Realistic Evaluation of HW ATG's holding up H2H over time

Holmes was 6'3'' Ali 6'2'' or slightly above. Both men naturally bigger than Haye nevertheless.

 

Quick feet and upper body movement is a great asset to have for any fighter, especially if you are the smaller fighter. Wlad's decade long dominance against fighters who were usually smaller than him, had slow plodding feet and no upper body movement shows how vitally important it is for the smaller fighter to have good footwork and upper body movement. A Tyson, or even Frazieresque fighter would have given Wlad more problems than any of the slow, fat statues he fought.

Ali obviously uses his feet and upper body movement differently to Tyson and Frazier; he is more of a back foot fighter (in his early days) using his feet to keep range, were as the aforementioned two used their feet and head movement to slip shots and get inside. However, as Fury, Haye and Jennings showed - give Wlad a moving target and he will clam up and barely throw. Ali would dance around Wlad and decrease Wlad's output to single figures per round. The shots that he would throw (tentative jabs, as this is all Wlad throws against moving targets) would easily be slipped by Ali.

As for Haye, he had great success defensively. His problem was on offense. He could barely land on Wlad because he used no footwork offensively. Instead of using quick footwork to get inside on Wlad once he had slipped his shots, Haye just leaped in. Because Wlad doesn't over commit on his shots, he was able to move back after missing his own shot and thus be out of reach of Haye's leaping onslaughts.