Mike Tyson had a better career than Larry Holmes.

Literally every Tyson thread on the internet involves walls of texts giving him excuses. He is by far the most egregious boxer when it comes to that.

 

You were implying Holmes avoids rematches with difficult opponents which is a very common argument in Holmes threads.

Weaver was a very difficult opponent and Holmes struggled with him and gave him a rematch.

He LOST to spinks and fought him again. You can't gloss over that. Tyson never avenged any losses or got it in the ring with any men who beat him.

Witherspoon gave him serious trouble but then he lost to Thomas and got blasted out by smith. You give Tyson a pass for not facing Witherspoon for the exact same reasons. Witherspoon lost a lot of credibility as a Challenger after Holmes beat him and was rarely in a position/ranking to make demands for a Holmes rematch in the first place.

Norton went life and death with Cobb then got blasted out by Cooney. Holmes fought and beat Cooney but somehow it's head against Holmes that he didn't rematch Norton when he beat both the guys who beat Norton.

Also shavers 2 was not a cherry pick, he earned his shot by beating Norton who was rated Highly at the time.

 

What a load of crock. Tyson was shot to bits when he faced Lewis.

 

Lol not even close.

As people like saintpat have pointed out, several of the top rated "killers" in the 80's fell off mere moments after reaching the top of the mountain. They would win a belt and then lose the first defense, get on drugs, etc. Holmes was an older fighter facing younger guys.

Tyson was in his physical prime facing many older fighters and just couldn't stay focused which is on him honestly. No other champion gets a pass for looking so bad in their prime.

 

Yet his skillset wasn't, and that was far more important. Plus, he was bigger and stronger than in 92, and he could also take a punch a lot better.

Being beaten by Bowe doesn't mean he wasn't good enough all of a sudden. Bowe probably still was the best HW in the world when they met.
Moorer was a good boxer, and Holyfield wasn't 100 % due to steroid abuse, which caused him heart problems.

The Tyson camp chose him cause of the financial benefit such a fight would bring.

 

You don't know if he would have given spinks a rematch had a he won. Thanks for confirming what everyone in this thread already suspected, this is just more typical anti Holmes rhetoric implying he avoids tough fights and rematches.

The historical fact of the matter is that Holmes did in fact lose and then he did in fact attempt to avenge said loss, something Tyson never did his whole career.

As for Thomas, you do realize Thomas lost to Berbick and then Holmes beat Berbick? This is exactly what I'm talking about, people bash Holmes for supposedly avoiding the best fighters in the 80's and then ignore the paper trail and context. He beat the guy who beat Thomas and then you give him no credit.

It's just like the idiotic arguments that Mayweather avoided Margarito even tho he beat 2 of the guys who beat the dog crap out of Margarito. Make that make sense..

 

He slipped and countered everything Bruno threw in the rematch. What more do you want in terms of head movement?

 

Tyson was closer to his peak when he faced Holmes, than Lewis was when he faced Tyson. Is that in any way controversial, you mean?

 

Mostly he did, but so what ?
Larry Holmes had some poor "filler" fights in between his quality challengers. Same as every other champion with 20+ straight title fight wins.
Muhammad Ali had Jean-Pierre Coopman and Richard Dunn, FFS. That doesn't invalidate his better opponents though.
I truly don't understand your point there.

 

Tyson fans are full of excuses for his every loss, but you never hear anything about Thomas stint in rehab or Tucker's injury or Tubbs partying etc. He was in the most undisciplined HW era with most of the best fading out, but still all the excuses are made on his behalf.

 

Tyson was a better puncher than Holmes, no one is disputing that.

Since when was Douglas hard hitting?
Name all the top heavyweights he KO'd or even knocked down ....

Douglas suddenly becomes a power puncher because Tyson was KO'd by him?

Douglas would probably win a close-ish decision against a 36 year-old Holmes.
Douglas beat the **** out of 23 year-old Holmes.
You guys are working hard not to see it.

 

Holmes second career though