How do you rate Evander Holyfield?

not an all time great IMO

 

you're the one trying to prove a point, shouldn't you be the one posting the source?

or did you just make all that up?

 

Google what?What happened more than once?

 

Everyone acts like roids will give you the heart that Evander had. He was a great fighter mainly because of his practically unbreakable heart and determination. Nothing added to your body can ever give you that. The man is the greatest cruiser ever to fight and a top 25 heavyweight that could give hell to any heavy in history.

 

He beat Bowe (1 of 3, but anyway). The Lewis rematch was close, so if you take into account it was prime Lewis against aging Holyfield it doesn't look bad at all.

Other achievements: greatest CW ever, beat Tyson twice when it was still worth something, good wins over Mercer, Douglas, Dokes and some others. He was inconsistent and kept losing his title almost every other fight, but he always won it back when most of people already put a fork in him (he was thought to be finished after Bowe I, after Moorer I and almost no one gave him even remote chance against Tyson after Czyz and Bowe III fights).

 

Mid-level ATG

 

The way he dominated the Cruisers, then moved up to Heavy and become an ATG in there against the New age super heavys in my Opinion makes him a High Level ATG.

You cant name me a fighter who started out at 180lbs to go on and beat Heavyweights as powerful and good as the ones Holyfield beat.

 

Holyfield is not on roids he was always at a light weight he just genetically great looking even now but since he became a man he hasnt been packing mass, hell he was 211lbs for a fight not too long ago.

Top level ATG, he had 25 pro fights and was the undisputed cruiserweight (jr heavy) and undisputed HW undefeated champion in those 25 fights , his highest weight at that point was 205lbs a cruiser by todays standards !!!

the mans a goddamn legend

 

I voted mid. At 46 yo he gave really good performance against Valuev. I think that 'longevity' should also be considered in such rankings.

 

Holyfield already reached HOF status before even moving up to HW. He then went right to the top of the HW division and stayed there for a long time - in the 90s when the HW division was very strong. Yeah he lost some and he won some, but that's the way it is when you constantly fight the best opposition out there. Holyfield never ducked anybody, he lost some fights but I prefer that to an undefeated cherrypicker. On a good night, I believe Holyfield could have given ANY HW EVER a hard fight - at least in the rematch.
Finally, his longevity should also be taken into account. At age 46, he still beat one of the beltholders - a terrible beltholder, yes, but still a top HW in his era - and he got robbed.. So a true ATG in my book.

About the roids, well, as cubex said, it has never ever been proven that Holyfield was on them. I'm not gonna claim here that Holyfield never took anything, I'm not naive and I know that many, many top boxers took some 'supplements' during some time of their careers. But as long as nothing is proven, he's innocent in my book. Claiming 'just look at him, he's in such a great shape, he must have taken something' won't do it - at least as long as you're not Mayweather Sr. By that logic Wladimir Klitschko must be a total roid monster while James Toney is as clean as a drop of spring dew.

 

He was a hall of famer at least only on the basis of what he did at Cruiserweight. Once you add what he did at heavyweight on top of that, he easily becomes a mid-level ATG.