2 (1) overall and 3-2-2 (1) in HW world title fights. He beat Michael Moorer (avenging an earlier defeat), Vaughn Bean, John Ruiz, and Hasim Rahman. He lost to Lewis and Ruiz. He also had draws vs. Lewis and Ruiz. From age 40-48 he went 6-5 (4) 1NC overall and 0-3 in HW world title fights. No fighter beat more Lineal HW Champs than Holyfield. He beat (7) Buster Douglas, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Riddlck Bowe, Mike Tyson x2, Michael Moorer, and Hasim Rahman. He also has a draw vs. Lineal HW Champ Lennox Lewis. He earned 8 wins and a draw vs. Hall Of Fame fighters. At age 30 he was 10-0 (7) in world title fights. In his 30's he added 6-4-2 (2) to his world title record bringing it to 16-4-2 (9). He had 3 world title fights past the age of 40. He lost all 3 but was robbed in one of them (L12 Valuev at age 46). He gave Byrd and Ibragimov decent fights despite being well past prime. I'm not saying he was better than Pacquiao but Holyfield fought guys who were younger and in prime (with the exception of Foreman and Holmes) even if Holyfield was past prime. As for Tyson? Both were past prime but Holyfield went into their fight as a huge underdog and was thought to be washed up. Tyson had looked very good leading up to the fight, Holyfield had not.
I think those seldom tends to be cold, but rather a lot of bs hindsight. Like Holy's wins over Tyson tend to be be downgraded. I actually like better what people saw before the fact. But true cold ****ysis of Pac beating the **** out of Barrera (four years before he put on a great performance against Marquez), Hatton, Cotto. Margarito, Clottey etc and three convincing victories over Bradley shows that it's ****ing incredible that someone managed to do this. And that's taking the Morales and DLH thrashings out of the equation just because you'll likely say they weren't at their best (as you could say about Holy's wins over Bowe and Tyson btw). Focussing on the above mentioned together with all the other titlist/contenders Pac dominated is enough to do the trick.
I'm going to count Pacquiao's world title record as 20-5-2 (11). It's not official... but that's what it is in my opinion. He was stopped in 2 of his world title fights and 3 times in his career. Holyfield was never stopped in a world title fight (his 3rd fight with Bowe (a KO loss) was almost for the WBO belt though) and he was stopped twice in his career. Both men fought in non-world title fights that were more significant than most world title fights. Examples- Pacquiao W12 Bradley- Bradley was the WBO Champ but vacated the title. This fight was for the vacant WBO International title. Pacquiao KO11 Barrera- Barrera was The Ring FW Champ going into the fight but did not have an IBF, WBA, WBC, or WBO world title belt at the time. Pacquiao KO10 Morales- Morales beat Pacquiao in their first fight for the vacant IBA JLW world title belt, Morales lost at LW and then rematched Pacquiao at JLW. He wasn't the IBA world champ anymore but he had not lost the title in the ring. Holyfield LKOby8 Bowe- Bowe was the WBO champ but vacated.
Barrera, Marquez and Morales rate higher than any of Holyfield's opposition with the exception of Foreman who was greater than those 3 fighters. But Foreman was well past his prime when he fought Holyfield. He was in his 40s.
I'd lean toward Pac as well, he was a HolyFvckingTerror for a few years there! Holyfield deserves a lot of respect though, he beat some talented big men in his day. Two of my all-time favorites to watch.
