Larry Holmes Norton (old past prime) Shavers Ali (you know what) Berbick Witherspoon Weaver (old) Smith Mercer Williams Conney Mike Tyson Holmes (old) Spinks Smith Berbick Ruddock 2x Williams Ratliff Tonny Tucker Thomas Tubbs Tyrell Biggs Frank Bruno 2x Seldon
Take it to this thread https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/mike-tyson-had-a-better-career-than-larry-holmes.669560/
Holmes, also, Norton was not old and past his prime, he was certainly not the exact same Norton from 73'. but he was still the Norton that beat Jimmy Young for the title, a solid version of Norton,
I'm a huge Norton fan and I do think Norton was past his prime. He was already on the downfall after his robbery against Ali. He lost half of his passion for the sport and admitted that he trained less, ate more and drank more. Norton from 73 looks way more sharp and fit. Damn, that version of Norton is very good
In Larry Holmes resume, you forgot to mention: Renaldo Snipes David Bey Ossie Ocasio Roy Williams Leroy Jones Jesse Ferguson And just mentioning names aren't gonna make you impressive. You gotta look at their condition too. Larry's win over Mercer is probably better than most of Tyson's win. Larry was 40+ years old, an age that Tyson was even more diminished than Larry was once he reached it. Mercer also was very young, at his peak and just got off a huge knockout win over Tommy Morrison. And Larry SCHOOLED him. Weaver old? Please.. if anything, Larry fought the youngest version of him. Weaver was also very motivated at the time, had a 5 win streak, even a win over the hard punching Bernardo Mercado. In just the next year, Weaver became the WBA champ. He knocked out James Smith who Tyson couldn't Larry also last the distance with a prime Evander Holyfield, giving him fits and taught him some boxing lesson. Like seriously, Holyfield look so confused in the first 5 rounds. You can't just discredit Larry for just losing to Spinks either, at least he was still young and motivated and facing a 36 year old Holmes who many people felt beat him in the rematch. Against Tyson, he only fought once in a year over an unranked opponent. Larry also arguably beaten McCall who was the champ at the time, having beaten Lewis and Damiani by knockout. Not to mention, Larry was 92 years old at that point, having fought competitively against a good young fighter. Lastly Holmes made 17 title defenses, over some unappreciated names like Leon Spinks, Alfredo Evangelista, Tex Cobb, and Lorenzo Zanon.
I am the hugest Norton fan you'll see on the site! I truly think prime for prime Norton beats Holmes, but the Norton he fought was certainly motivated! No version from the Cooney fight thats for sure.
Still isnt better than tysons holmes went to death vs williams Tyson ko him in 1 round if we go with your logic and if we go to condition still tysons better