I know he wasn't the same as he was in 1980, but is it right to say he was completely washed up in 1985? Especially looking back on the fact that in 1992, he would go on to beat a prime Ray Mercer (something a prime Tommy Morrison utterly failed at) and gave prime Holyfield such a good scrap that many were left with the impression that a younger Holmes could have taken Holyfield (perhaps the Holmes of 85 beats prime Holyfield?) Ten years later in 1995, he takes prime Oliver McCall the distance. McCall, by the way, was fresh off a KO win over prime or at least very close to his prime Lennox Lewis. It's safe to say a 1985 Holmes beats prime McCall and prime Mercer and he may have beaten 1992 Holyfield. So can we really say that Holmes, even though past his best, was just a shell of a fighter by 85?
I think Holmes was lacking the motivation to rise to the occasion of a big fight....he had been at the top for 7 years with around 20 defenses against bigger, stronger and at times just as skilled as Spinks. He is still a top 5 ATG IMO....what is funny is this fight brought the dog out of him post loss...the rematch was him showing his physical decline with the motivation he once had. I always felt Holmes needed to angry to be motivated he needed to be in the shadow of great fighters to be great otherwise we get the first Spinks fight all day
He looked a lot slower v Spinks and really struggled, McCall wasn`t that skilled and Holmes spoiled v Holy in a dissapointing fight, Mercer was pretty limited at that point of his career and looked awful v Morrison before catching him, he ws very easy to hit in the early 90`s.
Styles ... Spinks was all about speed and volume and Holmes' legs were past it .. different fight for him to fight off the ropes like he did vs Mercer and Holyfield and McC all and Nielsen and so on ... Michael was extremely fast of hand and foot and Larry struggled ..
Pretty spent. His legs were not very good by 85 and his weight was too high. Holmes started sliding in 83
I can’t put an exact measure on the loss of his abilities. But he did seem to have slowed down. Timing might have been a tad off as well. He could still go fifteen rounds, take a good punch and compete with the best of them even as late as 1985 though.
To me the weird part is how he seemed better against Mercer than he had since 1984. Very bizarre...perhaps he was getting burned out.
As mentioned, his mobility had decreased by then, turning positively flat-footed and getting more stationary and loading up more with opponents like Bey and Williams. Some of the snap had gone out of his right hand too I think, or maybe it was just that he couldn't throw them in bundles like he'd done before. By '85 he was maybe 70 percent of what he'd been in 1982 I'd say.
That could be. It may also be attributed to the fact that the opponents he was facing in 1985 like Carl Williams and Michael spinks were taller, faster and more mobile than Ray Mercer was.
I'd say this is a good summation. But hey, he knocked the crap out of David Bey (who beat none other than Greg Page) and managed to barely edge Williams. Both victories, the first one being especially impressive given how bad he beat Bey (I believe David was rightfully rated pretty high due to the aforementioned Page victory).
