Which marketable opponents could Holmes have picked instead of Spinks,to get by Marciano's record ?

someone like for instance Vanes ability, an unranked guy with no wins in years, would have been a safe bet. Not the unbeaten LHW moving up. You dont have to go far to find one - Leon Spinks, for instance.

 

Maybe Gerrie Coetzee ?The race Angle may have brought big bucks In and would have being seen as a safe defence .Maybe a rematch with Bonecrusher ,sure Larry gets that one .Can't see him taking on at that stage even a Young Bruno. Despite him losing to Smith he'd hsvt still been seen as too live .

 

I suppose his problem was that he had to pick somebody world class in order for it to be credible.

In that context Spinks probably looked like one of the safer bets.

 

Just a pity for Larry he wasn't 32 instead of 35,and Spinks was 38/40 instead of 29.

 

Spinks would have toyed with Bruno but Larry may have been caught by one of Bruno`s big right hands the same way he was caught by Shavers, so you might be right, but Larry had a much better chin than Frank.

 

Or a pity the both weren`t 29 or 32?!

 

Much better Chin than Frank, or least able to recover better .

 

Stan Ward?

 

Young Bruno might not have been a bad shout.

He would have been beatable, and the fight would have made good money in the UK.

 

SMH

 

Before Holmes fought Tyson, I was watching a build-up show that discussed what was supposed to happen with Holmes.

Larry Holmes was supposed to fight the light heavyweight champ (Spinks) to tie Marciano and he was supposed to fight the WBC Cruiserweight champ Alfonso Ratliff (who was upset on the Holmes-Spinks undercard) in his 50th bout to break the record. Then he was going to retire.

On paper, that seemed like the safe bet. Not just safe, but the "safest" bet.

Any rated heavyweight would've been considered more dangerous than a light heavyweight or a cruiserweight.

No light heavy or cruiserweight champ had ever beaten a heavyweight champ. Holmes seemed to have great advantages over both.

I think the plan was okay. They were two very winnable fights against fellow champions.

It would've been a clean way to go out on top.

Spinks just won.

Promoters and managers can plan everything down to the last detail ... but the fighter still has to go in there and win the fights.

Holmes didn't.

 

I've got an old back issue of The Ring from 1985 where Michael Marley has an article about how Larry can safely navigate his way to 50-0 without risk and retire undefeated. Marley suggests that Holmes should fight Steffen Tangstad (who was the European champion around that time) and then defend against Gordie Racette in Vancouver.

 

Ratliff wasn't very fast and wasn't very skillful. Michael Spinks normally weighed 50 pounds less than Holmes and had two bad knees that he routinely bandaged for support when he trained. Mike Tyson knocked out both in a minute or three. That was what they thought Holmes would probably do.

The Spinks fight was a monster upset. Holmes was a 6 to 1 favorite. At that time, I think like Baer-Braddock and Liston-Clay were the only bigger upsets at heavyweight.

Other than it might've been better if Holmes fought Ratliff first, it was a good plan.

Michael Spinks just pulled it off.