Assessing Larry Holmes's all time heavyweight standing

You do raise an interesting point here. There were other similarly talented guys during that time, but they all did stupid **** that harmed them. Got out of shape, substance abuse issues, personal life drama, female drama, etc. By virtue of being a stable "boring" guy who showed up in shape and avoided bad habits, he had the opportunity to rise above the others. They were out snorting coke with strippers, he was playing with his kids and then going to the gym.

It isn't really a knock on him though that others chose to squander their talent. Like Thomas. Probably a greater talent than Holmes, but couldn't stay clean.

If I could point out something about Holmes in his favor -- a late start robbed him of his entire physical prime. We're comparing what a 30 year old Holmes could do to what a 23 year old Ali could do. How fast was Ali at age 30? The fact that Holmes achieved what he did with a late start bumps him up a bit. His first big fight -- against Shavers -- that's the experience level he should have been at around age 22 or so, not age 29.

 

Because Holmes was a 50something grandpa by that time? Or? Galento was a far better fighter than Butterbean. Galento played up his image as a drunk who trained on beer and ate everything in sight, but his record shows he took boxing a lot more seriously than to actually do that. Most of Galento's image was just that, an image, I think.

 

This is, I believe, the best post I have ever read on this forum.

 

Damn dude I really just started reading unforgivable blackness and you went and spoiled half the book with this post.

All joking aside, this post makes a good point I hadnt really considered. Begs further questions about what it means to be "great."

 

#3. Quite possibly the greatest heavyweight jab ever (stiff competition from Liston, I know). I personally think Larry had even better timing with the jab than Liston and Ali (and that's saying a lot). His accuracy, especially in his prime, was sensational to put it mildly.

Didn't have anywhere near the competition level of, say, 1969 to 1976 (though I daresay peak Weaver and Cooney would have been dangerous in any era, same with the Witherspoon who stepped in the ring with him). He did seem to be both a Kingmaker and destroyer...look how many of the fighters he faced were either ex or future champs. He even stopped Bonecrusher when he was on an obvious decline, something Iron Mike couldn't do during his peak years.

Of course, besides 1991 to 1997 there might NEVER had been stiffer competition than the era mentioned above. Certainly Wlad and Vitalij had it worse...shoot, I think it's pretty bereft today, personally.

Defended his title 20 times, something only Ali and Louis can compare to (I think Wlad might be up there, forgive me for not remembering).

I think H2H a 1979 to 1982 Holmes beats Foreman, Iron Mike, Thomas, Dokes, Coetzee, Tucker, even prime Lewis (that would be tough), Fury, Joshua, Bowe Wilder, Marciano, Wlad, Vitali, Patterson, and all the champs pre-Louis. I've intentionally left out a bunch from the past 40 years who would have been relatively easy in Larry's prime.

 

To me Coetzee would have been an obvious loser, he lost handily to both Tate and Weaver. Imo beating Dokes (who was never really that good a fighter to begin with and won the title on a bad ref call) didn't count for too much.

 

Only boxing history fans would bring up Holmes Norton, where Lewis vs VK was going on in the media for months before Lewis finally step down. Holyfield vs Bowe is still considered one of the greatest rivals in the heavyweights, it may not be up there with Ali Fraizer, but it gets media attention today. With out us bringing up Holme vs Norton, how often does it gets mentioned?

 

I'm kind of having a hard time believing you actually rank Holmes above Johnson after this. I would really like to hear your reasoning for that.

 

Ali felt the sting of racism but nothing like the sting felt by Jack Johnson. Plus a lot with the emphasis on a lot of white people adored Ali. Not sure many white people adored Jack Johnson. What a set of onions on that guy.

 

People's need for definitiveness for Heavies makes sense, albeit it is unfortunate as you say. They are the apex predators in the sport, most folks almost certainly have their personal Heavyweight hero because they can use them as fantasy projections for one reason or another. It all results in a "My hero is better than your hero" thing, most of the time it has to do with the era they grew up in. I'm pretty sure you remember how hurt Burt Bienstock was by the things they said about his own heroes here. It happens in lower weights too obviously, but certainly to a lesser degree.

But I digress, Heavies and fighters as a whole are too weird to rank definitively. You can have guys like Liston and Frazier, there's basically nothing between them. One gave Muhammad Ali an experience close to death, the other made him look like the finest athlete who ever lived. Fights between two actual all time greats in their prime are very rare ocassions, which is what really seperates Ali and Louis from the rest. It's almost comical how ahead they are of the rest. There were 15 world Champions before Joe Louis if we start from Sullivan, Louis beat 5 of them. That's almost a span of half a century.

 

Holmes was boxing in the ams in his early twenties but wasn't anything special. You can't just turn him into a superstar like Savon.

 

It is a knock against him, because some of those fights were on the table (Page was a mandatory that he refused to take), and others he made no attempt to get. It most definitely is a knock against him that he beat almost none of the best of his generation.

As for the late start, a lot of boxing "age" is really the miles, and he had a good run. In any event, I am not going to argue about his hypothetical talent or what he might have accomplished. History is not done by what-ifs.

His most notable fights are, however you slice it, ShaversX2, Norton, Berbick, Witherspoon, Cooney and Mercer, and that makes him at the lower end of the top ten for me, and that is ONLY because of the respect that my fellow fans show him.