Better Victory: Marciano over Moore or Tyson over Holmes?

-Well, this fictious "nonfan" using that criteria would probably pick Wlad/Austin as a better victory than Tyson/Holmes.

-This wording would imply that Moore was not an active heavyweight prior to the Marciano fight, when in fact he was possibly the most successful one of that timeframe behind Marciano. In the 2 years prior to meeting Marciano, Moore cleaned out the HW top 10, what did Holmes do prior to Tyson....enjoy retirement.

-What the Boston Globe thought of Holmes "great win" against Mercer...many years after his rushed payday against Tyson.

ATLANTIC CITY -- Larry Holmes last night earned $1 million and set the stage for a possible Back to the Future fight with George Foreman. More significantly, Holmes proved a point by winning a 12-round decision over Ray Mercer -- namely, that the heavyweight division is in poor shape.


-In contrast, after Moore nearly killed the rising prospect Lavorante nealry a decade after the Marciano fight the only concern for the state of the division was the brutality of the sport:

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

 

mercer was a gold meddle winnner, he may not have been in tysons league but he was some fighter at that time -just ask tommy morison.

how many unbeaten olympians did bruno, wiliams, tubbs and smith beat to get their shot at a title?

the holmes tyson fought was out of his depth, he couldnt adjust or react to the contact of a world class heavyweight (the first hed fought since the wiliams fight years earlier). sure he spared but later holmes benefited by fighting build up guys and developing an effective veterans style that recorded amoung the best punch landed stat ratios ever against good class guys. at the time of the tyson fight no adjustments had been made. holmes was a 38 year old guy working from memory. he may as well have worn hand cuffs and a night shade.

 

It's almost laughable that people use Larry Holmes' later performances against Mercer and Holyfield (and even McCall) to boost Tyson-Holmes.

No discredit to Holmes, but Mercer proved to be an amateurish fighter at this time (a bit like he'd been in previous fights). He went on to be schooled by Jesse Ferguson a couple of fights later.
And Holyfield was roundly and rightly condemned for his lacklustre effort against Holmes. It was one of Holyfield's most unimpressive wins.
The McCall-Holmes fight was just horrible.
Just because those guys sucked against the old flabby washed-up Holmes (and McCall and Mercer weren't even skillful fighters/ boxers), doesn't give Tyson's win extra credibility.

Tyson got the job done in style. But Holmes was washed-up in 1988, and washed-up after.

 

Do you see what your doing here? Your making excuses for the other fighters that Holmes was competitive with. The undisputed heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, gold medalist Mercer, who was coming off his biggest win over Morrison. Oliver Mcall had just knocked out Lennox Lewis. Sure Holmes was older, but he wasnt washed up like your making it seem. If he was he wouldnt have gone on to have 24 or 25 fights and only lose to two champions at the peaks of their respective careers. (throw out he Nielson robbery). :blurp

 

I'm saying they sucked against Holmes. They did.
Dont get me wrong, I credit Holmes with be a wily, cagey old fighter, even when he was fat and washed-up.

I consistently dont rate McCall. I think he sucked generally.
I thought he clearly beat Holmes.

Mercer was a tough fighter but I never saw him do much boxing until the Holyfield/Lewis fights in '95/'96. Mercer could take a punch and Morrison couldn't miss him. Mercer was face-first fighter and was being outboxed by Damiani AND Morrison. He was dismal against Holmes. Later he was outboxed by Ferguson. You can say I'm "making excuses", but it's all true, isn't it ?
Mercer was favoured to beat Holmes by wearing him down though, and I credit Holmes for the win over a contender.

Holyfield was undisputed champion but his win over Holmes wasn't impressive. Holyfield was often ordinary against fighters who didn't come at him. His win over Alex Stewart a year later wasn't impressive either.
I give Holmes credit for going the distance and having his moments but he looked old and tired for almost the entire fight. He was like a troublesome sparmate in there, never looked like he had the vigor to really go take the title. Kind of "washed-up".

(Well, he got a gift over Maurice Harris a few month after the Nielsen fight so that kind of cancels out the injustice.)

Anyway, Holmes fought a load of third-raters. Mercer was the only half decent one he beat. Still, I reckon Holmes was washed-up, and he wasn't even remotely in shape. 1992 he looked old, and just got worse. Yes, he was cagey, yes, he could still box a bit and teach some of the cruder fighters a thing or two. But he was horribly over-the-hill.

 

My own take is that a great deal of Holmes' stature as an older fighter does rest on being able to outpoint Mercer. Mercer was tough and a dangerous puncher, but having seen his fights with Damiani and Ferguson, he was not difficult to outbox at that point in his career.

 

Well maybe Holmes had something to do with it.

I dont either, but Holmes was 45 years old, seven years older and 47 when he fought Nielson and Harris not 38. Keep in mind he took more time off after Tyson and came back again.

Do you really think he got substantially that much better over the course of two or three years fighting nobodies and still showing inconsistencies? He was beaten more soundly by Holmes than he was by both Lewis and Holyfield and had a draw with 7-9 Marion Wilson before taking on Holyfield.

Nah, if your horribly over the hill you dont beat or compete the way Holmes did. Look at Holyfield at a comparable age getting shut out by Larry Donald.
I will agree fighters with the style of Holmes can last longer, and they also have the ability to comeback and compete quicker, ala Leonard, Mayweather, Ali. Timing is not as big of a factor as it is with a guy like Foreman or Tyson who come forward. Thats why I dont think Holmes was as washed up or rusty as most like to downplay going into the Tyson fight.

 

He was never hard to outbox. Mercer performed well against guys that came at him, but he showed some good ability to take boxing away from fighters like Lewis and Holyfield and turn it more into a brawl. I think Holmes being more of a pure boxer created a lot of problems for Mercer from a stylistic point.

 

I agree there......Mercer made Damiani look like Willie Pep but in the body of a caveman and Ferguson was no boxer....Mercer was clueless in the art of boxing

 

Yeah, I expect he was "better" against Tyson. He didn't look too bad in his fight prior to Tyson, in fact many had him beating Spinks .... but he was coming straight off 21-month layoff retirement.

I cant quantify how much better Mercer got. I'm not saying he got that much better, but he did look noticeably better. He still got hit too much but jabbed and put his punches together better. He credited his new-found boxing ability to a new trainer if I remember rightly. And I believe Mercer started boxing only about a year before the 1988 Olympics, so it's not far-fetched to believe he could be taught still a good deal 6 years down the road. I mean, if someone with the experience of Lennox Lewis can improve with a change of trainer then someone raw and unpolished like Mercer surely can.
Having said that, I dont know if the Mercer who fought Holyfield beats Holmes.
It's worth watching the tapes to review it.

Well, Holyfield always said that his chronic shoulder and back injuries a factor in that one. But I agree he was shot by then, though I reckon Holyfield in his prime might have looked very very ordinary against Larry Donald. As his did against Holmes in '92. It's styles thing.

The fight was considered a joke at the time going in. People were asking how could Holmes think he has a chance having been off for 21-months and having looked like a shadow of his former self in his last year or two of fighting before then. To have not tune-up before facing a champion like Tyson, or to not have proven himself against a top-contender (or even a fringe one) to earn his shot, this was considered a scandal.

In his 50 fight-career he'd never taken more than 12-months off (and that was due to the Coetzee fight falling through) and he'd never been genuinely retired before, (whereas he was from mid-late '86 to late '87). I'd say this means he was rusty.

 

Walcott, Charles,Lastarza,Louis,Moore,Layne,Matthews and Vingo pop up a lot but the way that Rocky beat them...These ex-champs were experienced skillfull fighters that showed they still had power and skill....Holmes was inactive but other than Weaver and Norton and Witherspoon, he was not really in too many wars. Holmes was not prime but I think it was a matter of styles the pressure, unorthodox punching angles and solid right hand that SO dominated Holmes but I would bet a large sum Tyson gets Holmes at any stage of his career...Tyson had his number

 

What Moore did to Lavorante was just as impressive if not more impressive than what Holmes did with Mercer. Pushing 50, Moore beat the highly regarded rising contneder 6'3" Lavorante into the hospital and effectively ended his career, giving him his first stoppage loss from which he never recovered. And while Mercer was coming off a KO of Morrison, Lavorante was coming off a KO of Foley. Holmes retired after Tyson again....rebounding a few years later with a much better staged comeback. Holmes wasn't even considering a comeback against Tyson until they waved millions of dollars in his face.

 

Have to go with Holmes on this one. Since Larry Holmes only KO loss is to Tyson even after fighting highly regarded power punchers and solid opponents well in to his 40s, says a lot to me.

 

I just did... or at least tried.

... rehab is not an option.

 

Can you verify this with some sort of statement with a source. I know it seems like a lot but this seems totally unlike Holmes to do/say/admit.