Did Holmes take it Easy on Ali?

He started out hitting Ali as he would have anyone else, but as it when on he only did it in spurts trying to get the fight stopped. He hit Ali a very hard right hook to the body which doubled Ali over, and he also hit him with a right uppercut which caused Ali to nearly turn the other way. Larry was trying to get it stopped, he wasn't trying to knock Ali cold.

 

If you watched the fight, you could see that Larry was trying to get the fight stopped. It's not like Holmes was trying to punish Ali. He was just doing his job.

 

ONE OF hOLMES STRENGTHS WAS THAT HE WAS MEAN...sorry hit cap-locks...anyway NO..Holmes gave Ali a beating and that was one fight that I wanted stopped, Ali got hit so much...Holmes put a lot of coins in that Parkenson Bank that night..

 

Bill, in all the time that you've spent around Holmes, has he ever mentioned anything about that fight? I suspect its probably not something that he likes to talk about, but I'm just curious.

 

Parkinson's is not a disease that is typically associated with head trauma. Although I'm sure that taking some of the beatings that Ali took throughout his whole career did no good for his health regardless..

 

I did a research presentation for a class in my undergrad studies and there is a strong correlation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1014344/pdf/jnnpsyc00500-0016.pdf

Somewhat old article, I know, and I'm not sure if it's been replicated.

If I read the article correctly, [FONT=&quot]ubiquitin, a protein which is associated with Parkinson's disease, is found in the [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]neurofibrillary tangles which are a symptom of pugilistica dementia.[/FONT]

 

This is true. People said that he looked the same as when he fought liston 15 years earlier but if you compare his physique from the liston fight to the holmes fight you can see the difference. He may have had the top but his belly was flabby. You could also see the funny look in ali's eye's when he came into the ring.

 

I'd say Holmes alternated how hard he was going at various times. At first he started off normal, working the jab and straight right. After the first couple of rounds though, he backs off a little, lightening up on the punishment.

In the mid rounds, whether for the purpose of forcing a stoppage or to get ali to shut up, Holmes picked up both the pace and the effort he was putting into his punches. He never entirely cut loose and threw 100%, but he was throwing somewhere around 90 when he battered Ali along the ropes.

In the last round or two Holmes backed off again, now obviously not taking the opportunities he had to go after Ali. The fight finally gets stopped.

In the end Holmes beat Ali badly, (obviously) and hit him pretty hard at times and put together a few tough combinations, but he never went all out, not even by his standards. Watching, say, the way Holmes threw punches in the last round of Shavers II, there's a definite difference between that and how Holmes was hitting Ali, even at his hardest. The last few sequences against Shavers, Holmes was obviously putting his whole body into the attack, even to the extent of sacrificing balance to do it. I can't recall him doing the same in the Ali bout.

(Note: I have only seen the entire fight once, in order to use parts of it in my Ali tribute video, so while that's how I remember it I will concede that it's not gospel or anything).

 

Add me on for that list. To some degree Ali looked good, but his stomach was obviously a mess, without any tightness or tone.

 

You honestly believe Holmes gave his usual 100% for the entire bout? You don't think he backed off at all at anytime?

 

Holmes just couldn't punch hard enough to KO Ali outright.

 

Agree with this post.

I don't think Holmes fought Ali full out and he did take it easy on him in moments during the fight. He still boxed and punched hard enough to clearly dictate the fight, but took it lightly on Ali as the rounds went on, realizing he didn't have much left.

 

This. Sometimes its better to get knocked out quickly than take a sustained beating, and Ali took a good butt whooping but Holmes was not a one punch KO type of guy.

 

I don't know. If Larry was taking it easy on him, it wasn't obvious to me. He seemed to be teeing off on Ali pretty good.

 

NO! Not at all..... Holmes fought like a solid pro methodically beating a man down...... Holmes did that to Ali......... Ali was ill and a shell, but he still owned heart and soul....... The PPV sucked weenie deep and wide in 1980......

MR.BILL:|