Who was best: Shavers, Lyle, or Young?

Jimmy Young was vastly superior to either Shavers or Lyle.

 

Jimmy Young,without doubt. Each man scored signifigant victories,but the best Jimmy Young shut Lyle out twice,and he would have done the same to Earnie,if they'd had a third fight.

 

On overall skills,,,,,,,,,,,,Jimmy Young

Won over the fans, with a come-out-of-nowhere performance against
Muhammad Ali, a fight in which most feel he won.

 

I think a bit too much gets made of the Ali fight. The post Manilla version of Muhammad was way...way out of shape for that one. If he'd come in the same shape as he was for Richard Dunn,three weeks later,it would still have been highly competitive,but less arguements would have been debated over the decision. In my mind,the fights Jimmy deserves most credit for are the Foreman victory,of course,and the narrow loss to Ken Norton. That one could have gone either way,just as the Ali one could have. But whereas Muhammad was woefully out of condition,Norton was full on.

 

And young beat both of them.

 

I will go with Young on the basis that he beat George Foreman, Lyle 2(x), and arguably Shavers in their second meeting.. he was also only stopped once in a career that involved facing countless punchers, including two of the most lethal hitters in history...

 

I think too,,,,,,everybody liked Jimmy Young.

A good kid, who never knocked other fighters.

And, never made excuses.,,,,,,,

 

indeed young was only floored twice in his entire career, both times by shavers. thinking about it, i like this young stat more than shavers' ko percentage... perhaps i'm leaning towards young now... even though i'm not normally keen on fighters who start their careers poorly and end them the same way. still undecided!

 

I had a lot of admiration for Jimmy.

 

Jimmy Young is my favorite heavyweight.

 

Shavers : More consistent and more dangerous.....

 

I like Shavers, but "consistency" is not one of his strengths. He was a guy, who would go out and KO a decent fighter in a single round, then lose to a journeyman level boxer in his very next fight.. Young's record is spotted with sporatic wins and losses too, but the difference is that Young generally lost to top level oppisition, or at least once he reached the prime stage of his career. Shavers struggled against men of all descriptions at every phase and stage.

 

It has to be Jimmy Young. His skills were vastly superior to the other two.

Lyle had decent all round boxing ability and great physical strength while Shavers had a huge punch and little else.

 

hmmm...Well, more consistent than the other two I think....Shavers had a record with more straight wins.......
But I understand your point of course.....Depends how you score Young´s fights against Ali, Ocassio and Norton....
Yeah, fair points anyway......Young generally lost against top level, that´s a big difference, sure.......