{"id":672241,"date":"2026-07-03T20:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T20:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/672241\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T20:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T20:17:08","slug":"im-better-than-ali-the-only-four-time-heavyweight-champion-says-hes-been-cut-out-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/672241\/","title":{"rendered":"“I’m better than Ali”: The only four-time heavyweight champion says he’s been ‘cut out of history’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Muhammad Ali<\/a> is viewed by many as the greatest heavyweight of all time, but another boxing legend has disputed that claim.<\/p>\n

Ali became a three-time world heavyweight champion, with iconic wins over George Foreman in the \u2018Rumble In The Jungle\u2019<\/a> and Joe Frazier in the \u2018Thrilla In Manila\u2019 helping to add to his legacy.<\/p>\n

There are several others who managed to earn world honours in the banner division on three occasions, including Lennox Lewis<\/a> and Vitali Klitschko<\/a>, but the only man who has managed it on four occasions has stated his case for why he is greater than Ali.<\/p>\n

That fighter is Evander Holyfield<\/a>, and he explained to Seconds Out<\/a> why he believes nobody is on his level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the only four-time heavyweight champion of the world but they are still talking about Ali when I broke his record. I\u2019ve been the only four-time heavyweight champion of the world for 24 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t talk about it until you break someone\u2019s record, they don\u2019t say nothing about me. How do you cut somebody out of history? Now I didn\u2019t even know I was the first person to be undisputed in two weight divisions, until Usyk did it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey keep saying Ali is the best fighter, no I am. He was three times, I\u2019m four.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is hard to argue with Holyfield\u2019s view, as he was undisputed cruiserweight champion before moving up and achieving that status at heavyweight too, claiming wins against fighters such as Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe, George Foreman and Larry Holmes along the way.<\/p>\n

Despite those memorable triumphs, Holyfield once revealed another name when he was asked who his greatest ever victory came against.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Muhammad Ali is viewed by many as the greatest heavyweight of all time, but another boxing legend has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-672241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}