I think Holyfield is pretty overrated. He failed to dominate his era. You can't really make any case for putting him ahead of guys who were dominant. If Holyfield is top 10 where does that place Bowe? The guy who beat Holyfield two out of three and knocked him out in their third fight?
Also this talk about the number of lineal champions he beat is a bit odd. Bowe and Moorer only became champs by beating Holyfield. Without Holyfield losing to them in the first place they never become champs.
If Holyfield wanted to be compared to the greats of other eras it would have helped his case if he could have beaten the men of his own era.
He's the only guy from that time to bulk up 20 pounds and go bald in a couple years, and be linked to a PEDs scandal years later.
Holyfield was truly a great fighter. It can be argued that pound for pound he is one of the best of all time. He built himself into a heavyweight better then any fighter in history. I'd pick him to beat Charles, Moore, and Spinks and any of the other fighters who bulked up to heavyweight. With that being said those fighters would be competitve cause they wouldn't be over powered and could beat Holyfield on an off night like Michael Moorer who was also a fighter who built himself into a heavyweight. That vulnerability is what made Holyfield's career so entertaining. His first rise to the title was great watching him win good battles with a number of the top contenders. One of the things about Holyfield which made him so fun to watch was the fact that all his fights at heavyweight he had to use his skill, grit and stamina to eventually destroy his opponents unlike a lot of other great heavyweights who could destroy their opponents because of being more physical and powerful or having a great jab that could keep the opponents on the outside. Holyfield used his movement, aggression and combination punching to defeat bigger men he also had great feet which helped him stay on his toes and bring punches from all angles. When he ko'd Douglas he looked sharp as ever. His wins over old greats Holmes and Foreman we're both tough fights. Both Foreman and Holmes had good comebacks and when Holyfield beat them in two good fights they were at the peak of there comebacks. Both were big men still very strong and crafty. This made the fights very difficult though Holyfield had the age advantage. Holyfield couldn't over power the older fighters instead he had to use his stamina and skills to win. His fights with Bowe we're all classics, he fought extremely hard in the first fight, came in bigger and boxed a great fight in the second fight against Bowe at a time when Bowe was still very good. In the third fight something happened as he came out looking real strong but just died off. His loss to Moorer was similar as he looked very strong but faded really badly. When he beat Tyson I do still believe Tyson was world class and very powerful. Not nearly the fighter he was in his prime but he still was as dangerous as almost any power puncher. Holyfled was very strong in the early rounds where Tyson fought very hard. Holyfield stayed strong throughout while Tyson faded and seemed to break mentally. It was a very good win, I don't know if Holyfield prime for prime could've replicated a performance like this against Tyson. In fact its hard to pick Holyfield prime for prime against mostly any of the greats. I can't think of any fighters in my top 15 maybe even 20 who I would see Holyfield at a huge advantage head to head both in there primes. Thats what made Holyfield so fun to watch. Moorer who IMO was quite good as a heavyweight hung very tough with him beating him in there first fight and giving him a good fight in the second fight before being knocked out in what was another good win for an aging Holyfield. The fights with Lewis even though I feel he lost both to me still further proved that Holyfield was a great heavyweight. Lewis was at his best in his career at that time while Holyfield was at the end of the road. Even though the fights weren't classics I enjoyed both as Holyfield fought more competitive fights with Lewis this anyone else did at this stage in his career. I thought Holyfield looked very strong especially in the second fight which was a good close fight. The first fight Holyfield didn't do enough while Lewis fought what I thought was a good fighter on the outside. I thought Lewis put together lots of very good combinations on Holyfield which would've stopped most fighters. Holyfield fought a very determined fight though especially in the second I feel that fight especially are underrated. Both fights provided a few exciting action packed rounds which were generally the rounds Holyfield did best in. with a number of rounds in between that consisted a lot of Lewis picking his shots on the outside while coming with power punches here and there while Holyfied looked for openings a good through with the odd good shot. Overall I feel that was Holyfield last fight as a top fighter. He showed that even late in his career he had what it takes to give Lewis who was in what I believe was his prime a good fight over 12 rounds. After that he gradually went downhill as he slowed down and the division went downhill with him. He had three competitive fights with John Ruiz who fought very determined and real awkward which troubled Holyfield. It was clear he had slowed down though in those fights as his workrate wasn't good and he couldn't take over and stop Ruiz. I do believe that Holyfield should've been able to beat Ruiz on those nights but was caught off guard but how Ruiz fought still I feel even a year or so back he'd have been able to beat Ruiz. He continued to decline rapidly From that point on he didn't really have any good performances. Most of his fights later in his career he fought very lethargically losing a fight to Larry Donald which he never should've lost then getting destroyed by James Toney in his signature performance at heavyweight. He did get robbed in what was a terrible fight for a belt against Valuev. Still he showed that desire to compete and win later in his career which allowed him to be next to Lewis the most consistent fighter of the 90's. Thats my recap off the top of my head of Holyfield's career. I've watched a lot of Holyfield in my life. When I used to box he was a huge inspiration. I actually met him and fought an amateur fight in front of him. Overall hes got to be a top ten heavyweight. Three title reigns and even though most of his wins against very good fighters was not at the peak of there career he still beat all those fighters in title fights and was competitive against everyone he ever faced. Never getting blown out though taking on much bigger and some great fighters at the points in there careers where they were at their most dangerous.
Who cares? Everyone was on and nobody cares back then. And guess what? The fights were better. The 80s-90s was a juice fest in every sport but nobody cared or asked questions and all sports have become increasingly dull since then
Every great fighter has its own. Ali lost to Spinks then beat Spinks which added him one more lineal HW champion Lewis had Hasim Rahman which he shouldn't have lost at the first place And I believe Bowe was talented enough to win lineal title not only vs Holyfield, in fact he still is one of the best SHWs in history.
All of Bowe's supposed talent wasn't enough to save him from taking horrific beatings at the hand of Andrew Golota. Skilled SHW? Not skilled enough for Golota it would seem.
There are some other things that go into being successful. Like discipline, conditioning and desire. This was all common knowledge. Bowe was looked at as a guy with a ton of talent but questionable character before he turned pro. If you don't see Bowe' s talent it's because you don't want to. I don' t have an agenda. Thats the way it was.
The fact of the matter is that Bowe was thrashed twice by Andrew Golota and but for Golota going low would have lost both fights. This would seem to pretty heavily undercut the argument that he was a great heavyweight (unless we are to set Golota and all the guys who beat him as the bar for greatness which people have shown no indication to do). Losing the trilogy to a guy who couldn't handle Golota of all people certainly doesn't raise Holyfied's stock much and actually hurts it as best I can tell. Bowe lacked discipline throughout his career. He didn't suddenly start coming into fights out of shape against Golota. He was overweight against Holyfield in the rematch and the commentators openly note how bad he looks.
The argument that Bowe was out of shape doesn't matter that much because he still threw alot more punches than any other 250 pounder even when he was 10+ pounds overweight. He had Lee Haney training him for the Holyfield rematch. The same bodybuilder who helped Holyfield Bulk up. His style was kind of resembling Old Foreman and old George was even heavier and still threw alot of shots. George also chose to be 260. He had fought at 235 against Qawi in 1989. He chose to be heavier because he had difficulty getting Qawi outta there. Coming in Heavy and fighting more of a big man style played to his advantages especially since Evander was slowing down and was starting to spend more time inside and fighting flat footed compared to when he fought dokes. I also believe that Holyfield fought a stupid fight the first time, he was ahead after 4 by using his speed but spent the rest of the fight slugging and pushing, trying to knock the bigger man out. Not taking anything away from Bowe but Holyfield could have won it if he had kept stickingand moving,Bowe wouldn't have been able to match his Footspeed. The third time he was obviously ill. He didn't throw a singly power punch for the rest of theround after he knocked him down in the beginning of the 6th round. Im not kidding, rewatch the fight Holyfield spends over 2 minutes panting and staring at Bowe after throwing a couple of shots at the beginning of the round and almost knocking Bowe out with them. If losing to Bowe in 92 hurts Holyfield then what does it say about Frazier that he lost to Foreman in a noncompetitive blowout? How about Louis loss vs Schmeling and Ali's loss to Frazier, both of those are less competitive than the bowe fight.
