Anyone Else feel Holmes Should have Been Better Then He Was?

You have to take into consideration something about all the fights that you mentioned; they were all world title fights and every fighter dreams of being a world champion. Norton had fought for the title several times and probably felt that the Holmes fight would be his last chance so he came prepared to fight his best fight. Cooney, at that point in his career, didn't think that he could lose and he fought the best fight of his career. Shavers was in the same position as Norton so he came to win. Holmes had handled him easily in a 10 round fight and, if memory serves, did pretty much the same in the title fight except for one punch.
In my opinion the Williams, Witherspoon and Weaver fights were meant to be easy fights for Holmes, so it wouldn't be surprising if he took them lightly. In all 3 of those fights I believe that Larry thought that it would be easy while the other 3 guys saw the fights as a chance to make a dream come true and fought their best fight. I think that you could also put the Spinks fights in that category.

 

he very well might be the best heavyweight that ever lived lol

 

A few things to point out.

The Weaver fight apparently Holmes had the flu going into that fight which isn't good for your energy levels which is why I think Holmes looked more fatigued in the later rounds than usual.

Holmes also probably underestimated Weaver so I think it was combination of the two things.

Norton has a troubling style for boxers as evident of his performances vs Ali, Young, and is a very good fighter himself so I don't see it as a negative for Holmes.

Holmes won in a great fight in his first championship experience against a very good fighter who had a troubling style for him.

Holmes was already aging by the time he fought Williams and was fighting his 19th world title fight in 7 years.

Williams was also 6'5 with an 85 inch reach and had a very good jab so it's not too surprising an aging Holmes would have issues with Williams. I actually think Williams was a good fighter but his suspect chin and being vulnerable to left hooks was his downfall. But Holmes didn't really have a stand out left hook so that also adds to the stylistic problems for Holmes against Williams.

 

Only Wlad was able to dominate fights like that all the other long reigning champs at heavyweight had these types of fights so not sure.

 

Even if you are a Holmes true believer at the end of the day he skipped the 70s and deferred on unfinished business from the 80s in the 90s.

If you think Holmes could have beaten everyone he didn't end up fighting the fact remains he didn't fight them. It is what it is. We are all going to view this issue different but it is an issue.

 

Better at using their size is probably part of it; Holmes didn't really have a size advantage of anybody that I can recall, except Spinks.
Also, he was fighting pretty regularly. Everybody that works for a living has a bad day at the office; in boxing you try to get those out of the way during training. But they do happen in the ring and the more you are in the ring- in real fights- there will be more of them.
Something about Larry's style...If you remember the Tyson fight, Larry wasn't doing bad. He was trying to time Mike coming in, tying up inside, looking to hit the body. Just before the fight really went against him, Larry got up on his toes. He was moving, hands low, flicking the jab. The announcers made a big deal of it, like Larry was really about to do something, and that was when he got caught. I haven't watched his fights with Snipes and Shavers in years, but it wouldn't surprise me is he got caught similarly in those fights. I think that Larry had a tendency to get complacent when it wasn't in his best interests to do so.
And Lennox had a couple fights- with McCall and with Rahman- where I don't think that he took the challenge as seriously as he could have and he paid for it. I don't know how seriously Wlad took Fury and they put on one of the worst fights in history.

 

I can’t knock the guy too much as he was already a pretty spectacular fighter as it was. I do however feel that he could have shown up more motivated and avoided fighting DOWN to the level of his lesser opponents. Some of those matches could have been more impressive and decisive. Then there’s also the issue of him taking on some of the better challengers of his era which he didn’t always do. But that’s more about being a better champion and not necessarily improving his own game as a fighter

Also, if there was some way he could have shored up his defense against the right hand it would have largely behooved him to do so.

 

Holmes’ opposition is underrated, most of his performances actually look pretty impressive in hindsight.