Larry Holmes was unquestionably the best of his era, so he gets a high score in my book. But not quite as high as some have him. His reign was long in both years and defenses, but in my opinion weak. Not including the shadow of Ali, he never beat a true ATG, except possibly for a likely declining Norton, who he got a fairly controversial win over. On that note, three of his championship wins were controversial, if he had been given losses to Norton, Witherspoon, and Williams, and all else was as much the same as possible, his reign would have been cut up into ribbons. Also, while imo he never really avoided anyone, he also never tried to unify any of the belts, and that cuts against him. All that said, he was top 5 in most types of longevity records for HW championships, and above all other reasons that puts him in good stead. I have him at 11, but top 10 would be very fair.
:rofl Yeah you made your crazy opinions on the K's clear. Top 10 is very fair, top 3 is crazy, Bowe's win over Hide would be among the top 5 wins of Holmes career. He's great for longevity but beat no one.
#9 or so. Anyone saying any higher is flat out wrong. He absoultely did OPENLY avoid Page and Thomas. Several of his "wins" were controversial (Norton, Williams, Witherspoon), and he was never a unified champ of any kind. Holmes is directly responsible for the multiplication of titles by giving the IBF legiimcy by taking their belt. He lost to a LHW, and in his own time, before his reputation was revived with the comeback, he was know as a bit of a coward for all of this, and for his disgraceful performance in the Olympics. His competition was worse than Wlad's in my oppinion. In any event comparable. That being said, he arguably had 20 defenses. I think you could also argue that he only realy had 19 since no belt was on the line for the Frazier fight, or 12 if you consider that he picked up the real championship against Ali, or 16 since he abanonded his title rather than fight Page. Or even 8 if you put on both limitors. Boxrec has him at 11. I think that is not so far from wrong.
Top 5. Holmes had the least amount of weakness among heavyweight champions. He could box, slug, had great speed, a tough chin, stamina for 15+ rounds, and was a good ring tactician.
I generally have him at 3 or 4, interchangeable with Lewis, but I can understand a lower ranking. Having him outside of the top 10 is wrong though. I rate dominance and consistency highly. He missed out on a few key challengers however, but it wasn't always his fault. He wanted the Coetzee unification BADLY, but politics wouldn't let it happen.
And I also don't think that the Norton and Witherspoon fights were really controversial in any sense. He won both clearly, period. Norton gave away too many early rounds, and Witherspoons workrate was sooo sporadic. He'd hurt Larry once and take about 10 jabs in return. No way he won that one. The Williams fight however, was razor thin.
I had him winning the Witherspoon fight and drawing the Williams fight (I try to give champs benefit of doubt in scoring). And I've scored the Norton fight differently different times I've seen it, haven't watched it in a long time, but it was a hard one to score. But a lot of people have opined that he lost all three, so I figured it was safe to call them controversial. Looks like a slightly stronger consensus for top 10 than I figured. I don't have a problem with that though, he was a great fighter. I do feel that people give him a pass for things they hold others to a higher standard for, though.
