Was Bowe's performance in Holyfield I the best hw display since Ali & Frazier's day?

For anyone that's interested, ESPN 2 is replaying Holyfield-Bowe I on Saturday, June 27th, 2009.

It looks like its at 5pm Eastern/4pm Central

They're also airing Holyfield vs. Foreman after at 6 eastern/5 central and
Holyfield vs. Cooper at 7pm edt/6pm cdt

 

well he was the stronger man and the bigger puncher so the brawling favored him. but holyfield moved away more and boxed in the rematch and won it

 

James "Butthole" Douglas' KO 10 of Tyson was pretty goddamn flawless, except, for the 8th round knockdown he suffered from a Tyson uppercut.....

Larry Holmes' methodical chopping down of hyped-up Gerry Cooney was also a very notable performance in a high-profile fight in 1982....

NOTE:

People gotta understand that Bowe beat up a 205 (Too Lean) Holyfield in 1992 while weighing himself a lean 235......... Bowe was about 2 1/2 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than Holy, as well..... The age of 25 to 30 is still in the prime range, so I will not harp on that....... Peace...

MR.BILL:bbb:rasta

 

I didn't have him winning by such a margin, personally. Anyhow he won clearly, but did so by outworking Holmes, not outboxing him. Holmes was the one who showed the most cunning and skill in my book, he just had no chance to keep Holyfield's pace.

See, this is where you're being unfair. Your previous criterion was that the opponent is very skilled, in his prime, brought his best, etc, and Liston, Patterson, Ellis do not belong in that column. Terrel pretty much stopped fighting after his eye was hurt in the 3rd. Quarry i will grant you. But you see how this works? For the record, i DO think those performances you listed are indications of how great a boxer he is, but let's not pretend they are all 100% clear examples of opponents being in optimal shape and at the high point of their career, which is basically what you demanded on Holyfield. And like i said, Ali had plenty of struggles as well, where in Holyfields case you said that this stopped him from being a master boxer.

You have nothing to refute this point i think your judgment is unfair. You say that Tyson wasn't dominated from bell one, so what? He was an awesome fighter and (in my opinion, and workrate seconds this, 38 punches instead of 19 per round against Douglas) in better shape than he was against Douglas. The first 5 rounds were something like 2-3 or 3-2 depending on who you liked better, but so what?

Tell me what the scores were in Ali-Liston after 6 rounds? About even, but everyone knew Ali was winning. Again, this is an example that you brought up. Note that Holyfield was considered washed up against Tyson.

Cooper was a substitute for a Tyson's substitute. The crowd expected Holyfield-Tyson and instead they get Cooper. Holyfield wanted to give them something and fought more aggressive than he should've, but he still showed he had all the boxers qualities and how many do you see landing a lead right uppercut/left hook that often? Yeah he got caught with a big punch he didn't so, but are you telling me that Ali and Holmes never got caught? Need i remind you of Shavers, Snipes, Witherspoon, Cooper or Banks? Note,again, that Holyfield fought in the era of punchers.

 

I was in the midst of popping a full woody when I saw Holmes outboxing McCall in 1995 for the first "7" rds of action, but then Holmes got tired and cut, and all hell broke loose from there on....... McCall kept his WBC title by a close shave........ Larry Holmes almost got it back at age 45.........

MR.BILL

 

It's not that Holyfield struggled on occassion that keeps him out. Rather that he didn't put on that many boxing clinics. And I didn't say anything that it have to be soemone who's in their absolute prime, just a top opponent. All the examples I listed concerning Ali was top contenders or champions when he fought them. Holyfield just doesn't have such perfomances. When it comes to Douglas, I'm sure you agree that he just didn't show up that night.

I think this was a great perfomance by Holyfield. Maybe I'm a bit hard when saying it was not a masterful boxing exhibition, difficult to say. But I lean towards that he more outfought Tyson than outboxed him. He did fight very smart for once, though.

This was a fight where the scored didn't tell the whole story. Ali controlled the whole of the fight, except round five where he was blinded. I think that's the only round Liston clearly won also.

I was very impressed by the punching Holyfield put on display against Cooper. He punched as sharply as I've seen a HW punch. But he fought a stupid fight and was regularly caught with punches he shouldnt been caught with. He also punched himself out trying to finish Cooper off, but had a lucky break with one of Coopers' gloves needing replacing.

This was Jekyll/Hyde kind of fight for Holyfield. But he just fought with his head up his arse, and beatiful punching technique doesn't make up for that in my book.

 

I give Holy lil' credit for kayoing Douglas in '90 on PPV.............. Douglas had gone back to his old ways of eating pizza and farting in the sauna during training for that fiasco.... I am still pissed at Douglas to this day for that letdown showing......

Michael Moorer was putting on a solid display of boxing skills against Foreman for NINE rds in 1994.......... After nine rds of action, I had Moorer up 7 to 2 over Foreman...... Then round 10 came into view and Foreman lowered the boom......... I popped a woody big time....... That is still one of my top all-time moments for me in heavyweight boxing.......

MR.BILL

 

bowe holyfield was the best HW fight since FOTC but i dont know about bowe performance being the best

those ahead of this have got to be:
Ali against foreman,
foreman against frasier,
holmes against norton: there were a few other greats from larry (shavers 2, mercer)
TYson against thomas, spinks, holmes, tucker

 

If we're going by pure entertainment, I think Foreman-Lyle was a good one...

 

1 Won the undisputed Title then broke up the undisputed title by shamefully ducking his amatuer conqueror.

was never a legit champion again after he lost his belt ( the WBO title meant nothing back then still does'nt mean much now)

2 Defended against Garbage then lost his title To a smarter fighting Holyfield

3 In the most puncher heavy era ducked almost every legit puncher out there.Ironically ''Glas Jaw'' Lewis beat every legit puncher put infront of him .

4 Was the only Elite Heavy to get his ass kicked by Golota won only because of Golota's own stupidity the other elite HWS of the era easily put him in his place


Maybe impressive to you not to me.

 

Should Bowe have gone ahead and fought Lewis right away after winning the title? Probably. Was this the typical path of all fighters once they won the title? Yes, they usually try to milk the title to make some big paydays. They all did it, including Lewis, Holyfield Tyson, etc. Was it Bowes fault that Lewis was knocked out by Mcall? No. There was a couple things that derailed them meeting down the road and it was not entirely Bowes fault. Really in this gap of time, there was really not too many other fighters for Bowe to face. His career was short and went fast and consisted of three mega fights with Holyfield which were the pinnacle and much more impressive than fighting guys like Tommy Morrison or Tony Tucker, or Oliver Mcall, who he most like would have beaten quite easily. I dont know what fighters he ducked, so maybe you can name some for me. The guy fought his way into the mandatory contender spot for Evanders belt, he wasnt bogusly inserted in the mix like most of the other fighters were at that time. Lewis is another one who fought himself into contention, but he couldnt maintain it against a guy who was in fact bogusly inserted into the mandatory spot.
Bowe was done by the Golota fights, in fact he should have retired after the third Holyfield fight.