Does Holyfield get slighly overated at Heavyweight

Well, in my opinion ( for whatever it's worth ), Holyfield isn't that terribly overrated. You have to look at that record that you pointed out of 24-9-1, and address the fact that there are very few unrated fighters on it. He mainly fought top raters at heavyweight, and a lot of championship fights. Some of those bouts were all time great matches, Holy-Bowe, Holy-Dokes Holy-Tyson, etc.

 

Didn't we do this one a month or two ago? Wasn't long ago, I know that...

 

I think the 24-9-1 record is somewhat deceiving for two reasons:

1. He was already quite experienced from his days as a cruiserweight and because of that, he fought top class opponents exclusively, barring a few exceptions. His record at heavyweight has next to no padding in it.
If you were to remove the padding from, say, Foreman's record, you'd end up with something like 7-6, a record close to 50% and worse than Holyfield's.


2. Three of those nine losses came when he was past his best as a fighter. Byrd, Toney and Donald are excellent fighters, but in his prime he would've done better than losing to all three of them. Of course, if you remove these losses then you also have to remove some wins, but it will show a somewhat better record.

 

I concur with everything you say except, I think it should be noted that he was not in his prime nor at his best for the Lewis, Ruiz, Moorer, or third Bowe fight(s).

 

It's as good or better than alot of other HW champs. Who did Johnson fight as champ? Or Patterson? Or Holmes for that matter? Foreman and Holmes in thier 40's were still more formidable than anybody these champs faced and maybe more than Louis or Marciano faced also, not to mention a young conditioned Bowe or Lewis or a heavily favored though poorly prepared Tyson. Evander was a warrior who was'nt afraid to fight anybody and I feel he deserves his due.