if Mr Larry Holmes had broken Marcianos record, would he have stayed retired?

I think beating Marciano's record and staying retired would have been huge legacywise and the smart thing to do. Fighting Tyson when he was old and Tyson was young was as risky as F.

 

No, I think he would definitely come back to face Tyson

 

Larry wasn't going to turn down 3 mil for a Tyson fight.

 

No, he'd have carried on. Not sure if Tyson was ready for a title shot when he fought Spinks, so he'd have carried on making defense s. But he could have perhaps lost in an upset to any of the contender s then, before Tyson came along.

 

Being a Money man, and the lure of Tyson, probably not. But there is a small chance he retires to Easton, Pennsylvania.

 

THIS.

Three million in 1987 adjusted for inflation is about seven million in 2020.

I believe it was a career high payday. (Might be wrong at that).

Larry had been screwed out of a lot of money in his life and Don King needed someone to feed to Tyson. Too good a business opportunity for Holmes to pass up even if he had retired undefeated.

 

This is an interesting idea. I'm wondering who would have beat him.

Bonecrusher and Bey got stomped. I can't see Page winning a decision, but Thomas might have. Dokes and Coetzee would probably have gotten stopped.

I don't see Tucker or Tubbs beating him, either...maybe a WItherspoon rematch would have stopped his unbeaten streak.

 

I think Holmes would have tough fights with most of the contenders at the time but he’s beat all of them. There might be a few Carl Williams style close fights but other than Tyson, I doubt I’d pick anyone against him.

Plenty of interesting matchups though. Thomas, Dokes, Bruno.

 

I agree with those who say that Larry would've kept going or would have retired and come back. His love of money is too much, as is his self-confidence and his sense of competition.

He even had a few "final fights" in the last years of his title reign.

 

Probably not. He seemed like he fought for $$ primarily especially after fe left King.

 

Firstly Holmes wasn't going to fight Page, Dokes, Thomas or any of those. He'd taken them all off the table post Witherspoon and made that clear publicly. Spinks was chosen as yet another safe opponent and was a massive underdog. Near the end he'd been trying to sell a rematch with Marvis Frazier (obviously the networks choked on that) and also a resurrection of Gerry Cooney.

So lets assume Larry somehow got the decision over Spinks. He's equal to Rocky. He's not going to fight Spinks again for obvious reasons. He would have taken a very safe finishing fight and won that for sure.

So would he stay retired? I probably agree with all the posts above per money etc. The odds are he'd be back like virtually all of them. The flip side is that he did get quite fixated on beating Rocky's record as he neared it and there's a small chance he would have wanted to protect that which would have been perfectly fine.

Ironically Larry started talking retirement reasonably early stating many times he didn't want to end up like Ali et al. He voiced this extremely strongly but still fell into a similar trap. Thankfully he was never really made to pay and the worst thing that happened was a routine Tyson KO where he wasn't pounded and pounded on (he never was) and the fight wasn't of the variety that was stopped too late.

He looks in great health today and still has seems to have his faculties in terrific order given his age. Foreman is another. It's a win for not only those guys but also us fans.

 

Both Cooney and Holmes were guaranteed $10mil.

 

I wonder who he fights after Spinks since Thomas, Tucker, Dokes, Page, Spoon and Truth Williams were out.

Definitely not Steffen Tangstad. Probably a rematch with returning Gerry Cooney.

And once Mike Tyson hits the scene as this young dynamo with greatness in his future, I'm sure Holmes would scoff at that notion and tells Tyson to "Show me you can kick my butt!" and takes that challenge in 1987.