Why is it not held against Holmes legacy more that he was never the undisputed HW champion of boxing

The issue, is that you like to troll.

Again, I’ve been told that you’ve admitted this.

Greg has told me.

It’s a shame. Because if not, you could have some great debates.

I don’t get it.

It’s like Mark Durham, who JT has proven to be the Red Rooster.

I literally can’t even read his posts anymore.

It’s just tiresome.

Surely you can only troll for so long.

Just come and debate.

You clearly have a lot of knowledge.

 

It's ok I know you go to 25 I just wondered anyway.

Is the list still on here do you know? I can imagine it was made more than a decade ago but I could easily be wrong.

 

I'm unsure if its in a thread still available on this site, but it is present, and discussed, over a series of posts, here - https://www.606v2.com/t54420-boxing-com-100-greatest-heavyweights

 

Tate lost his title in his first defence and Arum wanted to keep him away from Holmes.

 

No Wills, but around five Valdes.

 

Referring back to McGrain's top 100 HW list, Holmes missed 1 x fighter from that list who was active during his prime and title reign, specifically Pinklon Thomas. Valdes is on that list, somewhere in the 80's. None of the other HWs Holmes missed are ranked as highly as Valdes historically, according to that list, or even in the top 100 HWs of all time. So, based purely on McGrain's rankings, Holmes had 1 miss worse than Valdes, but none others as bad as missing Valdes (in reality, of course, context of timings should be taken into account - as per the post you quoted, what I posted was presented as nothing more than a high level indicator of the quality opponents Holmes fought relative to the quality of those active).

That said, the above is perhaps a bit pedantic and I take your point in a broader sense. Holmes certainly made multiple defences against opponents weaker than multiple contenders he missed. That is also true of every double digit defence champion in history, though.

 

Thomas was clearly the biggest omission.

The others weren’t.

Of course they’d have been nice additions though.

 

He should have declined Frazier and Scott for better opponents. To the best of my knowledge these weren't mandatories he had to face or fights where there was overwhelming public demand so I think these are things we can specifically criticize.

He should also be criticized for not fighting more highly regarded opponents. He should have held off on Witherspoon, Smith etc until they were more proven.

 

+he skipped rematches

 

There were about five guys who Holmes didn't face that all were nr 1 contenders for about as long as Valdes or longer. I e 'about five Valdes'.

EDIT: Probably four to be exact, since Page never was nr 1. He was behind first Coetzee and then Thomas.

Ali didn't have one Valdes, I think. He faced everyone who was nr 1 during his reigns (but didn't rematch everyone).

 

That’s utterly ridiculous.

Why don’t you think about what you’ve just typed.

He should have turned Witherspoon down??

And what would have happened if he’d have made that decision, yet never ended up fighting him for whatever reason?

You’d literally be on here saying that he ducked Tim Witherspoon, yet he found the time to fight lesser fighters like Frazier etc.

You’d be saying that to me right now, had they not have fought.

Your post is ridiculous.

You keep posting, yet you keep ignoring the circumstances and the timelines.

Have you not followed the thread?

 

First Tate. Not a long window there until he lost to Weaver, though.

Then Weaver for almost three years. Yes, Holmes had beaten Weaver, but it was a good fight and there was reason to believe Weaver had improved. Going from journeyman status to title holder could at the very least meant that he went from having to have jobs on the side to being a full time boxer.

Dokes came next, but only for about nine months. And maybe King, as is often claimed here, kept them apart.

Coetzee is, as far as I know, the only nr 1 challenger that Holmes clearly wanted, but for a fee that no one was prepared to pay.

Witherspoon followed. For less than six months, though, and Holmes had already beat him. But the loss had been very tight and Witherspoon deserved a rematch imo. Holmes would soon after say that he plain didn't want anything to do with him (has been quoted several times ealier in the thread).

Thomas, the next nr 1, was named together with Withersppon by Holmes as someone he had no intention of facing.


Is there anything anyone disagrees with here?

 

Perhaps a nitpick, but the issue with the Coetzee vs Holmes fight wasn’t Larry holding out for more money than a promoter was willing to pay — he signed on the dotted line.

The problem was that promoter, who came up with the up-front money (signing fee) then didn’t have the financing to meet the agreement.

I’m pretty sure it got delayed to give the promoter time to put together the money, then it completely fell apart.

Then another backer was found but also failed to come up with a lower of credit.

Caesars Palace got involved then backed out. The June 1983 date was scrapped (leading to Hearns-Duran happening in Vegas) and the fight seemed dead.

There was an attempt to save the fight the next year, 1984, and Holmes agreed to a 50% lower purse, but even that fell apart.

I don’t see Holmes wanting ‘a fee no one was willing to pay’ being the problem here. It’s various promoters failing to deliver on contracted promises.

 

Nonsense. Nobody would fault Holmes for not fighting him at that stage in his career when he was so unproven. He receives very little criticism for not fighting Tony Tubbs because he only emerged as a contender at the very end of Holmes reign

Mike Tyson could have fought Vitali Klitschko but nobody criticizes him for not fighting him because Vitali was so unproven at that stage

 

Ah, when you said Holmes had 5 x Valdes (revised to 4 in your above post), you meant number of nr. 1 contenders not defended against during his reign, rather than Holmes missed 4 x viable opponents of Valdes historical standing. We were at cross purposes. Your point is valid and material to assessing Holmes all time standing. A few of my own in response:

1. Whilst I rank Holmes #3 all time at HW, I consider him closer to #11 than to #2. He's clearly way behind Ali.

2. Holmes went 48-0, including 21-0 in title fights, before losing well past his prime. On the face of it, that should have him up there with Ali and Louis, if not beyond. Amongst the reasons I have way behind them, are those that you allude to, in particular his defences post Witherspoon diluting the merits of those 21 x title fight wins.

3. Point 2 not withstanding, there is an additional (not alternate, additional) perspective you can take into consideration when assessing Holmes historical standing, which is to apply the benefit of hindsight, as well as considering the live rankings. I.e. Bey was ranked #3 and Witherspoon ranked #9 respectively when Holmes fought them, yet with the benefit of hindsight Witherspoon was clearly by far the greater win. It's this additional perspective that I was trying to provide when I cited Holmes fighting 7 of the 8 "greatest" HWs active on the world scene during his prime and title reign (8 out 9 if you include the shot Ali).

4. His historical standing would be better if he'd defended against more or all of his nr 1 contenders, but it is a matter of degrees. Unless I am mistaken, they had all either lost to Holmes, lost to someone Holmes had beaten or would go on to lose to someone Holmes beat. They all lost multiple times during their respective primes, whereas Holmes never lost in his. Imo, he very clearly and distinctly separated himself from the field, from 1978 up until the Witherspoon defence.