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

You're entirely correct, and he certainly established himself by ducking nobody en route to consolidating the championship. (For this reason, I do not begrudge him in the least for not facing Foreman.) Whatever I think of his performances against Berbick, Green, Bonecrusher, Tucker and Ruddock, the fact remains that he did step in the ring with them, and beat them all.

Between him and Holyfield, I consider Holy superior for the reasons I've already described.

I consider Dempsey's best to be superior to Tyson's best, primarily because of Dempsey's greater versatility and heart, but of course Tyson was a greater championship defender. Where he falls short is in the area of overcoming adversity, being largely a front-runner. For this reason, I question how successful he might have been over the 15 round distance repeatedly. (Yes, if his match with Tucker had gone the 15 round distance, as it was scheduled for the previous day, my estimation of him would be improved. I was severely turned off by the last minute change to a pussified distance.)

 

Tyson overcame adversity in his fight against Douglas where he managed to score a late round KD in a fight he was losing badly. If you watched that fight live I'm certain that after Tyson dropped him in the 8th there was a sense of relief and validation that Tyson was the kind of Champion that you nearly have to kill to take his title away. The effort alone suggests that the will to win was strong and at that particular time in his career he had a champion's heart. His obvious lack of focus and conditioning coupled with his opponents determination resulted in not being able to capitalize fully on the KD.

In any case I'm getting off topic here but the point is, getting off the floor to win a fight is a highly overrated quality that is used to compensate for a fighter's short comings. Lennox Lewis never got off the floor to win any fight and for that matter neither did Jeffries but they are nonetheless both great fighters. Dempsey getting off the floor to win a fight and Tyson not being able to do so only suggests that Tyson (shot for shot) simply had the better chin and was not vunerable to flash KD's. If Tyson had Dempsey's chin he would have went down against Bruno; got up and won, he would have done the same with Ruddock. I prefer a champion, particularly a heavyweight champion who doesnt need to taste the canvas to see victory. Perhaps our criteria for judging fighters is different.

I don't take Holyfield's cruiserweight status into account when making my decision. Consequently, I feel that Mike Tyson did more as a Champion than Evander Holyfield.

 

Holyfield repelled Foreman's challenge successfully, not something I'm convinced Tyson could have achieved.

Jeffries cemented his greatness by decisioning Tom Sharkey over 25 rounds with his dominant left arm unable to inflict significant damage. (Thus the fact that all of Sharkey's injuries were inflicted to his left side by Jeff's right hand alone.)

Tyson knocked down Douglas with a single mid round punch. I would not have considered that a great win. I do have my reservations about Lennox being an ATG, as both his defeats were the result of a single punch. (I don't hold Fitzsimmons/Corbett or Jeffries/Corbett I against Gentleman Jim in the same way, because I believe George Siler would have counted Fitz out in round six had he kept proper time, and because Corbett outboxed Jeff handily over the first 15 rounds of their initial struggle.) Likewise, I don't consider Weaver's knockout of Tate to be a great performance on the part of Hercules, certainly not on a par with his knockout of Coetzee in South Africa.

If Tyson was on the receiving end of the beating Marciano was taking from Walcott in their first match, I suspect he might have given up where Rocky didn't. Dempsey never stopped trying against Tunney, despite being nearly totally shot and almost hopelessly outmatched. If Frazier was left on his own against Foreman, Big George would have had to kill him to finish the job.

RJJ ultimately fell short of SRR by losing in a way Robby never did. Duran went down against Hearns with a wolfish grin, and guns blazing.

 

Well, Lewis had won every round against Rahman, so he was also outboxing him handily. Does that erase that one-punch KO as it does for Corbett? I don't understand how the proper counting argument is valid. I can understand that you give Corbet credit for this, but that doesn't change the fact that he was taken out by a single punch. What about Walcott being KO'd by a single punch from Marciano? Holmes was nearly KO'd by a single puncher from Shavers, Ali nearly by Cooper, etc etc. In heavyweight boxing anything can happen. I don't think it should count for THAT much against them. Walcott, Ali, Lewis and Holmes are all great heavyweights.

 

Fitz was not even CLOSE of being counted out, sure it was a bad count, but Fitz was well aware on whats happing on the film.

 

Nono, what i meant was that i think Holyfield's good wins (and those include him hammering Tyson, yes, the one he's matching up with now) plus his inability to remain champion is very close to Tyson's dominance and other noteworthy performances.

I understand what you mean - like if two soccer teams have an equal amount of points in their pool, the individual winner takes the lead.

But i think Tyson's team did more against the rest of the pool than Holyfield's team, which includes beating Tyson (as a win on the resume), but because of their individual scores, i think they end up pretty much even. Hope that clears things up.

 

Aside from the Tyson wins (which aren't very impressive in my book), what exactly did Holyfield do that ranks him above Tyson?

Yeah, he beat Bowe - After Bowe had whipped on his ass all twelve rounds of the first fight. The first fight was the most significant fight, as both fighters were nearest their best...and keep in mind Bowe won the rubber match, too.

He was lucky to get a draw against Lewis in the first fight, and should we even discuss the Moorer loss? Holyfield went 1-1-1 with John Ruiz for god's sake atsch

If Holyfield is going to be ranked high for "longevity" that betters him only if you ignore his defeats.

Claiming Holyfield is to be ranked higher than Tyson because of "superior longevity" is like saying Archie Moore should be #1 HW ATG because he "had alot of fights and KO wins". He had alot of KOs, but he also had a lot of embaressing losses, too!

My last question is the same as my first - What's Holyfield's best win as a heavyweight?

 

I voted Tyson.

beating Berbick, Smith, Thomas, Tucker, Biggs, Holmes, Tubbs, Spinks, Bruno, Williams in three years and putting the belts together, I think that tends to be an overlooked achievement.

adding Ruddock x 2 after Douglas are two more good wins.

Post prison Tyson, is a different story, not that he hadn't lost some of his over all skills and multi attack ability well before then.

I just don't see Holyfield going through that line up as well as Tyson did. I think a pre prison Tyson would have done just as well, if not better, against Older Foreman and Older Holmes (and I will be first to say that even though older, the Holmes that Holy fought was better than the inactive Holmes that Tyson fought), Cooper, Moorer.

Douglas was back to his (unfortunate) usual self after winning the title.
That uppercut missed Holy by a mile! Much different use of the weapon than the one that had Tyson hurt in their fight. But I chalk that up to Buster Douglas' mindset rather than a contrast in Holy over Tyson.

It would be nice to see how well Tyson did against Mercer. That would have been a great fight, if Tyson were not in prison. Tyson may have always had a problem with Lewis and Bowe, but Holy did lose four out of five to them.

I can't see Michael Moorer ever beating Tyson. Not even post prison. A swarmers life span is just naturally shorter.

I think the key is that you have to take off three years or so during your career. Louis, Ali, Dempsey, Tyson, thats the secret.

 

The fact that Holyfield beat Tyson twice certainly helps Holyfield's legacy but that alone does not put him ahead of Tyson. Holyfield somehow managed to lose the series to Bowe (which seems rather amazing) but Bowe rates behind Holyfield.

 

Interesting points, but they're flawed.

Holyfield defeated a Buster Douglas that was grossly overweight + out of shape. I'm pretty sure Ross Purrity could've knocked that Douglas the **** out.

Holyfield did beat Bowe - one out of three times. He beat Bowe after coming off a devastating loss to him, and then got romped again in the rubber match.

If we're going to count Dokes and Stewart as good Holyfield wins, then he's clearly outgunned. Tyson's resume through 1988 is superior to anything Holyfield has done in his entire career, even excluding his losses to Lewis, Bowe, and the Quiet Man.

To bring up Tillis and Frazier when you talk about Tyson's resume is to cherrypick the weakest names (who were still contenders). We might as well mention the first Ruiz fight as Holyfield's best win if you're going to bring up Tillis and Frazier as even in the top 10 for Tyson.

Holyfield's Olympic success = irrelevant. He was not a heavyweight (or superheavyweight as an amateur).

Cruiserweight accomplishments = irrelevant.

42 year old Foreman was a good win, but keep in mind what he did to Moorer. That's the same Moorer that had just stolen the titles from the Real Deal.

 

I consider the barnburner between him and the once beaten Dokes to be tops, then the resourceful performance in his title win over Bowe (which will forever be the only defeat on a prime Big Daddy's record).