Fights where two eras clashed

Holyfield vs Foreman.

I don't know what this fight told us, given that Foreman was a different man when he fought Evander. The cross arm defensive style that he brought to his new game, was non-existant in the 1970's, as was his tactic of pacing himself early and picking shots rather than just hurling them in volume. My question would be, if a young Foreman had polished up his game in similar fashion to the way he did 15 years later, could he have beaten Holyfield or perhaps even Ali? My answer is maybe. I'm not so sure that an unpolished Foreman of 1973 would have beaten a 1991 Holyfield, by virtue of the fact that he could not outpoint him over 12 or 15 rounds, and nor do I see anyone stopping a peak Holy inside of 5 rounds.

 

Agreed,

I think Holmes at his best would have beaten all of the top raters who were around in 1992. I see him outpointing Evander, Ruddock, and several others. Lewis and Bowe would have been tough fights, but I'm inclined to giving Larry the edge. He could not however, show up like he did in the Witherspoon fight against some of these men though.

 

Well anyone who doubt that Holmes would be anything less than the elite of his era would be deluded in the first place.



By the way, what about Holmes vs McCall and Holyfield? You can't look at the positives and ignore the negatives.

 

...............Fenech-Zarate is a decent pick, I think, though few gave Zarate a realistic chance.


Olivares-Jose Luis Ramirez is interesting, especially because Olivares, who by that time was fighting strictly from memory, starched young Ramirez in 2.

 

Perhaps, but an equally important question here is: would Holmes have been as willing as Lewis to prove himself, given that he willfully avoided 8 big fights during his own era?

So the negatives at his age don't count, but the positives do? Hardly fair is it?

 

No they didn't. Marciano needed 13 rounds to KO Walcott when slightly behind on points (according to your reasoning, Walcott would've destroyed Marciano if he was younger) and Joe Louis was in fact knocked out by the former champion in Schmeling (though he did destroy Carnera and Sharkey).

Holyfield-Holmes and Holyfield-Foreman weren't competitive. Great efforts for their age, but neither looked like they were winning at any point in the fights.

 

Archie Moore vs Ali
Giardello vs Ray Robinson