First of all, I've watched the fight and it was very close. I scored it 6-6, and if you give McCall round 9 (10-8 ), then McCall wins it 1 point. Two judges gave McCall that 1 point margin, which means that had Holmes won 1 more round, he'd have won the fight. What would it add to his legasy? 1) Do you think he should've been ranked in everybody's top-3 if he won WBC title at 45 2) Would there be Holmes - Foreman dream unification fight (both at 46) 3) Would Tyson come back against Holmes and tries to win the belt against the man he destroyed 8 years earlier?
I think it just highlights how mediocre McCall was. That a Holmes as faded as he was in 1995 could almost win a World Title is shocking, looking back at it. Of course, McCall winning the title was a semi-fluke made possible by Lewis's overconfidence and weak chin.
But as mediocre as McCall was, he was a hard hitter with an iron chin, not an easy task for any 45 years old. What do you think about Holmes fights vs Foreman and Tyson of early 96'?
you mean if he had fought those two at that time? I think he could have outpointed George and probably would have been stopped by Tyson.
McCall wasn't mediocre. Over a 11-year span (1990-2001), he fought 30 times and only suffered four losses. During that period, he knocked out Lewis, Seldon, Akinwande, Maskaev, Damiani, outpointed Holmes, came within a hair of outpointing Tucker (I thought McCall won) and Norris, and had Bruno out on his feet at the end of their fight. Hell, you could argue McCall beat better guys in the 1990s than Rid**** Bowe. With fighters we consider "great," many people on this board dismiss their early and late-career losses ... and insist we should only judge them when they were at their best. Most of McCall's losses were early in his career or when he was age 39-49. If we use the same criteria to judge McCall ... and just look at when he was fighting his best ... from 1990 to 2001 ... when he fought 30 times against many top names of the 1990s, he was equal to them all or better. Nobody who fought McCall considered him an easy out. If Holmes had won, and I bought the PPV and was rooting for him that night, it would've certainly lifted Holmes a few notches in the all-time standings ... like it did with Foreman.
