How would you rate Holyfield?

Same here. I usually rate him around 12-13ish.

I don't have major qualms with him being in 8-10, but I think rating him in the top 7 is a stretch.

 

I have him in my top 10 and rate him possibly as the best heavy since holmes.

 

No doubt, he is an ATG, but should have retired after Ruiz I. His legacy was already cemented.

His insistence on keeping fighting has been a neverending embarrasement.

There is only one George Foreman. Holyfield, he is not.

 

A man who defined what it is to be a warrior. Someone who never gave up the cause no matter how bleak things looked, and who gave us some thrilling fights.
I think Holyfield is underappreciated, even now, to an extent.
Certainly, that was the case until he exacted revenge against Bowe in the second fight.

It was always a case of 'oh, he's not a real heavyweight' or 'yeah, but he doesn't hit that hard'...there was always a 'but' when it came to Holyfield.
Well, I think he did astoundingly well for someone who didn't hit that hard or wasn't a 'real' heavyweight.

Tell you what...I think Holy would give most champions in history hell, and beat a good many of them.

Edit: Where would I rank him? I don't know...to me rankings don't mean a great deal. I'd say he qualifies for greatness though.

 

I rate him at 9. Could he go higher (realistically), perhaps? I have frazier at 7 and dempsey at 8...I could see him surpassing those on some peoples lists (although i will respectfully disagree). I can't envision him being ranked any higher than that. At Cruiser weight quite possibly the best ever (I have not seriously examined the weight class as for ranking purposes!). Not a bad accomplishment to rank in the top 10 in 2 different weight classes (although there are probably others who can make that claim as well), but among my top 15 HW's is the only one who can make that claim (although some may argue had those weight classes existed, some of our early HW's would qualify in that department).

Exciting fighter! he had such a great heart and physical conditioning (I am not debating speculation of steriods here) and chin...that sometimes his technical ability gets overlooked. Very solid all around boxer!

 

True, true...He'd have been considered huge in some eras. What amazed me with Holyfield is that as far as power goes, he seemed to somehow increase it markedly when he added only - what? - seven or eight pounds to his frame.
That's very unusual if you ask me.

 

There should be a picture of Evander Holyfield in the encyclopedia, the part where it reads "to have balls"... I haven't got a top ten list so I don't know where he is in one, but look at who he fought. He beat Mike Tyson and even gave the guy a rematch. He fought Riddick Bowe three times, Michael Moorer twice, Lennox Lewis twice, older versions of Foreman and Holmes, just stating the obvious here but the fact is that there were huge names in the division in the '90s like Tyson, Lewis, Bowe and Moorer and only Holyfield fought everyone of them, most of them TWICE! I wonder how the records of these other fighters would look if they mixed it up as much as he did.

 

Evander belongs in the top 10 all-time Heavyweights...in my opinion. :bbb

 

7-10 atg hw