Who do you rank higher at heavyweight : Tyson or Holyfield ?

I have Holyfield narrowly ahead. His much better longevity as a top level heavyweight and two wins over Tyson edge him ahead of Tyson's very dominant but short to mid length reign IMO.

 

Tyson had a period of dominance that Holyfield never had.

 

In the last top10 list i made, i think i had Holyfield slightly higher.

But now that i think about it, i wonder why i made that choice. I think there's very little between them: Tyson was more dominant and convincing, while Holyfield has longitivity and of course beat Tyson twice.

 

Good question!!!

I'd go with McGrains post

 

That's a very wide gap, Sonny's Jab.

Wouldn't you agree that nothing Holyfield did even compares to what Tyson did between '86 and '89? Of course after that, Tyson went south, but Holyfield has had some embarrassements as well.

 

Mmm...it's not cut and dried for me, one way or the other.

Tyson was a lot more dominant, but Holyfield was the 'miracle man' of boxing. Just when you thought he was finished, here he came again and proved you wrong. Holy was maybe not as consistent as Tyson, but he did reach greater one-off performances on the whole, and holds two victories over Tyson himself.

Holy displayed two assets that people love to see: Immense determination and heart. Some say Tyson lacked these qualities.
Tyson though was a pure knockout machine and (from a personal standpoint) was a lot more exciting to watch. It's fair to say he had more natural ability.

I suppose if you just watched highlights of their careers, you'd be inclined to say Tyson, but more in-depth analysis would favour Holyfield.
I don't think there's much in it though.

 

People really can go either way on this one according to their own personal preferences, and defend it quite well. It's a very good debate this topic. Anything but black and white and no-one is wrong IMO unless putting them dramatically apart.

 

If we're talking about respective peaks as well as my all-time list I'd rate Tyson the higher of the two (#8 as opposed to Holyfield at #10). That said Evander definitely has Tysons number head-to-head (at least at any stage from '90 onwards).

Tyson cleaned out the division in a manner that Holy never did, although Evander had the better longevity as a top force.

 

Good points, a Tyson supporter would say it's better to dominate an average division than to never dominate at all.

 

Ps: Great post, fists of fury. Especially regarding the one off performances part. Spot on. :good

 

A lot commenting but not many voting.