Best legacy: Sanders, Byrd, or Peter

I think Byrd has to be number one. I know people seem to hate factoring in amateur accomplishments for what ever reason.. but Byrd was a Silver Medalists in the Barcelona games. He also was a TWO time heavyweight champ.

As far as Peter and Sanders.. both VERY dangerous when they were at their best but the fact Peter won the WBC belt against a still good Maskaev and beat Toney.. I gotta put him at number two. And I'm a Sanders fan. Now if those two squared off at their best.. Sanders all day imo.

 

it's pretty close between Sanders and Peter, though Byrd is the clear #1 in my opinion.
I'm going for Sanders because I think the Wlad win slightly edges him over Peter's higher rated belt and best wins.

So, 1. Byrd, 2. Sanders, 3. Peter. But I could see 1. Byrd, 2. Peter, 3. Sanders instead.

 

Byrd without a doubt... But Sanders without a doubt was the h2h threat of the bunch.

 

Byrd by far and it's not even close. The Vitali win doesn't count but everything else does.

 

I voted the same way - with a similar outlook in mind. Byrd really made the most of what he had.

I can still appreciate the arguments on the other sides tho.

 

Byrd
Sanders
Peter

Byrd's clearly the most accomplished of the three and a minor HOF fighter in his own right. Incredible skills, boss resume. Sure, he came up short against Wlad, but that alone doesn't put him below the other two.

Sanders and Peter are a bit interchangeable. Sanders has the win against Wlad, but aside from that his resume is distinctly lacking. Always a guy with way more potential than he ever realised.

Peter came up short against Wlad but took him to the brink. He also has those two (or one, depending on your perspective) wins over Toney, and the win over Maskaev. Otherwise he was also distinctly underwhelming. I'd have to say he achieved a bit more overall than Sanders, so there's an argument for putting him ahead.

No way either of them tops Byrd though.

 

Byrd > Sanders> Peter.

But id favour Sanders to beat then both.

 

Byrd had too many close controversial Decisions (like a lot of Don King fighters of the same period did) for my liking.

 

Exactly, he literally won one round, and then proceeded to zombie around
the ring until Vitali dispatched him.

Chris Byrd was far more accomplished as a boxer and was world
class for a far longer period and more highly thought of than either
Peter or Sanders. Peter had an overall capable career but his fight with Wlad really wasn't close, he lost
every round he didn't drop Wlad in, how is that close? It was competitive
for not very close. Sanders, to be honest caught Wlad with lightning in
a bottle and his entire career was really unremarkable and in hindsight,
is rated far too highly by many because of a win over Wlad.

 

I've actually gone for Too close to call - Mainly on account of Sanders and Byrd, with Peter perhaps trailing.

When we look at sheer legacy, it depends on how much weight you want to put on varied factors, including individual performances, as opposed to just the name, with either a 'W', an 'L' or a 'D' after it.

The the only man out of the three to beat Wlad (and do so, emphatically) and give the better performance against Vitali, in terms of it being a fight, was Sanders. And, do we score these efforts higher, because of the stage of his career? (He was barely active, after a short retirement). We do have to consider that he probably has the worst loss, by far; KO'd by Nate Tubbs - and his loss to Rahman, albeit a Rahman coming into his hungry prime, has to count against him.

With Byrd's default 'W' against Vitali, he looks on paper to be close to Sanders level of win - but to my mind a significant edge is taken off, due to the manner of victory. That said, Byrd also has a solid win over Tua and a reasonable outing against the aged Holyfield (I personally find Holyfield's relevance after 2000, significantly diminished). He also has closely run 'W's and a 'D'; very close wins over Jameel McCline and Fres Oquendo, who were the lower end of the HW spectrum, during the '00s, as well as a draw with Andrew Golota, who made no real impact during the decade. Byrd racks up some legacy points in terms of volume and consistency but how would you weight all of that. Especially, when you consider the individual performance and his devastating loss to up-and-comer Ibeabuchi.

Peter's case is perhaps easier. Whilst he never looked too close to beating either of the K brothers, despite the first WK/Peter bout involving a few KDs, it was a good effort. But, Peter was really never in danger of winning that fight and the latter bouts with VK and WK were just drawn-out beatdowns. He carries some regard, in respect to his two wins over Toney and a KO of Maskaev but, again, I see these wins as being against low scoring HW's across the period, overall. How much weight does one give to those wins? Lump in his losses to Chambers and Helenius and he's at the bottom of the stack, for my money.

Right now, if absolutely forced - Byrd would nick it on accumulation of numbers but, on individual performances, Sanders has the win people will talk about in years to come and H2H was clearly top of the pile - just not with the consistent career to accompany this. Peter is somewhat trailing as a Klitschko punchbag that was able to put on a couple of reasonable performances against an aging Toney.

 

Byrd is without a doubt #1 in terms of legacy. I'm not sure how anyone could dispute that considering he is a 2x champion and defended his title 4 times. Sanders and Peter never defended their titles.

But I would take Sanders head to head over Byrd and Peter.

 

This is a great post.

Does Byrd's size influence your opinion at all?