greatest of the golden 3 lewis,tyson,holyfield

He fought more former champions than the both of them put together, probably. I dont know if you want to count Cruiserweight too, but I will just stick to the Heavyweight he faced that held a belt at one time.
Rahman
Sultan
Ruiz 3 times
Lewis twice
Tyson twice
Moorer twice
Mercer
Foreman
Bowe 3 times
Bryd
Toney/ if you want to count his titles in other divisions and his win over Ruiz.
Holmes
Douglas

Thats all I could come up with off hand, but I'm sure there's more, someone else could add to the long list.

 

Lennox
Holy
Tyson

Lennox is the best of the two and beleive when fans of the future look back they will almost universally consider LL greater than the other two.

I am one of the few that beleive Lewis beats a prime Mike Tyson, his natural advantages and boxing brain are the same however old Tyson is. I think he has a much better record and was much better over a longer period of time. Holy has a great resume, and proved he was a better fighter than Tyson when he fought him imo, the Holyfield Lewis fought was not shot though, look how many wins Holy racked up after losing to LL TWICE.

 

Holyfield's wars with Bowe and Lewis produced one win by the smallest margin possible in five fights...so many people rate Holyfield too high because of his level of competition and heart, ignoring that he LOST more than he won against the best guys he faced. Besides, he rarely dominated good opponents like Lewis often did.

 

He LOST two out of three against Bowe, two against Lewis (unless you think that first one was a draw), lost against Moorer when he was in shape and beat the fat version, lost against Byrd, went 1 - 1 - 1 with Ruiz, lost to Toney in embarassing fashion, lost to Sultan, beat a fat Douglas who was only a shell of the fighter who bat Tyson...so the level of his opposition is indeed impressive, his actual RESULTS against eltie opponents is mixed...

 

1-Lennox.. Best all around of the 3, and avenged both of his defeats, and was smart enough to know when to get out, besides he beat Holy twice when Holy was still a formidable force..
2-Holy faced the best competition and easily beat Tyson KO'ING him in 96, and was on his way to stopping him again when Mikey couldn't deal with another beatdown, and humiliated himself in front of the World..

3-Tyson was easily the worst , was KTFO by the other 2, had his ass handed to him by a 42-1 underdog, and was an ******* outside the ring, unlike the other 2 who carried themselves well..

 

I agree, but Beware of Dog questioned Holyfields level of competition he faced, which was far better than either Tyson or Lewis, which is a big part of the reason he has more losses than both Lewis and Tyson combined, also half of the good competition he fought, he was past his prime, and in some cases, well past his prime.

 

Lennox has this hands down! He bats all of them Prime LL beats any version of either, Prime LL beats nearly all HW of all time H2H:deal

 

Lewis

 

Doesn't LL break most experts Top Ten All Time HWs list, where as Holy and Tyson do not?

Personally LL was the better of the 3. If you match him up with other greats in the past, he has the best chance to beat most of them with the least resistance than do Holy and Tyson. Again an opinion, my view.

Holy beat most folks on heart.
Tyson's skill, chin, hand speed, power beat most.
LL won on a mix of skill and intelligence, size and power.

LL abilites proved to last longer than the other 2 as well.

 

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P4P? Holyfield
Heavyweight Greatness? Lennox Lewis

 

I think thats fair, i think dominating a lower weight class then unifying the heavyweight class where he was naturally smaller than everone is a fair comparison. Holyfield was a better p4p boxer but Lewis was a greater heavyweight.

 

If Evander was the best outta the three, then how come Lewis doesn't get credit for beating him to claim the undisputed HW championship?

How come Vander lost consistently throughout his HW championship career?

When Lewis lost a fight (twice in his career) it was because he was starched by one punch, and he won by dominant stoppage in the rematch.

When Evander lost, it was because he was outpointed or beaten up and stopped.

The number of disputed/close decisions Lewis won? One. Mercer. And he won that one, though close.

He was also in trouble against Bruno, Briggs and Klitschko, but rallied to record mid-round stoppage victories against all three.

Aside from that, everybody got dominated overall. Holy did well in the rematch, but it was still Lewis' fight.

After his first pro loss, the best win streak Evander put together for the rest of his career was five:

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Lewis' best streak was 14.

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I think I'm going to go with Holyfield. Tyson and Lewis both lost to mediocre fighters when in their perspective primes, wheras Holyfield's losses mostly came past his best, and his only prime loss was to Bowe.

For whatever its worth, Holyfield was the one and only 4 time heavyweight champion, and was a great cruiser champ too. He arguably engaged in more Wars, sagas and trilogies than either Lewis or Tyson and fought the very best of his era win or lose. Today at age 45, he's still lingering around picking up wins or going the distance with title holders.

Not bad for a guy who started at 180Lbs.

 

Yes, because he lost it 3 times. Lewis lost it once only, and claimed it back for good 4 rounds later.

:hat