I don't think avenging them completely makes up for the losses because they were poor losses in terms of the manner. We're talking in ATG terms here, for a great they were particularly bad losses, for a normal fighter its no big deal.
They were bad losses, especially the Rahman one where he was down for the full ten. Against McCall he could, arguably, have been allowed to continue. Either way, suffering two stoppage losses to fighters of that caliber keeps him out of the top 5.
I have a problem with Holyfield... There is no doubt that he is one of the finest boxers in the last 30 years BUT he never really established himself as a great champion at heavyweight, in my opinion. The first time he won the title he defended against Foreman and Holmes within the first 2 defences and the fight against Foreman was a lot harder than it should have been. Then, just as he was looking decent as The Heavyweight Champion of the World, he goes and loses to Bowe. He won the title back but lost it again in the first defence and post Tyson he only fought Moorer and Vaughn Bean before the fights against Lewis. He was the liniear champ twice, and that is a great achivement, but did he ever dominate? I'd say no and he just misses out on the top 10.
Cheers :good I'm abit naive to Lewis in truth. I didn't get into boxing properly until after he'd finished. Everybody ranks him very highly so it must be right but, to me, there seems to be question marks over a lot of his big wins.
The thing is, people have a tendency to discredit every win a fighter has (especially on ESB) as long as it suits their agenda. Of course people should question certain things as it's the source of debate, but the level to which it's done on here can be a little extreme. Lennox has some very good wins and some great performances. Manner of victory has to be taken into account, and that was often good with Lewis. His period of dominance was also impressive and fought almost everyone he was supposed besides, arguably, Ruiz and Byrd toward the end. The tangibles stand up to scrutiny with Lennox who was a well rounded fighter, with good skills. People who say Wladimir Klitschko is similar to Lennox are wide of the mark. Just watch his fights, you will see a much looser, relaxed fighter who can throw an uppercut!
Tyson and Frazier ahead of Lewis is really strange. Both had short, blazing careers. Frazier would have never beaten Foreman in ten rematches. He is immortal with his win over Ali, but lost four out of five against the two best of his generation and that version of Ali was not unbeatable, Norton came closer to winning three times in a trilogy than Frazier. Lewis had a long career dominating a variety of styles. On his best night, he would have beaten Foreman and anyone Tyson ever fought.
Fleaman.......... Why you say good list when he has Johnson at 4 but you dismissed him on my top ten Johnson had a murderous punch and an granite chin, with todays dieting and modern techniques he would have been a bigger punching harder and better Holyfield and would have taken Lewis and most others to the cleaners Gene Tunney I understand where you are coming from but he was probably the smartest HW of all time and would have EVEN at his size give anyone problems And what's this all about with Larry Holmes number 1????????????????? you seriously telling me that a prime Larry Holmes would beat a prime Ali, Tyson, Foreman or Frazier etc PLEASE HELP YOU