Assessing Larry Holmes's all time heavyweight standing

Personally I always factor in the following when assess a fighter's greatness and not all of the factors are numerical, in no particular order:

- discipline
- longevity
- dedication
- opposition
- heart
- technique
- punching power
- Hypothetical H2H vs other greats
- losing fights they should have won
- manner of losses
- other factors such as fighting across many weights, often fighting heavier opponents, significant wins when past their best.

Looking at all these factors for me means Larry rates very highly. While Larry may lose some points for not fighting all the top rated heavies at the time I feel he makes up for it by the first three factors I listed. I do not see his lesser defences as significantly worse than many of the challengers Ali, Louis or Dempsey fought. And H2H I don't feel he would have lost to Thomas, Page, Coetzee or Dokes, due to the first three factors.

Remember no-one at the time saw anyone other than Larry as the true heavyweight champion of the world which should tell us something.

PS anyone who doubts Larry's heart and guts should watch the knock down by Shavers in their second fight.

 

This is interesting, I rate Wlad but I checked his record and I don't see anyone in his record significantly better than most of those Homes beat and we have the three crushing losses to Purrity, Sanders and Brewster to factor in. Why do you rate Wlad higher and also how do you see a H2H between them please?

 

It must be my age, why oh why on a thread concerning Holmes, did we end up discussing the merits of Lewis, not going into the long dialogue around opponents, KDs, avoidance, etc, been done to death, why not stay on topic ?
stay safe ( and off Lewis ) guys.

 

I don't even think we disagree that widely.

 

Top ten talent but laughably overrated.

 

1. Larry's time on top was around 8 years (78 to 85). Wlad's time on top. Was around 10 years (2005 to 2015). Holmes beat Shavers in his eliminator, but Wlad beat Peter.
2. Larry had shaky title defenses (Williams, Snipes, etc.). Wlad dominated everyone.
3. Wlad unified. Larry did not. Wlad beat reigning champions 3x. Holmes basically won a vacant belt that was attached to Norton's waist leading to the fight.
4. I'm not going to count out opponents in the Ring rankings, but Byrd, Povetkin, Ibragimov, Pulev, Haye etc. are not worse than Williams, aging Norton, Witherspoon, Cooney etc. Both Wlad and Holmes didn't beat truly special heavyweights, but they beat plenty of good ones.
5. Holmes lost his title to a B lister (Spinks). Wlad lost his to an A lister (Fury).
6. Wlad won Olympic Gold. Larry failed to qualify for the US.
7. Both did OK trying to win the title while old, but failed.
8. Larry beat Mercer after his title reign. Wlad beat Byrd and a handful of WBO defenses before winning his major titles and also beat Schultz as a prospect.
9. Wlad lost as a prospect to Purity (doesn't really matter) and Sanders and Brewster (avenged). Holmes got embarrassed by Tyson and also failed to beat McCall.

Wlad pretty clearly edges it, unless you want to live and die by the Sanders fight or pretend that Holmes' 21 wins in title fights is superior to Wlad's 19 while ignoring that Wlad won 6 WBO fights against better comp than ancient Ali, Zanon, Frank, LeDoux, and Rodriguez.

Wlad actually beat the most legit southpaws of an any heavyweight whereas Holmes was stopped by southpaw Nick Wells and then didn't fight any in the pros.

 

Very intersting thanks, a lot to digest as always! What about H2H?

 

I have him 6th

 

You're the first person in the forum history to use the McCall fight against Larry.

 

I didn’t. You invented that.

 

I’d pick Wlad. It’s not like Holmes would blitz him or wear him down with body shots.

 

Point 9

 

I stated all of their loses. Where does it state that the loss to McCall is significant?

 

Well you put it in a point where you reference 3 bad losses for Wlad, so if you didn't mean it as a significant comparison maybe you should formulate your posts better.

The McCall loss is more comparable to the Joshua loss but even that isn't exactly fair. It was ten years after he lost his championship and his age rounded up to 50 lol.

When discussing the career of Holmes the loss is so far from relevant that it should never appear in a bullet pointed list comparing him to someone else.

 

3 is the highest that could be justified, even theoretically.

I would start to ask difficult questions if you had him lower than 8.