Who do you think is the most overrated boxer?

[Ambling Alp II]

It's definitely not a myth that he ducked Lewis. He threw his belt in the trash to avoid Lewis. That's as blatant a duck as there's ever been.

He may not have been afraid of Lennox Lewis, but Rock Newman certainly was.

This has been talked about before on different threads. There is a lot more to the story than the garbage can thing. First, the WBC should not have been pressuring Bowe to defend his title against Lewis almost immediately after winning it from Holyfield. Bowe on the title from Holyfield in November 1992. By December, the WBC had already named Lewis their #1 contender and were already demanding that Bowe fight him. Why was Lewis the #1 contender? Holyfield had been the champion and had lost to Bowe in a great fight. He seemed the obvious #1 contender, not Lewis. The WBA and IBF had Holyfield as the #1 contender.
Bowe's team and Lewis team had been negotiating. They were disagreeing on terms. Bowe's team finally decided they didn't need the WBC title. He kept the IBF and WBA titles. Probably not a smart move with the trash can thing.

Also, in June 1994, Bowe did sign a contract to fight Lewis. It was contingent on Lewis successfully defending his WBC title against McCall. Lewis lost, so the fight was off.

Btw- Lewis later had a mandatory defense against John Ruiz and refused to fight him. Never heard anyone say that Lewis ducked Ruiz. most people probably don't even know it happened.

[gilgamesh]

Nobody cared about Lewis vs Ruiz. At the time it was possible Nobody cared a lot about Bowe-Lewis either, but he certainly would've been better than Jesse Ferguson as an opponent.

He retired after the Golota fights, still in his 20's rather than try Lewis. That aside from the trash can thing shows me he never wanted no part of the guy.

[Ambling Alp II]

I had been a boxing fan for many years when Bowe and Lewis were fighting. People did want to see them fight. However, in December of 1992 when the trash can thing happened, it was not the fight that the attracted the most interest. That would be a rematch between Holyfield and Bowe. most people (certainly not everyone) considered them the best two fighters and they had a great fight the first time. They had another great fight the second time.

If Bowe was truly afraid of Lewis, he never would have signed the contract to fight Lewis in 1994. And if Lewis would have beaten Oliver McCall (like everyone thought would do), we would have had a Lewis-Bowe fight in 1994.

He retired in his 20s because he had severe neurological damage. At the time, Lennox Lewis did not have any title and in his last fight was given a very disputed decision over Ray Mercer.

[gilgamesh]

I don't disagree with any of that. I'd only add that Bowe vs Holyfield 3 was a great fight as well. All 3 of their bouts are tremendous.

[Cojimar 1946]

Plenty of other big fights he could have taken though.
Moorer, Tucker, McCall. Tyson, Bruno, Ruddock etc. Were all these guys ducking him?

Moreover it doesn't make a lot of sense to defend against Ferguson or a shot Dokes. Surely there were better opponents.

[Ambling Alp II]

Of course, he could have defended the title against better opponents than Ferguson and Dokes. (Though Tyson was in prison and McCall was not a contender yet).
When rating Bowe, he should not get much credit for those fights. He took them for the easy money before fighting Holyfield again.

[Sweet Dick Willie]

Vitali way better than Holyfield

[gilgamesh]

He might've been able to make a case for that if he had fought more noteworthy competition. As it is, he ranks at least 10 spots back from Holyfield on the all time Heavyweight list for me. Probably more, but definitely at least 10 notches back.

It's impossible to imagine he wouldn't have been a handful for Holyfield or most anyone else though. It's a shame we didn't get to see him against Elite competition more than once.

[Ambling Alp II]

He did have two fights worth mentioning. Lost them both. couldn't even go the distance either time. (Cue the crybaby excuses) Some people know that he wasn't that good. Apparently not enough people though.
He is the probably the answer to the question to this thread.

[nickcat0]

golovkin wouldve beat pirog handily. a lotta people seem to have their memory of pirog limited to the ko punch vs jacobs

In Pirog’s first defense the inexperienced Javier Marcial gave him a lot to handle by applying the kind of pressure GGG excelled at. IMO Martinez would have outpointed Pirog too

ya even nobuhiro ishida was giving him competitive rounds, that was when i fell off pirog wagon (and then he retired anyway)

Pirog beat Ishida comfortably, 120-108, 119-109, 117-111; there weren't that many competitive rounds.

[margaret thatcher]

scores dont tell you how many competitive rounds there were, a lotta them were competitive with pirog just doing a bit more

[Cojimar 1946]

Why didn't he fight McCall after Lewis lost to him?

I think there is a lot of recency bias with Holyfield, Tyson, Lewis and to some extent Bowe. They were all basically from the same era but people want to put all 3 in the top 10. It seems odd to put 3 guys from the same era in the top 10 if you are rating on accomplishments.

[gilgamesh]

I think their achievements objectively stand up well with many other past Champions. Bowe may only really have Holyfield on his record as far as Elite wins, but many former Champions don't have anything that good.

I will say though that Gene Tunney generally gets underrated as a Heavyweight, and should be regarded a good bit higher than he usually is.

[Cojimar 1946]

Relative to their eras I don't see how they are better than numerous guys who don't make top 10 lists these days.

Charles, Fitzsimmons and Langford relative to their own eras were similar to Holyfield but I don't see any of these guys making top 10 lists these days.

[gilgamesh]

I do rate Charles and Langford over Holyfield as a fighter overall, but not as a Heavyweight.

They'd certainly have been competitive with him though as their Heavyweight best I'd imagine. As would Fitz.

[Ambling Alp II]

Why didn't he fight McCall after Lewis lost to him?

I think there is a lot of recency bias with Holyfield, Tyson, Lewis and to some extent Bowe. They were all basically from the same era but people want to put all 3 in the top 10. It seems odd to put 3 guys from the same era in the top 10 if you are rating on accomplishments.

It's probably not recency bias if you don't have anyone since them anywhere near the top 10. Not sure what you consider to be "accomplishments", but most people rate fighter's on how good they were. You have to take all the information that is available. Balance the wins and great performances against the losses and bad performances. Take into consideration the stages of fighters and their opponents' careers. And watch as much video as you can.

The heavyweight division went up and down throughout its history. Like every other weight class. Some eras had more good-great fighters than others.
Obviously, it also depends on where in the top 10 people have them. not many have them #1 or #2. Most either Tyson either just in the top 10 or just outside of it. Obviously if people have Holyfield, Lewi, and Tyson as their #1-3 heavyweights, it would be silly. Doubt many do though.

[Esquire]

Carlos Zarate is the most overrated fighter of all time. He went 0-4 against hall of Fame opponents, getting knocked out 3 times. Look at the records of his opponents. You won't find a more padded record than his.

I'm not saying he wasn't a champion. I'm saying he should not be in the conversation of great bantamweights. Every very good bantam champ that came after him would beat him. He was stiff, slow and chinny.

[Ambling Alp II]

Always wondered about Zarate. he fought a lot, but seldom against a contender. Never fought a ranked fighter before winning the title. The only ranked fighters that he beat after winning the title were Paul Ferri, Alfonso Zamora, and Albert Davila.

To play the devil's advocate, I would say that the Zamora win was a big deal Zamora was pretty highly regarded and by bantamweight standards that was a showdown.

Also don't think we should criticize him too much for the losses to Fenech and Zaragoza. He was over 36 for those fights.
Which leaves us with the KO loss to Gomez and a 15 round decision loss to Pintor. That's not embarrassing.

[giacomino]

Always wondered about Zarate. he fought a lot, but seldom against a contender. Never fought a ranked fighter before winning the title. The only ranked fighters that he beat after winning the title were Paul Ferri, Alfonso Zamora, and Albert Davila.

To play the devil's advocate, I would say that the Zamora win was a big deal Zamora was pretty highly regarded and by bantamweight standards that was a showdown.

Also don't think we should criticize him too much for the losses to Fenech and Zaragoza. He was over 36 for those fights.
Which leaves us with the KO loss to Gomez and a 15 round decision loss to Pintor. That's not embarrassing.

He came back after 6 1/2 years of retirement so it’s hard to count those last two losses against him. A younger Zárate beats up Zaragoza. Fenech’s style with a 28-year-old Zárate would have been a fun fight. I thought he beat Pintor by at least a couple of rounds. Gomez blitzed him, as he did most fighters under 122 lbs. Martínez, the guy he beat for the bantamweight belt, was a good fighter.

[Cojimar 1946]

Why didn't he fight McCall after Lewis lost to him?

I think there is a lot of recency bias with Holyfield, Tyson, Lewis and to some extent Bowe. They were all basically from the same era but people want to put all 3 in the top 10. It seems odd to put 3 guys from the same era in the top 10 if you are rating on accomplishments.

It's probably not recency bias if you don't have anyone since them anywhere near the top 10. Not sure what you consider to be "accomplishments", but most people rate fighter's on how good they were. You have to take all the information that is available. Balance the wins and great performances against the losses and bad performances. Take into consideration the stages of fighters and their opponents' careers. And watch as much video as you can.

The heavyweight division went up and down throughout its history. Like every other weight class. Some eras had more good-great fighters than others.
Obviously, it also depends on where in the top 10 people have them. not many have them #1 or #2. Most either Tyson either just in the top 10 or just outside of it. Obviously if people have Holyfield, Lewi, and Tyson as their #1-3 heavyweights, it would be silly. Doubt many do though

I would say during the following periods there was a clear number 1 heavyweight
Bob Fitzsimmons 1892 to 1897
Jim Jeffries 1898 to 1902
Jack Johnson 1904 to 1907
Gene Tunney 1925 to 1928
Joe Louis 1935 to 1942
Ezzard Charles 1948 to 1951
Rocky Marciano 1952 to 1954
Sonny Liston 1958 to 1962
Muhammad Ali 1964 to 1967 and 1972 to 1974
Joe Frazier 1967 to 1970
Larry Holmes 1978 to 1982
Mike Tyson 1986 to 1988
Lennox Lewis 1999 to 2002
Wladimir Klitschko 2005 to 2008

Holyfield never clearly established himself as the best heavyweight in the world and Tyson did so only very briefly.