Oh puh-leez. George Foreman went on to win the title AFTER he lost virtually every round to Evander, and Larry Holmes upset top contender Ray Mercer after his fight with Holyfield. These guys were clearly not done, as evidenced by their subsequent performance. Interesting you should mention the Bean fight, because that WAS the first fight where Evander's decline became rather noticeable. His destruction of Moorer was really his last hurrah. Spin like a top if you must, you will never change the fact that yer boy is the ONLY top line HW champ taken out in the early rounds by fighters on the level of McCall and Rahman when he held a title - the ONLY one. That ALONE puts him below Holyfield. :nod
That is such a bull**** statement it's not even funny. The fact that Lewis owned Holyfield in the ring not once but twice puts him above Holyfield, to anyone with a rational mind. Not to mention how long it took Lewis to get Holyfield and Tyson to grow the balls to get in the ring with him :deal I'm still waiting for the explanation on that body shot stoppage from cannon-fisted James Toney
Like I said, Lewis only has 2 loses which were by fluke and he avenged brutally.Lewis beat Holyfield twice toe to toe.But when it comes to Holyfield all his loses are OK and really don't count because he wasn't 100% in his prime. To me another sign of greatness is a guy like Lewis who fought at a high level to he was 38 and doesn't get excuse clauses like evander does.
I guess that would depend where you rate him. He does not belong in the top 10, so if you rate him there then you would be overrating him. He wasn't even considered a real champion until he won his fight against Holyfield only to get knocked out by Rahman. Won back that belt and then retired after a rocky fight with V. Klitschko. Not really top 10 all time material.
Olympic Champion 3 time heavyweight champion. Beat every man he ever faced in the ring. Held a version of the title from 1992 - 2003/4 and was undisputed champion until he was 37/38 years old. As has been said, name 10 better.
Ray Mercer was a much better fighter than either McCall OR Rahman. Mercer was an Olympic champion, McCall was a sparing partner. If you'd followed the sport back in the 90s, you'd know they were at two different levels. Rahman I don't think even HAD an amatuer career - if he did, it wasn't much. Mercer was viewed in the early 90s as just a slight step below Holyfield, Tyson, Lewis and Bowe. That's the problem when people haven't lived through an era - they look at the ratings and assume these guys were all equivilant. Believe me, losing to McCall and Rahman was quite a different thing that losing to Mercer. Lewis acutally did that too, but got a very debatable decision. Holyfield, on the other hand, was the first guy to put the iron-chinned Mercer on the canvas.:yep
I understand what you're trying to say, but you can't use this as reasoning that Mercer was a much better opponent than McCall or Rahman when you said this in the same thread:
1. Ali 2. Louis 3. Dempsey 4. Foreman 5. Holmes 6. Marciano 7. Holyfield 8. Johnson 9. Liston 10. Frazier And that's just for starters!