Does Liston have a case as a greater HW than Holyfield?

Yes.

If Liston fought in 3 belt era he would have more title fights even when you consider him being semi black balled.

 

I would rank Liston ahead of Holyfield, and pretty clearly. If peak Liston fought peak Holyfield Sonny's reach advantage (roughly 5-6") battering ram left jab, superior strength and power, and overall boxing skill would be too much for Holyfield to overcome.

Evander would fight to the end like the warrior he always was--but Sonny would simply be bigger, stronger, and better overall.

 

Liston was very good, but he never proved himself against a top tier 210-215 pound iron chinned boxing phenom who could war with super heavies and win or at least make it very close. I'm not so sure Liston was stronger, you can say Holyfield had "weight lifting" strength, but he was one of the strongest of his era.

 

Yes, and he did it without steroids.

 

I don't think that's true. Holy must be in double digits. I do not think Liston is.

 

I don't think so mostly because I don't rank Liston competition particularly high. Holyfield beat way better fighters and while consistently being the smaller man. Liston mostly beat up guys smaller then him who wouldn't even be HWs today. Tyson and Bowe alone are better wins then anything Liston has.

 

I am not sure Liston can be penalized for beating smaller fighters in his era though that was just the size of most the heavyweights pre 1980/1990s for the most part with some exceptions of course.

No major disagreements on the rest though.

 

no

 

Going by end of the year Ring ratings, Holy has 11. That's not including Holmes, Mercer, Stewart x 2, Bean and Ruiz.

I know that Holmes was ranked by the time of the fight after beating Mercer, but Thomas may have fallen out of the top 10 seeing how he had been inactive for 19 months since the loss to Tyson. I'd be suprised if none of Mercer, Stewart, Bean and Ruiz weret ranked at the time of the fight, though.

Going by the end of the year for Liston I have eight. But I'm pretty sure that Williams was ranked by the time of the rematch, but I'm also pretty sure that two losses in his previous three fights had seen Valdes fall out of the ranking when he met Liston. So eight sounds about right.

 

Not saying this is a decider, though.

What talks in Liston's favour is that there are few doubts that he was the best in the division for 4-5 years. Hard to say that about Holy, but you could also argue that he had better comp that Liston had pre Ali. Tyson, then Bowe, then Lewis during his first 15 years at HW.

 

Sums it up nicely.

 

Holyfield has a case for having a greater heavyweight career at cruiserweight than Liston has at heavyweight.

 

True, Liston beat the best of his era, but one reason Marciano gets penalized is that his best opponents were cruisers/light heavyweights by today's standards. The best opponents of Liston were more or less the same size as Marciano's best opponents. Eddie Machen and Floyd Patterson weren't exactly giants compared to Walcott or Charles

 

It might be a joke, but CW Qawi would be a heavyweight in Liston’s day. And if Liston had beaten Qawi in say 1959, Qawi would have been one of Liston’s best scalps. He'd be under Floyd Patterson, but above guys like Roy Harris, Howard King, Wayne Bethea and arguably Cleveland Williams and Eddie Machen.