When did Holyfield's decline start ?

I say after the Moorer fight.

 

Holyfield was never the same again after the first Bowe fight IMO. It was after this fight that the dips and peaks began to replace the consistant form he had shown; starting with the Stewart rematch.

 

Yeah I agree his decline started with the Moorer fight in 94 -

His workrate dropping is the huge tip off in my mind. You watch Holyfield against Bowe in 92 or 93, or against Dokes in 89, Cooper in 91, really any fight he had up through the 2nd Bowe fight and Holyfield was a pretty high volume combination puncher, often times throwing 40 plus punches a round.

As soon as the Moorer fight happened, he started to show the inconsistency by losing to Moorer, looking lethargic against Czyz in 96 and Bean in 98, mixed in with the 2 Tyson wins. But even in beating Tyson in their first fight, Holyfield wasn't throwing a ton of punches, there was a fair amount of clinching.

Holyfield essentially became more of a spurt fighter from 94 on. But he was still formidable nonetheless.

 

Whilst I agree with this to an extent, Evander always seemed to bounce back again and again when the odds were against him. After the Bowe trilogy he was no longer as consistant a force- but still produced some good performances including the best of his career in the first win against Tyson.

He was always the kind of fighter who was up for the big occasions and procuced his best performances when up against it, but tended to perform either uncionvincingly or lose to fighters he should be strong fave against. To answer the initial question it's a toughie: I think his absolute physical prime ended around '93 (although to even it out I tend to think the later version generally showed more ring savvy and less tendancy to slug wrecklessly as he did in his earlier HW career, sometimes to his disadvantage) despite the fact he had some good wins after that.

Evander still had a fair bit left by the time he faced Lewis, I'll say it was around the time of the Ruiz fights where he had noticably declined.

 

this post sums up all my thoughts too. about the tyson fights - as pointed out, there was a lot of clinching and holy didn't throw as many punches as he did against bowe. no doubt 1996 tyson was a fiercesome opponent and it took someone as special as holyfield to beat him - but tyson made holyfield look better than other fighters (obvious example lewis) would have made him. holyfield did 2 particularly impressive things in that fight (1) absorb some explosive shots (2) counterpunch.

the counterpunching was easier against tyson (despite handspeed) than someone like lewis because tyson was just throwing one punch - and it was a very predictable left hook. holyfield himself said he watched cues of tyson (dip before a hook) and expected tyson to use only the left - which tyson did for the most part and failed to use the right hand lead. so all holy had to was counter the hook that he already knew was coming. mikey was very sloppy without timing or working the body so a skillful holy was able to block the occasional uppercuts. when holy got tired - he clinched tyson who was very easy to clinch. this kind of predictability and easiness to clinch would not be available for some other fighters.

tyson-holy was NOT holy's best performance and he was definitely past his best. his best performance was probably bowe 2 imo. and as the quoted poster said - holy started to decline after 1994 but he was still something to be reckoned with. he should have retired in 1998 and had an occasional, "every great fighter has one last fight left in him" performance against the man that had knocked out lennox lewis.

 

Agreed! I noticed it right away in that following fight.

 

I personally think Holyfield's decline began right around the Riddick Bowe trilogy. I don't say this for the purpose of justifying his losses to Bowe, but I couldn't help but notice that Holyfield's performances against Larry Holmes and Bert Cooper were not particularly impressive going into the Bowe fight. What's more, he went from fighting 3 times per year to only fighting 1-2 times anually. His hunger seemed to diminish as he got richer and more successful, and by the time he fought Bowe in November of 1992, he was 30 years old. I have always felt that Evander was at his absolute peak between 1989-1991. He was in his late 20's during those years, and was exceptionally motivated given that he was focussed on getting to the top and proving himself as the best. He was also fighting and beating top rated heavyweights on a regular basis, and had not yet endured some of the grueling wars that would later take a lot out of him. It was during this time period that I really would have liked to see Holyfield fight Mike Tyson as originally scheduled. Taking this version of Holyfield and fighting him against later versions of Lewis and Bowe would have been a good fantasy matchup as well.

 

yeah, its kinda hard to say imo,

but on the positive side people where beggining to think he was declining before he fought bowe and he beat bowe in the rematch and then as we know, moorer, mercer, ruiz, rahman and then recently oquendo.

 

I agree with this. Certainly, Evander would have been a bit more reckless against Tyson than the 96 version when he fought a near-perfect fight in nullifying Tyson best weaponry. The 'prime' version would have been hit more, just like the Bowe II version fought a much better tactical fight than in the initial encounter. Holy was one of those fighters (like Griffith, Ali and Robinson) whose very best performances come at different times in his career, rather than in one block that covered a three or four year period (like Dempsey, Conteh or Frazier for example).

 

I think Holyfield decline started around 1998. I say this because Holyfield put on a good performance vs Moorer in 1997, and a great performance vs Tyson in 1996.

By 1998-1999, Holyfield was still competive with a prime version of Lennox Lewis, though he clearly was not the fighter of the early to mid 1990's. His punch out put dropped, and he was no longer as agressive. However if the Holyfield who fought Lewis was matched vs lesser talent, I think he still would have looked good.

By the early 2000's, Holyfield began to struggle with the likes of Ruiz. From here on it, it was mostly down hill for Holfyield vs ranked fighters, except for the Rhaman match. Holyfiled is the type of fighter who has over come and surprised many. It’s tough to peg exactly when he was in decline, but post 1998 to present is my best guess.

 

He wasn't at his peak from the Moorer fight onwards, but he really declined when he faced john Ruiz, he looked like he just wasn't the same character any more... Good / Decent but no great fights after the Ruiz fights..

Toney / Donald etc were like watching a whole different man.....

 

The following is how I would analyze the respective primes of the big 4 (Holyfield, Tyson, Lewis, and Bowe)....................

Holyfield

Prime - 1988-1993 (Tillis through Bowe II)

Peak - 1990 fight against Buster Douglas

Past-Prime but still Formidable - 1994-1999 (Moorer I through Lewis II)

Badly Faded - 2000-Present (Ruiz I to today)

Tyson

Prime - 1986-1988 (Ferguson through Spinks)

Peak - 1988 fight against Spinks

Past-Prime but still Formidable - 1989-1997 (Bruno through Holyfield II)

Badly-Faded - 1999-2005 (Botha through McBride)

Lewis

Prime - 1995-2002 (Butler through Tyson)

Peak - 1997 fight against Golota

Past-Prime but still Formidable - 2003 fight against Kilitschko

Bowe

Prime - 1990-1993 (Thomas through Holyfield II)

Peak - 1992 fight against Holyfield

Past-Prime but still Formidable - 1994-1995 (Mathis through Holyfield III)

Badly Faded - 1996 (Golota I and II)