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

I think Holy. Beat the better competition, plus beat Mike twice.

I might argue that he lost to better competition, too.

 

Well, hard to compare 10 losses to 5.

 

Oh, great! Now my "Who ranks higher at heavyweight: Liston or Holyfield?" thread will look like a spin-off (dead serious, I've been planning to make that thread- those two keep fighting over my #10 spot and I can't make up my mind).

Anyway, I rank Holyfield higher than Tyson, based on a better resume, superior longevity, less-embarrassing losses, and his two emphatic wins over Mike.

 

Evander Holyfield - he's number 8 on my list. Tyson is number 12...

 

Very good post. I disagree with the conclusion, but you make some compelling arguments. Certainly I think Tyson deserves more credit than he gets against his two wins over Ruddock, but at the same time I give him no credit whatsoever on wins against the likes of McNeeley and Sheldon. But the h2h against Holyfield and loosing both fights is simply too much to over come if you're trying to rank them against each other, especially since they were both relatively young. It's not a Louis against Marciano scenario by any means.

 

1. You're severely erring in counting little alphabet-soup titles as legitimate championships, here. Tyson only has 5 title defenses of a unified championship belt-wise and only two if you count from the Spinks fight, which was when he became linear champion. Holyfield was linear champion through both of his early '90s title reigns, although he was NOT "champion" for beating John Ruiz. There cannot be more than one world champion of the same thing at the same time.

And even if this weren't the case, I think Douglas was better than Berbick- afterall, he did beat Berbick himself and crush Tyson, who wiped Berbick out. Further, Holyfield's body of work is absolutely better. He doesn't have any losses as embarrassing as Tyson's to Douglas, and all of the top three, maybe even four best wins between the two belong to Holyfield.

2. Exactly my point. Holyfield's were better.

3. I disagree. Tyson had a style which allowed him to dominate lesser opponents more readily than Holyfield's did, but Holyfield was a far more versatile fighter and performed far better under pressure, and when they got in the ring together (Tyson was past his peak, but so was Holyfield), there was no doubt who was the better man.

 

Holy beat a non-prime Tyson twice - no ifs, ands, or buts about that one. That makes the wins unimportant.

Tyson dominated his brief prime, Holy never dominated anything.

Tyson #12

Holy #16 (at best, I think 20 or lower is a better rating at HW)

 

Holyfield was anything but over the hill Sonny, come on. Personnaly i find Evanders performance in fight 1 his best ever. I thought he looked better than he ever was vs the stylistically difficult Bowe. He fought well but not great around his supposed (your view i think) peak vs Holmes and Foreman but was anything but sensational. His fights vs Tyson knock my socks off, and no i am not overrating Tyson. Tyson was a raging fave and still far more dangerous than his huggers will ever admit, but Holyfield plain outfought and outgutted him. One of the great performances of all time in my books. As said, Holyfield was anything but over the hill and i don't think anybody is going to trip on that one.

As for the second point, i agree there's something to Holyfield that leads to him beating any version of Tyson. His guts, his chin, his impeccable tactics vs Tyson and his extreme self belief gets him home for mine. While others let Tyson whale away and took shots anyway, Holyfield often whaled away at the same time and actually took less artillery than the others while having plenty of his own offensive success. A fighters never more open than when attacking, and Holyfield had his plan down pat. Of course one has to have the timing and innate talent to pull it off. His strength (he was stronger, no doubt) and keenness to tie Tyson up at trhe exact right times also played a big part.

 

Those fighters were the best out there and Tyson destroyed them. Very impressive.




And to those who say Tyson had more embarrassing defeats: it's true, but again i don't think it's THAT big a difference.

-The Douglas one was certainly embarrassing, but you can't deny that Douglas looked as great as any fighter ever did that night. It's not like he lost to a fighter with Leon Spinks-ability.
-The Holyfield loss, well Holyfield was simply the better man, end of that. Holyfield is an all-time-great, nothing embarrassing about that. The rematch was of course, although that's hardly something taking away from his boxing ability.
-The Lewis loss is another loss to an ATG where he was too far past his prime to do any good; however he hung in there and took a shitload of shots like a man.


-Holyfield's first loss to Bowe, some would see it as losing to a better man, i see it as Holyfield choosing a dumb strategy by going toe-to-toe. And he proved that in the rematch. So this should definitely count against him. He showed great heart and stayed game untill the end, but so did Tyson against Douglas with that knockdown.
-Holyfield's second loss to Bowe was because he magically tired after 4 rounds or took too many steroids. How the hell is this NOT an embarrassing loss? Holyfield should've won the series and could've if not for this embarrassing event of him stumbling down from nothing.
-The Moorer loss. Again, how is this not embarrassing? Watch Tyson vs Douglas and Moorer vs Holyfield. Can you honestly say that Moorer is a class above Douglas? Because Douglas looks more impressive to me. Moorer was not even a real heavyweight. Holyfield shouldn't have lost to Moorer just like Tyson shouldn't have lost to Douglas and that's the end of it.



I think some people underestimate the degree in which Tyson dominated the late 80's. Holyfield could never hold on longer than a few fights to his strap. You might say "But Holyfield faced better competition!". That is true to a certain extent, but let me ask you: Was Moorer that much better than most of Tyson's opponents as a champ? There is no excuse for a loss like this.

 

No, because i think it's very close because Holyfield kicked Tyson's ass twice. Take the Tyson wins away from Holyfield and his resume deflates like a balloon.

 

I think you miss his point.