Does Holyfield have the best hw resume?

No. Never beat Lewis either although a draw is nice on the resume. Ali’s wins over Liston, Foreman, Frazier, Quarry, Lyle, Bonavena, Cooper, Folley, Williams, Norton, Shavers, Patterson, Moore, Terrell, Ellis, Bugner, etc etc is kind of ridiculous. And for the most part the far majority were in prime.

 

Tillis, Cooper, Stewart, Byrd, Donald, Toney, and Rahman as well.

 

Ali is the only one who equals Evander's resume in that way. Evander, like Ali, fought almost all but a select few of his era, and thus that makes him one of the best. Even Larry Holmes and Joe Louis, who had longer title reigns and certainly faced many great fighters themselves, their resumes are significantly smaller and less impressive than Evander's.

 

Holyfield was a warrior, but he can’t top the fighters Ali beat.

 

His resume was outstanding. But no. I wouldn’t rate it as the best

 

He had a great resume. The only problem is he lost a lot of the fights--often struggling with men who he had no business losing to (Ruiz, fat old James Toney, Valuev, etc). Part of it is because he stayed in the game too long and should have retired way sooner, but even before he got old he had a losing record against Bowe (1-2), Lewis (0-1-1), lost to Moore, lost to Byrd, etc. That's 5 losses and 1 draw (the draw being a blatant gift) even if we're being generous and ignoring the fights when he was past his prime. Officially he had double digit losses.

I will say this tho, he always worked hard, ducked nobody, and fought his ass off. VERY few boxers can say they dared to be great and challenged themselves like Holyfield did. Easily a top 5-10 resume based on competitiveness and consistency with several good to great wins over many good to great opponents.

 

Louis and Ali are untouchable at HW, but Holyfield can compete against any other champion.

 

Strongly disagree on Louis. He has better and deeper resume than Evander.

 

Lewis doesn't count for Holyfield since Holyfield never beat him

However, in terms of guys he beat, yes, Holyfields resume is probably the best since Ali.

A win over Bowe, two wins over a past it but still dangerous Tyson, wins over a dangerous older Foreman, Moorer, Mercer, and Dokes. Great resume.

IMO Holyfield was past it as early as 1998. I do not count the Lewis loss against him, and certainly not the Ruiz or Toney ones. He was shot vs Toney.

 

Ali, Louis, Holyfield...Holmes, Tyson, Lewis, probably in this order. Langford had a handful of good wins too.

 

and Rahman

 

Well it shits all over Vitali's!

 

Top 3.

 

Excellent resume if we ignore the losses. One thing I can say for Holyfield, he ducked nobody.