When did you recognise Larry Holmes as the TRUE world heavyweight champion ?

when he beat norton. by rights norton should have been lineal anyways.

 

After Tate-Weaver. But I think Mike had earned a rematch by then, and wasn't granted it until twenty years later. Still, Larry was definitely number one at that point. Tate had a legit claim to the title, but Weaver ended all that.

 

For sure, when he hammered Shavers in the rematch of '79...... I knew Ali or Tate were either shot or pretending.... Holmes was for real....

MR.BILL:deal

 

Yes, the Norton fight did it for me.

 

Although he more or less won that "true" heavyweight title vs Ali, I personally thought of him as the true champion when he beat Norton.

 

He was defending champ v ali I believe.

The whole idea of a retired man still being champ is illogical imo. If lewis came back today and lost to cedric boswell, noone would be calling cedric the hw champ.

 

after tate lost to weaver!

I wonder would there be a unification bout Holmes v Tate, had tate won.

 

Well, as in the case of Ezzard Charles when he beat Joe Louis in 1950..Holmes didn't really cement his claim to the linear, true "universal title until he beat "the man"...which in this case was still Ali. For all intents and purposes however, I think Holmes was the champ by virtue of beating Norton.

 

No...just like Bobby Joe Young wasn't thought of as a champ after he knocked out Aaron Pryor when Pryor came back after abdicating his title. That's not the same thing. In the cases of Charles and Holmes, they were legitimate claimants to the heavyweight title after the men before them retired...and in my example, Bobby Joe Young was never a contender for title honors for the crown Pryor once held.

 

Linearity is overrated if you ask me.

Ali wasn't the best hw in the world by a long shot in in 1980.

Respect for holmes for unifying another claim. He really should have unified with an existing wba champ as well.

But the claim of true champ was definitely satisfied when he beat norton. I don't think there was much doubt about who the best hw was after shavers and norton fell to him.

 

when Holmes came along in 78-79 it was hard to establish who you had to beat to be called a great fighter.

Ali was just about out of the picture and faded. Spinks was was off the rails, jimmy young was losing to ossie ocasio and Norton never won a world title fight.

This left larry to prove himself agianst guys already beaten by an old ali like avangelista, shavers and Norton. It was a thankles task so larry basicly had to wait for the next crop to come up.

Sometimes it is hard to be regarded as a great fighter even if you are the man to beat in order to be called a great fighter.

 

Most of us on here can probably recite the traditional lineage off by heart but using that as a basis of when someone is or is not a champ is a bit simplistic and means not much more than the alphabet titles themselves.

Holding a belt be it lineal or alphabet means nothing if you're not the main man in the division.

Norton deserved the victory over ali. Shavers gave him a good run for his money also. Larry beat both of these men thus moving him to the pinnacle. Victories over spinks, ali and some of the other soon to be wba beltholders just underlined his status and kept him as the main man imo.

Sticking with the traditional lineage requires no research, input or opinion. Kinda like the easy way out if you ask me.

Even then there's the matter of ali retiring and whether or not shavers v larry 2 was worthy of crowning the next king.

On the other end there's just as valid an argument that only an undisputed champ is a true champ in which case from ali there was no champ until tyson.

I tend to go with a claimant who sits in the top spot based on numerous factors.

I'm more than confident in saying for 7 years larry was the premiere hw and he retired with that crown after the spinks rematch.

 

i wasn't around back then but retroactively, with the norton win. ali added nothing to me

 

So to be the man you had to beat larry, but larry himself wasn't the man?

Is that the gist or have I misunderstood?

 

Larry was genuinly “the man” but for absolute recognition he needed to beat Norton, ali and spinks within the space of a year- that could never happen so there was a limbo period even though he was the man to beat to be the best.

later by beating all three larry proved he could have beat them within the space of the year so now we can look back and say yes it all starts with the Norton win but I can understand why a lot of people will say thats not how it felt at the time.

personally I would say Holmes deserved to be recognised as soon as he beat Norton since he was the best but I totally understand why it took longer to establish himself in other peoples eyes.

Larry was seen as the real champion by the Cooney fight. It was undisputed in all but name by then for sure.