Does Larry Holmes deserve the bad rap for pummeling Muhammad Ali?

Larry is Larry.

Great fighter, good family man, decent citizen, brutally honest but almost totally bereft of charisma and likability.

Beating up Ali didn’t help him but it was that almost total lack of charm that sees him not looked upon as fondly as Ali, Foreman, Frazier and even Tyson. I personally couldn’t warm to him if I was cremated with him and I respect him greatly. FMJ reminds me of him a lot personality wise although Larry is a much better guy than him by most measures.

 

He talked mad **** about Cooney before the fight. Saying "If he wasn't white nobody would know who he was."

 

Good post

But Larry wasn't as petty and child like as Floyd. He didn't go around boasting about his money and material possessions. He didn't duck anyone like Floyd. Nor did he fight at catch-weights.

 

yea, he did say that about cooney, thats not really so terrible though. I don't like that stuff, but larry was just talking trash. About who's fault it is. Fault at what exactly? If ali happened to beat holmes, Ali and the promoters and trainers would be called geniouses! Its a business, they are boxers. Hey ali? Want to fight Holmes? Yea man, 10 millian and i'll do it! All the docyors on this board, I never knew, how as just a fan you could know so much about his health and abilities. Though you may be right about it. Unless you're in his inner circle, you know nothing. Had he won, you aall would be singing a different song, probably waiting for his nextr comeback if he was alive

 

If he was so bad healthwise, how the hell did he give berbick a good fight?

 

Larry has a chip on his shoulder. He's a genuine guy. Personally he probably wanted to box Georgr in the old timers league circa early 90s. Holmes sees Big George as a phony.

 

Cooney was on the cover of SI before their fight. Gerry's managers played the race card up as much as Don King did. Holmes had payed his dues and Gerry was getting treated as if he were the champion.

 

No, it was a boxing match.

 

You are a puppet. In the cast of villians surrounding the Ali-Holmes fight ... Don King doesn't make the top 10.

Above him is Ali (who was gobbling PEDs by the handful), Ali's manager, Ali's training team (all of them), Ali's physician who was giving him drugs, the Nevada State Athletic Commission (all of them), the Nevada State Athletic Commission doctors, Ali's cornermen during the fight who wouldn't stop it, the referee who wouldn't stop it, the physican during the fight who wouldn't stop it.

Don King paid Ali $7.1 million of his $8 million purse ... and that's all anyone talks about.

Hell, when Audley Harrison fought Haye, every British announcer, boxing pundit andthe fans on message boards wanted Audley's WHOLE PURSE taken from him for his non-effort - regardless of the concussive pounding he took.

Not only did Ali give no effort in the fight, he'd nearly ODed on PEDS.

If Ali and Holmes fought today, Ali would've been fined his whole purse for failing a drug test. Ali made about a million dollars for every punch he landed.

Ali's lucky he got paid anything at all. Today, he wouldn't have. The commission that allowed him to fight would've taken his purse and tossed it into their coffers.

 

What?

 

So, what should Ali's trainers, manager, Ali's doctors and the Nevada Athletic Commission doctors - you know, the people responsible for Muhammad Ali - have done before the fight, Mark?

Don King wasn't Ali's promoter. He was Larry Holmes' promoter. And Don King wasn't responsible for getting Holmes in shape to fight any more than he was responsible for getting Ali ready to fight.

 

I'm not saying that he wasn't justified or that there wasn't tons of blame for all involved for how weird and racial that fight got. But the fact remains. Larry 100% talked some serious **** about Cooney pre-fight.

 

Who hates Holmes for beating Ali? I've never heard that, except for Tyson.

Holmes did his job and people accept that. The general feeling is that he held back if anything and did the whole thing as honourable as possible.

 

And here i was thinking every single boxing fan would know why Ali looked a little better against Berbick.

 

I had never heard that before, so everyone has obviously been talking about it when I wasn't there. What was his justification for doing that?