What was the best all-round heavyweight performance of the decade 00-09?

Wlad-Chagaev. Extremely underrated fight. One of the most successful amateur heavies of his era and an undefeated elit southpaw operator with a world title, Chagaev brought a lot to the fight, nice lefty skills, the right style to cut down the ring, pretty good power and a strong beard, but was severly outclassed and chopped down. Of all Wlad fights this was the most impressive, operating behind the jabs and right hands with lethal precision to pick up the World Heavyweight Championship in a (non-sanctioned) unification. IMO it stands out the most.

Vitali back after 4 years to reshape Sammy's head was also fantastic, but it rather deserves the special jury's prize. Lewis over Rahman had a very high personal value but historically it was not that significant, same goes for Vitya over Sanders. In fact, Sanders over Wlad and Rahman over Lewis are much bigger wins given their chances entering the fight. Especially Sanders over Wlad, it will go down as possibly the only "legit" win over a Klitschko, with no injury or tiredness contributing to the loss and for the only time ever vs. a Klit, leading on the cards.

I'd like to recommend another candidate, I thought Holyfield very clearly beat Valuev in an extremely controversial loss, given his age and the wide margin on my round by round basis (awful fight, but he just always did a bit more), it should've been a wide win and a huge achievement.

 

Oh yeah, and let's not forget about Chris Byrd schooling Tua.