Holyfield/tyson/frazier who is the greatest?

At first glance i'd always assumed frazier, but the way he got destroyed by george puts me off him. In an earlier era i think he loses to liston and in a later era i think he loses to holmes. The guy was great no doubt, but he got horribly destroyed by foreman in his prime.

Holyfield, considering his size achieved great things at heavyweight, particularly in the 90's. he should have retired after the ruiz trilogy IMO. I think I rate holyfield so high because of his size and achievements p4p, but that being said he still beat douglas, holmes, tyson, mercer, bowe, holyfield and fought very competitive with lewis. he was arguably the best boxer of his era (90's) and at the very worst co-reigned with lewis.

Tyson cleaned up in a very short time, and racked up some impressive defences, but he then went off the rails. call it focus, hype or lack of training it isn't important. that being said he came back strong and destroyed some top heavies again being defeated only by fellow greats in holyfield and lewis.

Basically I think frazier matches up worst H2H yet arguably has the best resume. I think Holyfield matches up better than anyone p4p but was never really the dominant heavy of his era. Tyson cleaned up but lost to his two best opponents (as did the other 2) although he was shorter in his reign, he racked up as many defences as the others so it shouldn't really be that negative IMO.

At first thought Frazier is the obvious choice, but digging deeper do the other two have a decent argument for ranking above him?

As a side note, these are the 3 men in contention for my number 10 heavyweight place.

 

i agree with this assertation, he did lose to douglas in his prime. but is that any worse a loss than holfields to moorer? i'm not sure. but holyfield avenged that by stoppage.

frazier only lost to ali and foreman, phenomenal. but he lost badly to foreman in a way the other two never did.

personally i think holyfield just edges frazier, but then that means i don't have frazier in my top ten which is unthinkable!

 

IMO prime holyfield fought up until the lewis loss. maybe not physical prime, but it is certainly his prime era as a heavyweight.

yeh your right it was a close loss. i think holyfield is clearly above tyson in both resume and h2h. it's just balancing out holy as a p4p/heavy compared to frazier as a heavy.

 

this is my problem also, it is hard to seperate p4p from heavyweight. holyfield is clearly better p4p than all 3 of them, he's one of the greats int hat respect. frazier is easily better p4p than foreman.

however as a heavyweight, frazier was not as good as foreman. that is evident.

as a heavyweight I think he was better than tyson (perhaps not h2h, but we'll never know) and very close to holyfield, perhaps just slightly behind.

 

Just for the record my top 9 is

louis
ali
marciano

liston
dempsey
johnson

foreman

lewis
holmes

number 10 is looking like either frazier or holyfield.

 

I ignored that post of his.