How much credit does Holmes deserve for beating Ali when he did?

:good absolutly. with the foresight to have tunes ups he SHOULD HAVE troubled tyson. the active, old man holmes who evander struggled with was at least as good as green,smith and tillis. He would have went more rounds for sure.

maybe with real tune ups and real training (rather than simply dieting and taking bad medical advice) ali would have done beter against Holmes also? He would still have lost clearly but may have done as well as say cobb or the frenchman lucian rodreiges. remember he was just as poor against berbick but somehow fiddled his way through.

 

No question that if Muhammad had taken his Thyrolar as prescribed, he would have gone the distance with Holmes without ever being in danger of getting stopped. Holmes-Ali would then have been very comparable to Charles-Louis.

Berbick-Ali did verify that Muhammad's Thyrolar overdose hampered him as severely against Holmes as he claimed it had. Ali was far more active in the Bahamas despite being over a year older and 20 pounds heavier. However, as Ferdie Pacheco forcefully protested, if he was ill enough to be prescribed Thyrolar in the first place, then he probably shouldn't have been allowed to challenge Holmes or compete at all. (Now that I think about it for the first time, would Thyrolar be one of those medications to show up on a modern drug test? My doctor's told me that some of the medications I need to take would eliminate me from consideration for hire by employers utilizing testing, [a key factor in my success at nailing down early retirement], while other drugs prescribed for me would not be revealed by screening at all.)

 

It doesn't compare to Tyson/Holmes, has Larry wasn't shot to pieces. Sadly i don't give Holmes credit for beating that version of Ali. But i don't think Larry wanted much credit for that victory either. just watch the post fight interviews.

 

As much credit as I'd give Larry for beating any other top 15ish heavyweight- which is probably about the level even the shot Ali was at that point.

 

From what I've gathered, Ali had no business taking Thyrolar at all. It was his quack doctor (an NOI pet) that thought he had an ailment he didn't have.

 

Zero

 

Great examples. :nut

Tyson easily dominated Green who merely ran & hugged while throwing pitty-pat flurries & Mike won every round on my card.

Smith was somehow allowed to clinch a billion times like a disgraceful coward & clearly should have been DQ'd like Akinwande was against Lewis. However, Tyson still dominated the first 11 rounds by exploding at him whenever not being hugged. Bonecrusher only took the 12th due to landing a monstrous flush bomb which momentarily stunned Mike.

Tillis?! The 19 year old teenage Tyson was 19-0, but except for Ferguson had only faced very weak competition so far, hence he was untested & green as grass. He had never fought a slick boxer until this bout. It was an essential learning fight for him & Mike said it gave him the confidence in his stamina that he previously lacked; this confidence can be seen against Green, Tucker & Ruddock. Still, i clearly had Tyson winning 8-2 as did judge Tony Moret. Plus James was put on his ass in round 4 by a beautiful counter lefthook.

Old Holmes was obviously less rusty when he faced Holyfield due to his tune-ups, but he was also 4 years older; 42 instead of 38, had rotted during another retirement (this time 3 years), plus he was a fat 233lbs, as apposed to the trim (age considered) 225¾lbs he was against Tyson. Stylewise he troubled Holy, but i strongly doubt he would survive the distance with Mike who had been trained to batter Holmes. Those rope-a-dope tactics worked well against Evander, but would be suicide against Tyson who would pick his spots & detonate some serious nukes. Old Holmes would find his jab too slow against Tyson, who would quickly slip & counter it hard as he closed the gap. How would Larry cope with that deadly righthand without the speed to have any hope of avoidance? He would be just too slow on his feet to get away & sooner or later he would be tagged flush, badly rocked, dropped (multiple times) & brutally stopped like he was in '88.

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I think he deserves credit for the way he did it ,and for going to see Ali in the hospital, and the statements he made afterwards,Holmes can often be boorish and anti press but he handled this fight with class IMO.