Larry Holmes (1978) V Mike Tyson (1988)??

Exactly buddy. Life is for living. It’s funny to only find out much later that your own parents were well guilty of all the things they warned us away from. In fact, some of their own crazy exploits put us to shame! Haha.

 

Best for best that's about sums it up for me.

Tyson at his cracking best was a pretty tough nut to get over. Tyson disciples preach more bob and weave under Rooney etc etc but they invariably miss some of his best assets - the ability to keep Tyson patient and calm when the early explosions fail and opponents are offering awkward resistance. On top of this his corner advice was always superb for Tyson in particular and i think this side of his work gets vastly understated.

People sometimes ponder how is he knocking out a younger Holmes in not much longer than he did and they may even point to a guy like Tucker. The difference is Holmes is an ATG and a champion and he's got way too much substance to let rounds slip by after some cautious early stanzas. He quite liked letting loose at various times and was quite good at it. It would at some point be the beginning of the end against Tyson IMO. At some point he'd have to plant his feet.

 

Young Mike to Old Mike "Why don't you make like a tree and get outa here,old man?"

 

That right there is a swoosh shot…..

I’m chronologically confused though.

Are we in the future or the past or some sort of catch weight Universe?

Anyway, Tim “Doc” Anderson is waiting in the DeLorean outside until the fight finishes, to give a ride to anyone who needs to go backward or forward to their appropriate place in time.

 

I do not necessarily agree with the ultimate conclusion of these^ arguments, but the points made put the best case for Tyson taking it, as far as I can tell.

 

I agree and it’s always welcome when someone has already written a reply that I can happily and lazily piggyback onto with genuine agreement.

I’ll just add one thing perhaps worth pondering. Firstly, the 88 Mike we’re considering is obviously the very one that beat older Larry.

How much do people factor Larry’s actual loss to Mike in 88 into their calculation of how 78 Holmes would fare? Fully, partially or non applicable?

In other words, suppose Larry and Mike never actually fought and we only had Tyson of the Spinks and Tubbs fights to consider for the 88 model.

Perhaps ironically, the older Holmes lasted longer than either of those two fighters much closer to their primes - though 3 rounds plus isn’t long in absolute terms of course - and Spinks only managed a poultry 91 seconds himself.

With or without actually fighting Mike, would one consider 78 Larry’s chances to be better or worse when comparing the two scenarios? Hope that makes sense.

Call me crazy but I saw some things Larry did in there that might be extrapolated back to the virtually prime, 78 version for much greater success.

Larry’s prime (start to finish) is interesting to consider when you factor that he didn’t win the title until he was already 28 yo.

Nothing hard and fast here, just some musings.

 

Yes - Some interesting thoughts.

I have heard/seen, in previous discussions on 'Prime Tyson vs Prime Holmes', each of these various degrees of factoring in the Holmes '88 performance.

For mine, I too saw some aspects of Holmes '88 activity, which led to me to considerations akin to the "Had he been prime..." question.
...
- Using the jab to reduce the number of Tyson's early assaults and to increase the distance at which Tyson launched into them, providing for a little extra Holmes reaction time.
- The ability to tie Tyson up and take the steam out of his assaults (as well as forcing Tyson to work on the inside)
- Matching or even getting the better of Tyson on the inside and connecting well to the body, on occasion.
- Delivery, with some success, of the right uppercut, as Tyson came in.

At the same time, it did seem to me that the age of Holmes, in '88, could not be discounted, in several areas of note...

1 - Timing - That was just a little off, as far as I could see, with Holmes '88, missing the target on occasion when he perhaps should not have.
2 - The quality of the Holmes '88 Jab - It was effective to an extent, but not as snappy and as hard as a prime Holmes Jab. Moreover, IIRC, Holmes '88 did not follow up with his disguised straight rights behind the jab, in his trademark fashion.
3 - Larry's legs were no longer able to carry him the distance and at the speed he needed them to (Oh, for sure, he put on a show for the first 3.5 rounds, but then got caught static).
4 - Resilience and Recovery - There's no way I would consider Holmes '88 as having the conditioning to withstand and bounce back from a full-on Tyson assault, if and when tagged.

Similarly - some observations, here - with nothing being absolute.

 

Tbh, in all seriousness and not simply falling in, I feel very much the same way about the very features you have addressed.

At the very least maybe we could say the actual fight gave us bit of insight into a prime vs prime complexion with fair allowance for young Larry to do much better than he did.