Assessing Larry Holmes's all time heavyweight standing

Wlad won 19 straight title fights and became 3 belt unified+lineal (while WBC was vacant). He also won 6 WBO fights before his title reign of 19 wins.

Wlad>Holmes

 

I have cited Dempsey as someone that I also feel missed the boat. I compared them directly. I have not here, have never and will never make the argument that Dempsey is better than Holmes.

 

I appreciate that.

You said Dempsey and Holmes spectacularly missed challengers. My post was intended to solely address that point, and specifically to disagree that they are equal in this regard, as I don't think Holmes missed a challenger as outstanding as Wills, or even Greb.

Wills was far greater than anyone Dempsey fought. Greb was arguably a more deseving challenger than anyone Jack defended against.

So, to test your comparison, l asked you which challenger that Holmes missed was greater than, or even as good as Norton, Witherspoon or even Shavers?

 

I agree that Dempsey missed it a bit wider. I do not think it was by much.

Dempsey missed out on Wills, Langford, Siki, Greb...you can even make an argument that a Jack Johnson fight could have been made. He climbed out of the ring rather than fight Jeanette. Sometimes Godfrey is mentioned, although his record is not as great as his legend.

Holmes had Dokes, Page, Tubbs, Thomas...Coetzee was on the table at one point, and although I don't think he was as good as the others, it would have been a unification.

Dempsey is a little worse off, here.

 

To think people, knock Marciano for missing Nino Valdes.

 

And that is the ONE guy that you can reasonably say Marciano could have fought. Satterfield...Jackson...Baker...the rest are meaningless.

That is why you can saw about guys like Marciano and Louis that they missed a guy or two, where Holmes in not unifying and defending his mandatory basically just didn't fight the best his generation had to offer.

 

Thank you.

Going back to McGrains top 100 HWs. The fighters Holmes fought and those you list as him missing are ranked as follows:

Norton #22 - fought
Witherspoon #34 - fought
Shavers #54 - fought
Thomas #55 - missed
Berbick #64 - fought
Weaver #73 - fought
Spinks #76 - fought (and lost to whilst past prime)
Dokes #92 - missed
Cooney #95 - fought

Ali, who Holmes fought, is #1, but I haven't included him as he was clearly shot.

I stand by my original comment "as is always the case with long reigning champions, Holmes missed some contenders that were better than those he defended against, but I don't consider that he missed a contender that was better than everyone he defended against. Holmes has no Harry Wills".

I disagree with your comment that he "spectacularly failed to contest the best challengers of his era". Though I would agree that applied to the portion of his reign post Witherspoon.

 

And that is fine. With respect to McGrain, they were the best Holmes generation had to offer, and he didn't fight them. I disagree with a lot of those ratings. Weaver was a club fighter who had a couple of years when he was hot and quickly became a gatekeeper type again.

Berbick...I can almost see that, as he did beat Thomas. That was when the heroin addiction was really sapping him, and I think that Thomas on his best day was light years better. But I get it.

Norton was a guy who was awarded his belt in board room. I agree that he is a hell of a name, but more in the mid-seventies.

Anyway, I don't think we are that far off. At the end of the day, there are ten guys in history who have better QUALITY to their resumes, and Holmes let that happen.

 

Would those rankings of Norton, Witherspoon, Shavers, Spinks, and Cooney be influenced by the results of their fights with Holmes?

Would Thomas be top 30 if he got the Holmes fight?

 

The man was challenged and he responded, oh how he responded

I'd actually brought Johnson forward in my thinking many many years ago and now, after that, i am going to have to slide him up a little more. So much goes into rankings if you want to make a nice set of them no matter how much conjecture is involved. Johnson's circumstances, as you smash out above, are 100% legitimate when it comes to his ranking. They are a huge stick with which to beat others back with.

Nice.

 

Wlad was a great fighter for sure.

 

Really Barrf, is that so?

I have to assume you have me on ignore and have not read my posts, in which case, you won’t even be able to read the delusional reply that I’ve typed out here.

All jokes aside, I agree, an excellent, comprehensive post - and I don’t want the fact that I am a huge Johnson fan to corrupt the integrity of my well qualified opinion.

 

Way, wayyyyyyy TMI buddy.

 

The problem I have with rating the old timers is the paucity of good film of them.

 

That's what resumes are for tho. How they did vs their peers comparative to others is a huge part of the rating puzzle. As McGrain highlighted earlier Johnson did pretty good, stupendously good when the intangibles are factored in.