Why did Holmes pick (or did he) Spinks?

Larry directed the comment directly to Peter, Marciano's brother. He did it because Peter had been openly stating he hope Larry loses and would celebrate if he did. Larry was already pissed that he lost, already annoyed by Peter from before the fight happened, then he has to look at Peter smiling in the back of the room during the post fight press conference.

Larry dealt with the situation by saying something very stupid. He has personally appologized to Peter and the rest of the Marciano family several times and made an appearence and speech in Brockton a few months ago when the Rocky Marciano statue was unveilled.

What Larry said was bad, but it's certainly understandable. Other fighters have said worse and didn't get near the backlash.

 

Fascinating... Holmes is a great man...He bulit institutions in his home town out of his own pocket and looked after a lot of people.

 

I agree with you.

He also doesn't pretend, he says what he thinks and that honesty is sort of admirable.
He's also nice to fans, boxers being good to their fans is always nice.

 

He may be a great man but he is an extremely sore loser.

 

Not really mutually exclusive. To be 'great' you need to be a winner, and to be winner, it often helps to be a bad loser.

 

I get your point here but just for the record.. prime for prime Larry would box rings around Marciano.

 

If you say so, chief.

 

What heavyweight champ doesn't think he can whip a lightheavyweight champ?

 

And just two years earlier, Holmes would have whipped him.

 

Because in his later years, Larry became a coward. Wouldn't rematch Witherspoon, not fight Page or Thomas, scared to fight Carl Williams again, so he chumps out, and fights Spinks, and gets what's coming to him.

 

This content is protected

 

Holmes was great. But Spinks proved to be his achilles.

 

Right, and a bad choice at that point ih his career... Spinks had some speed and man was he awkward and hard to hit !

 

Larry felt that Michael was an easy mark for high money.Unfortunately, didn't work out the way he wanted.

 

What finally won the people over for Dempsey was he was a pretty good loser vs Tunney.