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

I have always thought that Holmes was neither fish nor fowl, when you compare him to other great heavyweights.

He is not a wrecking machine, and he is not super elusive.

That is likely to end in a lot of competitive fights, when you are regularly taking on elite opposition.

Having said that, credit where it is due.

When it comes to wins over elite opposition, he is well ahead of any heavyweight outside of Louis and Ali.

I once said myself, that logically the head to head GOAT was probably either Louis, Ali or Holmes.

He was underrated for all teh right reasons when he was active, and he is getting overrated for all the right reasons now.

 

Norton was 3-1 in his last 4 matches, arguably beating Ali and beating Jimmy Young who is an easy top 3 win in his career.

People criticized Holmes for struggling with the unknown 15-0 Witherspoon, who turned out to be one of the best HW fighters of the era. People also criticized him for struggling with the 19-8 Mike Weaver who later became another top fighter with a belt that he defended twice.

James Smith got his chance after KO’ing Frank Bruno and got stopped. David Bey beat Greg Page and was undefeated before Larry stopped him.

 

I disagree with your assessment of some of these fights. I remember them differently.
I’ve watched and re watched the Norton and Witherspoon fights several times.
In no way do I see Holmes having lost either of those. Witherspoon could probably have turned the trick but he bizarrely took his foot off the gas for the last 3rd of the fight. Norton had his moments but I have never given him more than 6 rounds in that fight. I cannot fathom how anyone has Norton winning that fight. But I guess we all look for different things.
Cooney had a few good rounds but was also dropped hard in the 2nd and was gifted with some very interesting scoring. If he hadn’t lost points for his prototyping of Andrew Golota they would have really been insane.
Holmes fought 23 rounds with Shavers and lost about 30 seconds of time, total. The knockdown was devastating, but he did get up. Many wouldn’t have.
Weaver turned out to be a much better fighter than expected, after his 8-8 career start. It was a battle and there is no shame in that. Especially if you win.
Snipes he had a concentration lapse that almost cost him dearly. That’s on Larry. He did win but it was a bit of a bad look against a somewhat unknown fighter.
I thought he lost the Williams fight. The things that bothered Carl were not really in Larry’s toolbox. In my opinion he lost a close but clear decision.
The first Spinks fight he may have underestimated him, or maybe at that point Spinks was just better.
I don’t think he ever beats Tyson. Just doesn’t match up well. At one point I thought Larry was too old there but in hindsight I don’t see him beating Mike, although he would have lasted longer.
All in all he had a pretty great title run and career. He was a fine champion. Flawed in places but for a time he was the best. That’s not easy to do. I believe he is a top 10 heavyweight all time, probably top 5-7. Not top 3.

 

Really above Lewis?

 

Yes.

 

There was definitely room for him to improve his strength and conditioning (and opposition.)

 

Personally i don't think Holmes ever beat someone on the level of Vitali or Holyfield

 

I noticed Holmes legs didn't look very thick. Even compared to a 60s Ali.

Maybe getting stronger would him to muscle opponents off a bit more idk maybe he wanted to be as fast as possible with as little mass as possible in his prime.

 

The first fight fight with Weaver was a war.

I caught wind of Larry later in his career. Remember, I was 9 when the Cooney fight took place, which, by the way, was another war. When the Cobb fight took place, I was, Im not kidding you, in the Boy Scouts because my best friend had joined and we were promised free trips and stuff. We were in a trip to Southern Puerto Rico but I developed a fever that night, so I was allowed ot stay with my dad at the men's compound and watched that fight and I enjoyed it. I had fever, lol.

(side story: I quit the Boy Scouts a few months later because we were going to the beautiful city of Aguadilla, but in Aguadilla they were not going to show the Spinks-Qawi fight ion tv since that fight was not offered by the regular channels in Puerto Rico and Aguadilla had no HBO! lol)

I didnt know how to score a fight until Hagler-Duran late in 1983, when a newspaper published instructions on how to score a fight (and I initially had it 150-135 for Hagler, so I didnt learn anything that day, lol!) but the point is, even if I could not score Holmes-Witherspoon, from watching the fight and hearing others around me, my grandpa in particular, I had a feeling the crown was about to fall off his head.

Then I noticed that he was ducking opponents, for example, choosing to fight a ten fight "veteran" in Marvis Frazier instead of Greg Page, and I started resenting that. However, there was no denying that Holmes was a great fighter and a great champion, which caused more excitement when he was fighting. You truly did not know whether he was going to win or lose! I was a bit angry that he picked and choose his opponents and wanted him to lose so bad I almost lived to see that day only (in the boxing fan sense)!

He was clearly beaten by Carl Williams, and I was one of the few in Puerto Rico who correctly predicted that Michael Spinks was going to beat him. Spinks had more youth, he had speed, he had power at Light Heavyweight and he had fluidity with that herky-jerky style. The only advantage Holmes had was the weight difference but his physical years AND his ring years were clearly taking their toll.
Be it how it was, some call it a robbery, I dont. I had it at 145-141 for Spinks although looking at it now I see that was still a little girl's scorecard and perhaps that night I should have been watching soap operas with mom, as I always loved to do. (I still watch them when my tv works!)

These days on You Tube, I have it 143-142 for either side or maybe a tie but to me the first Spinks fight was not a robbery.

The second fight I thought was a robbery but then I had Holmes by 144-143 and when KO or Ring Magazine asked Joe Cortez who also had Holmes by one, he said something interesting: we should not consider fights we scored by one point a robbery. So even as I had Holmes winning that did change my mind about whether it was a robbery or not, But there is one thing that did not change: if Holmes was 26 instead of 36, he'd ko'ed Spinks in round 14.

Holmes then did, for a 38 year old who had been out of the ring a year and a half, very good against the Godzilla of the division, Mike Tyson, until he got clocked. I gained more respect and love for him after the Tyson fight than I had ever had before.

He then relaunched his career and was this close from winning a world title again and in fact the Ray Mercer fight should have won him the WBO belt but for reasons only know to boxing insiders the WBO did not recognize it as a title fight but he beat the WBO champion, gave the WBC, WBA and IBF champion a solid fight in one of the few PPV's I actually bought, and then was within an inch of recovering the WBC title in another one of the few PPV's I ever bought I remember the latter day for one other particular event: I went to the amusement park and got on a NASCAR ride. It so happened that my former girlfriend was also competing on the NASCAR ride, and she tried to make me crash against a wall. I saw that if I crashed I was going to get hit by several other cars, get injured and cause a big pile up so I tried to get out of it and evade the crash. I almost did, except that I clipped by ex girlfriend's car on the back part of it by accident of course. She slumped forward and was knocked out when she hit the driving wheel with her head. She needed medical attention and I was almost banned from the ride until they saw the video and saw that I was right when I told them she caused the accident, not me. But I was half hearted about watching the fight that night after I saw how she was out there out.

I had McCall winning it by 115-113. it was that close.

Larry was great but he was in a weak era when he was champion, but he was still dominant. This is why we talk about how'd he done against a young Ali, against, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jack Johnson, Sonny Liston, George Foreman, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Ezzard Charles, Joe Frazier and even Tommy Burns. Heck I think even a fight with Bob Foster would have been good. Foster was decidedly smaller, but his jab would have given the mid;80s Larry trouble before Larry stopped him in round 8 or 9.

Later on, when we had Tyson, Holyfield, Mercer and McCall, ironically, to me, when he really proved himself.

Weak era or not, Holmes was one of the great ones.

 

He bulked for his 90s comeback and it likely helped him. A funny thing about his reign is that it was improbable for him to last as long as he did because Shavers, Snipes, and to a lesser extent Cooney almost knocked him out, and Witherspoon and Williams almost beat him.

 

Yeah I think he also gained some fat too. But it probably helped his durability as he got older and started to get hit more. Same with Foreman in the 90s it seemed being bigger helped him be more durable so it came with it's advantages.

In his prime so maybe 1978-1982 or so I think his weight was fine give or take. But yeah as a border point I can see how boxing like Holmes would have focused more on speed and mobility than say heavy lifting.

 

In his later career he also fought more flat footed and more defensively so I gather the extra weight helped with that

 

For a guy who was naturally about the size of Usyk or slightly bigger and fairly similar in style, I think it’s clear that Usyk has done something right in terms of conditioning compared to him.

 

He beat Norton

 

Yeah, Holmes is overrated, imo

Whether people admit or agree or not is irrelevant. Fighters kind of attain a natural consensus tier system.

Ali and Louis seem to be the top and have been for my entire lifetime. Or at least cognitive time.

Then you have your Dempsey, Frazier, Lewis, level. Plenty of people super respect them. Holmes is presented by most as if he is on that level. A GOAT candidate, but, is he really? Wlad gets the same treatment tbh. Is he really on the Marciano, Fitzs, Johnson, level? Those less often but still pretty often number ones on fan lists sort of names.

IMO, he just doesn't belong. He's more akin to like Chris Byrd or Tim Witherspoon than folks are willing to admit. Very,very,good. ATG. Great. Should never be 1 on anyone's list though. IMO.


We all have those guys. Some folks think Marciano doesn't belong in the convo because he's too basic. Some say Fitzs doesn't because he's too small. Probably some truth to all of it really.