Better Victory: Marciano over Moore or Tyson over Holmes?

People are good in lying to themselves especially when huge money is involved and quite often they see the mistakes they made just when it's too late. Human nature I guess.

 

Here is a very insightful interview some 90 days before the fight. Also something I didnt know and Tompkins commented on was how good Larry looked in a recent 15 round exhibition fight before going into training for the Tyson fight.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m861f99Nkvk[/ame]

 

People and especially former great fighters are also very bad at coming to the reality that they got the crap kicked out of them because they're not the best anymore. :good Watch the interview and see what Holmes has to say about the money. I guess he was selling the fight, just like he was selling getting his head handed to him after?

 

holmes had had his day, his career had run its course, he gambled with his legacy and it did not pay off. just like joe louis taking on ezzard charles after an absence of 2 years. Holmes would have had more to offer had he got in line and earned his shot. Tyson no more beat the real holmes as ezzard beat the real louis.
Holyfeild beat a beter Holmes since that larry re seasoned himself and earned his shot, it still wasnt the real Holmes either just an old man with some tricks who could still mess guys around and posibly get lucky. The holmes tyson fought should not have been there he had the tricks but had not used them for a long while. big diffrence.

 

I think the main point that we should be taking from the story is that Holmes was nervous and scared and had huge doubts about his ability to win or survive the fight.
Obviously, like most fighters he's going to add in another alibi to that (common examples, "not ready", "not fully recovered from a training injury", "changing my trainer was a mistake", "took the weight off too quick" etc.). And we can dismiss that part of the story.

But what we shouldn't dismiss is that EVERYBODY in the world, including Larry Holmes, knew that Holmes was facing an impossible task and going to the gallows. The fight was a mismatch going in. Holmes was 38 years old, coming off a long layoff, going against a good young active champion KO artist.
The fight was a joke.

 

Good post. The most common comparison made going into the fight was the Louis/Marciano one ... Few picked Holmes ... the huge story was how decisively Tyson destroyed him ... it was not a hugfest like Green/Smith/Tucker but a blowout for Tyson.

 

Do you remember anything about that 15 round exhibition and who it was against?

 

No, I dont remember it. Sounds like something Holmes put on in his backyard.

 

Wasn't it Tillis? Or perhaps Mercado?


It rang a bell when you posted that, but I'm not sure if I recall the right guy. What I do remember was the guy chosen was not the style guy to help prepare for a Tyson fight. Instead it was a real safe guy and not any kind of threat.

 

.... plus it wasn't even a real fight !

 

Yeah but it adds a little credibility to the arguement that Holmes wasnt just plucked off his couch and thrown into the fight. He started preparing some 4-6 months prior.

 

Larry was prepared for the fight. One thing about Holmes he was always fit, liked his beer between fights but he was old school mentality for that era, one of the few. Thing is he never faced a puncher like Tyson with good finishing skills in his career. Tyson was far better than anyone Holmes fought. He used his skills to go 4 rds but even in his prime I would bet on Tyson. Holmes had trouble with short right hand punchers. He was Ko'd 2 times by Nick Wells in the unpaid ranks who was 5"10-ish but Nick had brutal power.

 

I have my doubts about a prime Larry Holmes beating the very best version of Mike Tyson. But it seems however, that the notion has been formulated that Holmes was still serviceable going into their 1988 match-up, and that the outcome is an indicator that Tyson would have been the victor regardless of Larry's condition. Holmes began showing signs of deterioration as far back as 1983 in his fights with Tim Witherspoon and Lucien Rodriguez.. He looked terrible against Carl The truth, and was convincingly beaten by Michael Spinks in their 1st meeting. Taking two years off, then climbing back into the ring at age 38 and a weighing a career high 225 lbs, while in the other corner, you had a man who had spent the same duration of Holmes' retirement, destroying probably 8 or 9 of the division's best fighters... This was a mismatch from the word go, and I don't think it matters how much sparring, road work or preparation that Larry did in the months leading up to it.. There are some aspects of the sweet science, that once taken away, are gone forever..

The fact that Holmes launched a comeback 3 years later in the spring of 1991, should have no influence on any idea that he had anything left in 1988.. For one thing, he came back gradually by facing journeyman and tomato cans, before stepping in the ring with upper tier fighters, many of whom were a stylistic fit and hardly on the level of a Mike Tyson anyway. As for going the distance with Holy, if I remember watching that match, neither man was there to take the fight to the other.. They were basically going through the motions....


Bottom line, while Mike Tyson may very well have beaten Holmes in his prime, the 1988 match is no indication of anything.

 

Moore was a great LHW champion, Holmes was a great HW champion. Moore had been KO'd several times already and would be KO'd more times in the future. Holmes was never KO'd before or after. Tyson victory over Holmes was more one-sided. Holmes landed nothing significant on Tyson while Moore floored Marciano.

The only thing that weighs against this is that Moore probably was closer to his prime. It's not close IMO.