What if holmes got spinks 2 and fought tyson in feb 1987

Correct. He also lost because of he was out of shape and on the verge of 39 years old. Nice eye!

 

Holmes slow decline started after the Cooney fight. I think that fight took a lot out of him mentally more than physically.

 

The one who fought Mike was in denial of his age imo and refused to adjust to it. The one who came back accepted his decline and therefore able to adjust his style to what suited him at that point in his career.

 

Wow, you just put that waaaay better than I did, thanks!

 

I can definitely see your point, but to me that fight looked easier for Larry than most expected. I always though that the fight was over in the second round...it was just one of the examples where Larry was just being way too cautious (and it ended up making the fight way harder than it should have been). Had Larry finished Cooney the way he usually took people out (and that means bombing the hell out of him with the right hand after the knockdown), it would have been a better indicator.

Cooney was meant to be a Holmes second round TKO and Larry erred on the side of caution. Hard to hold it against him, but this might back up your point even more...the Ali-era Holmes would have finished him as described above.

It did seem that with age Larry got more tentative (in the 80s).

To me Larry's real decline began after Cobb...just watch how incredible LH looked against Cobb (who was without question a worthy contender). He couldn't take him out...but then if Shavers couldn't, Larry most certainly wouldn't.

 

Yes I've had this debate before against certain posters. It's not as simple as "Holmes was younger against Tyson lolz"

 

Holmes had been washed up since 1983

 

I think it had more to do with the opponents in front of him. Tyson made him look worse than he was; to be fair Mike did that to many fighters back then. But I'm not convinced that Holmes was somehow better at 42 than he was at 38.

If Holmes got the nod in Spinks 2 I'm not sure he'd be ready to take another challenge considering the Williams & Witherspoon decisions that were pretty close. I'd wager that he'd pick up a softer touch while biding his time for a big money fight against Mike Tyson which would have been looming at that point.

 

An old Larry never beats Tyson, but I'd sure take a 30 year old Larry Holmes to bust Tyson up.

 

As great as Mike was, in this scenario he starts well and probably even scores a knockdown...then Larry gets back up, takes total command by the end of the round, and continues to aggravate the hell out of him with that nasty jab. Sooner or later Holmes will leave an opening, Mike jumps on it, and Larry's counter-uppercut half-ruins him. By the tenth round Mike is all swoll up, wildly missing, stumbling, grabbing the ropes, and looking worse than Earnie II. The ref mercifully stops it when Larry starts raining the right hands with Mike in the corner.

That's if Mike doesn't try to bite something or get otherwise disqualified (quits).

 

@jamal I love this post +1.

 

Holmes himself when asked by Don King about fighting Mike Tyson:

“I can’t beat Mike Tyson!”

King “We will give you a million $”

Holmes “ Where do I sign?”

 

One of the weird parts about the Mercer fight was how Larry was okay with Mercer putting away the WBO belt.

Before the fight was signed on paper, Mercer had to dump the belt, bizarrely passing over Moorer (whom Mercer probably would have ko'd). Which meant that the fight on-paper didn't mean much beyond the fact that Mercer was a top, very respected contender, but no champ.

Yet, in my eyes this is one of the things that made Holmes a multiple-title winner, at least off-paper. Not only did I give him the Spinks fight II by four points, but he beat a world title holder (who'd thrown away the title like an idiot).

To me the fact that Larry indubitably beat a world title holder, never even minding his age at the time, cannot be underestimated. The fact that the man Mercer kicked the crap out of earlier (Morrison) went on to become WBO champ (and beat Foreman) adds even more to that accomplishment.