ATG: Who Ranks Higher? Roy Jones Jr or Evander Holyfield?

Need a public poll

 

Stop writing you dummy, it's quite clear for everyone that Loudon has outclassed you.

 

Roy didn’t get elevated to the P4P no.1 spot just by fighting inferior opponents.

No, Roy wasn’t supposed to waltz through guys like Toney.

It was a huge shock at the time how he beat him so easily.

How can beating a diminished version of Foreman in a tough fight, be better than crushing Hill and Griffin? It can’t be. You can’t rate the Foreman win higher just on name value.

Roy was the only guy who crushed Hill like that in almost 60 fights, and Hill went on to win a CW title a few years later. And it was Roy’s 3rd weight class.

Montell Griffin was also a very good fighter who gave Roy a lot of trouble in their first fight, and who had 2 very close fights with Toney. And Roy knocked him out in under 3 mins with a lead uppercut.

So both of those wins were special. And all of those factors make a difference and are extremely relevant to the debate. We have to rate on a P4P basis. Foreman was tough and still dangerous, but his comeback consisted mostly of fighting low level guys. Yes, he went on to beat Moorer afterwards, but that was after losing to Tommy Morrison. Although his comeback was of huge interest, the version of Foreman who Evander fought wasn’t a great HW. Sure, he was still world class, but it wasn’t a huge win.

A former MW moving up and crushing 2 world class LHW’s has to rank higher.

Evander’s wins over Mike were huge. Because Mike Tyson was huge. It was one of the biggest fights in the history of the division. It did monster PPV. It was an exciting fight. Evander was a huge underdog. It was a monster win. I watched both fights myself as a young adult. But when you break it down and rate it on a P4P basis, it was no better than Roy’s win over Toney. We can’t just say it is because it was Mike Tyson and a huge fight. You can’t rate wins like that.

Bowe was a great HW when he was motivated and fighting to his full capabilities. So Evander deserves huge credit. But he lost the series.

Lewis is one of the greatest HW’s of all time. But Evander lost to him.

The names of Tyson, Bowe and Lennox, leap out at you when you look at Evander’s resume.

Seeing the names of: Tyson x 2, Lewis x 2 and Bowe x 3, looks mightily impressive. Especially as 2 of them are ATG HW’s.

Evander has a great resume. It can’t be denied. But if you just compare their actual wins, they’re really no better than Roy’s. Not when you consider that Evander was a great HW himself.

Roy didn’t need to fight a Bowe level fighter 3 times in his prime.

Let’s compare their actual wins:


Evander’s best wins:

Qawi
Moorer
Tyson x 2
Bowe
Foreman
Holmes
Mercer
Douglas

Roy’s best wins:

Castro
Hopkins
Malinga
Toney
Griffin
Hill
Reggie
Ruiz
Tarver

Break them all down.

Look at all of the relevant factors and the circumstances.

It’s extremely close.

Sure, guys like Hill and Reggie were past their best. But then so were Mike, Holmes and Foreman.

Douglas was sensational in Tokyo, but he just turned up for the pay cheque against Evander, with no fire inside of him. Afterwards, he retired for 6 years.

Roy beat Ruiz with absolute ease, who’d had 3 close fights with Evander. Yes, of course Evander was faded at that point. But he was still a world class HW who should have been awarded a win over Valuev years later.

Roy had to burn muscle to drop back down to LHW to fight a dangerous southpaw in Tarver. That was his 50th fight.

If you break all of those wins down and you look at all of the relevant factors and the circumstances, you can’t say that Evander clearly had the better wins. Not when Roy was a former MW who beat most of those guys with absolute ease.

It’s very close.

 

Not waltz through Toney, I meant guys like Harmon/Hall and trying to fluff Roy's resume by saying "he made them look like nobodies"... no, they were simply nobodies in terms of Roy's overall legacy. His most hardcore fans attempt to do this.

I think where I fundamentally disagree with you is, the guys (Johnson, Tate, etc) you list for Roy were never held in the same regard as a Tyson or Foreman. That has to count for something. It's not just "name value", it's how those guys were viewed by boxing as a whole, even while not being in their primes.

Even as lesser versions of themselves, one could make the case that Foreman is a far more formidable foe (P4P) than say Reggie Johnson because Foreman had been to the mountain top. Swap Johnson for Tate or Malinga and I can make the same argument and so on.

Tate, Reggie, and Griffin are more solid wins than Harmon or Hall. True. But not on the level of Evander beating Bowe or Tyson or Foreman. I'm not sure anyone worth their salt as an expert/analyst on boxing would make that case.

It's not close. That's just my take... Honestly, Jones just doesn't move the needle for me. I'm a fan in general but when ranking him, his resume doesn't do it for me.

 

"TISONLYONEKING,

Hall and Harmon aren’t used to fluff up Roy’s resume. Roy made better fighters than those look like nobodies. He made Toney look like a nobody. He made Virgil Hill look like a nobody. He made Montell Griffin look like a nobody in the rematch. He toyed with Reggie Johnson who’d just knocked out William Guthrie. He beat a top 10 HW like he wasn’t even a challenge. It was a boring fight due to Roy’s superiority.

Not at all. Of course I don’t rate those wins as highly as wins over Tyson.

Roy’s win over Toney was comparable to wins over Tyson and Bowe.

The best of Roy’s other wins compare to Evander’s other wins.

I would never compare wins over Tate and Malinga with a win over Foreman. But wins over Hill and Griffin are definitely on that level.

I’ve never really touched on Tate.

Again, a win over Toney compares to wins over Mike and Bowe.

Wins over Hill and Griffin compare to wins over Foreman and Holmes etc.

It is close.

Tyson and Bowe were Evander’s best wins.

Toney was Roy’s best win.

They are comparable.

Then we drop down a level, and we can compare wins over Mercer, Foreman and Moorer, to wins over the likes of Griffin and Hill.

Wins over Ruiz, Hopkins and Tarver, are comparable to Evander’s other wins.

It’s extremely close.

 

Holyfield for me, fought better competition and had to give up more weight throughout his career.

 

He may have fought better overall competition by having multiple fights against great fighters, but their best wins are extremely comparable.

 

I just don't see it... I don't see any of Roy's wins on the same level of Evander's best wins, with maybe the exception of Toney given his stature in the sport at the time Roy fought him.

 

So if people listed both of their best wins in a combined top 10 list, being as objective as possible, what do people come up with?

Toney
Tyson
Ruiz
Hopkins
Bowe
Tarver
Qawi
Hill
Foreman
Moorer

I'd have to think about it more but I think that's a fair assessment. It's a little closer than I thought on resume, but I think better wins along with the utterly dominant manner of his victories should give Roy the clear edge.

 

Crazy.

 

**** reading all that. It's the same post 50x a day for years.

 

Just go through them.

You just have to be objective and rate them on a P4P basis.

You have to look from the perspective of the fighters.

Just because Roy would have gotten crushed in a H2H fight with a guy like Bowe, it doesn’t mean that Evander’s win over Bowe was superior to Roy’s win over Toney.

Although it’s extremely hard to determine who has the better wins, it’s actually easy to see what levels they were at.

Again, Roy’s win over Toney was on a par with Evander’s wins over Bowe and Tyson. I don’t see how anyone can argue with that, especially as Mike wasn’t the same force he’d been years earlier in the mid 80’s.

Evander’s wins over a 40 odd year old Holmes, and a 40 odd year old Foreman, were no better than Roy’s wins over Hill and Griffin.

You’re not doing direct comparisons with Hill and Holmes, you’re rating on a P4P basis from the perspective of the fighters.

Roy was a former MW. The LHW division was his 3rd weight class. So him moving up 2 divisions and destroying a top 10 ranked guy who was never destroyed before, who then went on to win a CW title a few years later, has to be a special win.

There was nothing special about a great HW in Evander, beating a 40 odd year old Larry Holmes and a 40 odd year old George Foreman.

I’ll concede that Evander has a better resume. Because he had multiple fights against very good-great fighters. So if you want to say that he has a stronger overall resume, that’s fine. But again, he lost the series to Bowe, as well as the fights to Lennox etc. So if we just compare their actual wins it’s very close.

You cannot say that Roy doesn’t possess any wins which were comparable to Evander’s wins over the likes of: Douglas, Moorer, Mercer and Holmes etc.

 

He’s upset because he can’t refute what I’ve said.