Why is Holyfield considered a top 5 HW?

Based on Ring ratings. His status isn't open to argument as he completely verified it by beating Holyfield - simple as that.

 

That covers it.

Lewis was too unpolished for Bowe in 1992, as Futch had brought Riddick to an amazing peak. Bowe would have knocked him senseless, the better trainer would have made all the difference.

Lewis could have knocked the crap out of Bowe practically any time after that though. I daresay even the Bowe who fought Holyfield in the second fight would have lost bad to Lewis even at that time.

Bowe was horribly mismanaged and led by Rock Newman, who convinced his dumb ass to throw the belt in the trash...all because Lewis wouldn't agree to a truly laughable sum to fight Bowe. They offered Lewis peanuts and he laughed at them, so there went the belt. Newman ultimately ended up ripping Bowe off somewhere around 10 million.

 

How does that have any bearing on a fight with Lewis? Lewis is a bigger puncher than Holyfield and given Bowe's terrible defense seems like a potentially worse matchup stylistically. Just soaking up punches is less likely to work against a guy with Lewis's power. I think Lewis beats Bowe in 1992. Your free to disagree of course. I don't think its a coincidence that Bowe was kept away from the big hitters of his era.

 

Bowe would have been favored to beat Lewis at that point but i can't quite gift him the victory. Bowe was certainly further along but they had history and Lewis had that power that Bowe never "happened" to face. A lot believe Bowe was steered away from punchers. I really don't know if that was true.......

 

Lewis could well have beaten him with all that power. Bowe probably would have been favorite. Regardless Bowe was ranked #2 and beat Holyfield.

 

Interesting...guys like Foreman were mentally messed up after their first big loss. I'm just wondering if Bowe was psychologically impaired from the Olympic meeting...he certainly didn't seem worried at all when encountering Lewis after the Holy I fight.

I also don't think the stoppage during the Olympics was a good call, Bowe had been winning and just took a couple of really good shots. He wasn't even staggered...even jumped up and down and pumped his hands during the 8 count like he was ready to fight again. So, I kind of doubt there was a problem psychically with Bowe in regard to Lewis, but who knows.

I'm more apt to agree on Bowe's untested chin...did he ever face anyone in the pros with a right hand like Lewis'? Can't think of anyone at this time, Cooper doesn't qualify (partly because he didn't do much in that fight anyway). He was dropped by Holy, rocked by Tyrelll Biggs and Herbie Hide. Lewis outbombed those dudes any day. So that definitely could have been a factor.

 

The answer is no. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the only moderately good punchers he faced were Cooper and Hide, both of whom were pretty small and matched up poorly against Bowe stylisticlly. The 90's was filled to the brim with big hitters and somehow Bowe faced very few of them. Eating Holyfield's shots was impressive to a degree, but he can only get so much mileage out of that considering the size difference and Holy's lack of true HW power.

 

Absolutely. Holy's power was definitely overshadowed by Tua, Lewis, Bowe, Cooper, Morrison, Weaver (though Mike wasn't around too much in the 90s), Mercer, Foreman, Briggs, Witherspoon, Bruno...I could go on. Bowe didn't fight any of those names besides Cooper, and Cooper didn't exactly do much in that fight.

 

You’re being silly now.

How many fighters today consistently fight 4-5 times per year?

How many HW’s do?

You don’t think that it would have been unreasonable for Evander to have fought 4-5 times per year?

Tell us who else did that in his era.

Nobody did/does that, unless they’re young and upcoming.

It’s practically unheard of for established fighters to do that.

 

We have to remember it was amateur boxing which is quite a bit different from the pro's regarding stoppages. Unless one thinks Steward a liar there's good grounds to think there was a bit of psych going on.

 

I don't understand why Holyfield's PED usage drags him down in the ATG list. Everyone was juicing back then. Tyson came out looking like a bodybuilder after prison. Lewis magically started looking like hulk out of nowhere. Does that affect their ATG spot ? No, because in every professional sport every single athlete uses PEDs.

Holyfield IS and WILL REMAIN a top 5 HW ATG. You cannot deny this. His resume is absolutely brilliant compared to the other boxers ranked above him like Marciano who feasted on senior citizens, Sonny Quitston the biggest hype job in sports history, George Foreman with a deceptively padded record and a protected second career, Joe Frazier with only one good win, Jack Dempsey who avoided every single good fighter and exclusively feasted on tomato cans, ditto for Jack Johnson who however feasted on small men and Larry Holmes who went life and death with guys having 16-8 records

 

I think the Michael Dokes win is a bit overlooked. It was a big fight at the time. Dokes was damn good and still fighting well at that point in his career. Holyfield proved himself a heavyweight that nite. It was a fight of the year.
Point is that has to be included as a big win.

 

Holyfield was a huge 9-1 fave when it opened but the size betters narrowed it down to 3 1/2-1 which is still a solid favorite.

Holyfield did prove himself a heavyweight that night tho, i would agree.

 

Agree with everything you said with the exception of Larry Holmes. I have Holmes ahead of Holyfield.

 

Someone who didn't even establish themselves as the best of their own era doesn't have any case for top 5 if you are ranking on accomplishments.

Losing the Bowe trilogy and losing to Lewis prevents Holyfield from claiming status as the best of his day

As for who ranks ahead of him
Joe Louis
Muhammad Ali
Larry Holmes
Lennox Lewis
and Wladimir Klitschko among others