Assessing Larry Holmes's all time heavyweight standing

Did you forget that Holmes fought a prime Mike Tyson and Holyfield? And since you're into light heavyweights who moved up, he fought a prime Spinks twice. 0-4 though.

 

Rocky's title reign should put him over Patterson, Liston, Foreman, and Dempsey. Granted, he wasn't a anywhere near a top ten all time heavyweight h2h.

 

He got in there with Holyfield ,Tyson ,and Ray Mercer.He's a top 7 all time heavy for me.

 

Bowe ate too much X factor. He stuffed a mini fridge in his bedroom with it.

 

He was out of his prime by then though. I don't know that he'd have beat Tyson, but I'm very confident he'd have beaten Holyfield and would have at least beaten Spinks once had he been younger when those fights happened.

 

I basically agree. It’s just weird to treat Marciano like he fought a higher caliber of fighter. Holmes fought the bigger threats, but ducked or otherwise didn’t fight a lot of the better possible opponents during his reign. And there’s nothing wrong with what Marciano did. The division was just limited at that time.

 

Money motivated Holmes more than anything.

Tyson was another big payday when Holmes thought he had no more of them. He wasn't going to turn it down. He'd probably have fought him in a rematch for a repeat of that payday.

Mercer was the stepping stone to Holyfield, another big money fight. So Holmes wasn't going to turn it down (and also, he did at least get $1mil for the Mercer fight).

Holyfield was a $10mil purse. Not a chance Holmes would turn that down.

Just saying.

 

I never understood the controversy behind the Witherspoon victory. I had Larry clearly winning 9 rounds to 3. Witherspoon was not busy enough, especially early on. I had to mute the sound to not have to listen to Dundee's biased commentary along with his shill Jim McKay. As for Page and Thomas, each lasted as long as the cheapest perfumes as neither could string together more than a few quality wins in a row.

 

I rank Louis and Ali ahead of him. I personally also think Lennox was a better fighter and I could see an argument for Foreman being above him. I would rank him higher than the Klitschkos, Bowe, Tyson, Holyfield, Frazier, and Dempsey though.

 

Not sure about Lennox being a better fighter than Larry. After all, Lennox got stopped by McCall while Holmes went the distance with him, arguably beating him. Holmes also gave Mercer a boxing lesson, whereas Lennox went life-and-death barely eeking out a decision. And in both cases, Holmes was in his 40s. Whereas Lennox was in his early to mid-30s.

 

Even outside of triangle theories I think just watching the two I can see Holmes was a better fighter than Lewis. I think Holmes beat better heavyweights too.

I suppose in Lewis’ favour is the size advantage but I think he’d have to come in at 230 max for a 15 round fight anyway. Height is no doubt useful though. Same for power. Lewis could feasibly blow out Norton and Truth who are both guys I thought beat Larry. But Lewis had his hands full and then some with Mercer and older Holyfield who a young Holmes would have dealt with so works both ways.

It’s probably close but I’ll go Holmes. He had a bit more about him in the ring.

 

He is #2 on my atg heavyweight list.

 

He's broken the one of the ten boxing commandments! He doesn't have Ali and Louis as his 1 and 2, he's committed heresy!

Jokes aside which of the normal top 2 is Holmes above? Ali or Louis? I'm interesting in hearing your reasoning if you don't mind.

 

And you have every right to that. Others see it differently. That is the controversy.

 

Top 5 for me:
Ali
Holmes
Lennox Lewis
Joe Louis
George Foreman
I honestly believe prime Larry beats all the above except for prime Muhammad