Witherspoon had better head movement than Bowe and a tighter guard, his right glove was often placed in front of the left side side of his chin protecting him from Holmes jab, but his punches were stiff and telegraphed and his work rate couldn`t match Bruno`s when they fought and wouldn`t match Bowe`s and Bowe had a better gas tank and chin than Bruno so I give him an edge here, I also think he would have stopped Bruno quicker than Tim did, Witherspoon couldn`t carry the weight he carried into the Bruno fight well, he looked slow and flabby, he was far better at the lighter weight he fought Holmes at, he was not a big heavyweight and had small biceps, I feel Bowe would be too strong for him despite his great jaw.
Holy nearly got knocked out by Cooper and looke really easy to hit in that bout, Cooper was a massive undderdog as were Foreman and Holmes due to there ages and losses by that point.
Foreman was 3-1 and Holmes 6-1. Holyfield opened around 20-1 in the first Tyson fight before plunging down to 5-1. Witherspoon was a 6-1 underdog against Holmes. Spinks was the same. Ali was 4-1 against Foreman tho I've seen it higher. Holyfield looked easy to hit against Cooper but harder to hit at other times. He could certainly take it and dish it right back.
Ali had far more left at that stage than 90`s Holmes and Foreman and was in far better shape as was Holy v Tyson who wasn`t as effective without Rooney.
Yes good point. Foreman did him good for sure. Heaps of them had to battle for ages before being accepted as becoming or having become "great". Well Holmes going into a Holyfield bout most certainly would have been higher odds if he hadn't beaten Mercer. Surely. Yes Mercer was exposed somewhat. He was however good against some and struggled against others. He was limited but on his night very handy. He also told us that it was logical that Joshua was the greatest H2H heavyweight in history as heavyweights get progressively better through the era's. Days after that Joshua got pumped by Ruiz, a real specimen of a heavyweight. I didn't see him in here for weeks.