Half of Larry Holmes' best wins were against inexperienced fighters

In fairness, Witherspoon was awesome despite his lack of experience.

 

Yes, I agree that Larry's title defense choices were poor for fans and rich for himself. He beat up young guys before they could evolve into a threat to him. I think Larry's a great fighter, but not a satsifying champion. I sat in frustration during his entire reign as he rolled out one sacrificial lamb after another. It was self-serving and did nothing to help the sport, the fans, or the decent contenders who deserved a shot.

And now to grip the Earth tightly, as the Holmes fans swarm me like locusts. This too shall pass.

 

It's really quite ridiculous, the ways people can find to nitpick, fact-twist and stat-manipulate to discredit even ATG legacies. :-(

 

...instead of ____?

Who are the murderer's row of decent contenders that were available at the time to be helped along with the sport and the fans?

(Incidentally, still a relevant question when applied to the current champion...and yes, it's singular champion; **** his brother)

 

Holmes was an animal

 

WHOA! Stop the presses.

Page, Dokes, Tate and Coetzee? That's one serious h2h Alpha Team.

I reckon they'd each be able to take out prime versions of Louis, Clay, Schmeling and Frazier in less than two rounds apiece.

What a ******* Holmes was to duck these monsters!

 

Larry Holmes was one of the greatest heavyweights ever.

 

:edit: probably best ignore my post, I didn't put much thought into it

It's not as bad as you make it out to be. 7 out of the 9 you listed were in the top 10 according the Ring at the time:

-Trevor Berbick (18-1) 6th
-Leon Spinks (10-2) 3rd
-Tim Witherspoon (15-0) 5th
-Bonecrusher Smith (14-1) 9th
-David Bey (14-0) 3rd
-Carl Williams (16-0) 8th
-Ray Mercer (18-0) 8th

Perhaps they would have been better fights if they had a couple of extra years experience each, but Holmes fought the majority of top 10 fighters in the 80s and early 90s. It is a little suprising to see people with so few fights so highly ranked, but with hindsight we know that some of those were deserved.

 

I supposed you're going to ignore the wins many of those people were comming off of when they fought Holmes...

Ocasio was comming off of 2 consecutive wins over Jimmy Young.
Ray Mercer was obviously comming off of the brutal KO of Tommy Morrison.
Trevor Berbick was comming off of a KO win over John Tate.
Leon Spinks was comming off of a win over the hard punching Mercardo.
Marvis Frazier was comming off of a win over Joe Bugner and went on to defeat many good fighters soon afterwards.
Tim Witherspoon and Carl Williams both put on career best performances against Holmes, who was past prime for both fights.
David Bey was comming off of a win over Greg Page.
James Smith was comming off of a KO win over the 21-0 Frank Bruno.

It's easy to just look at the numbers, but Holmes can't help it if these green people were beating the more experienced fighters and bigger names.

 

40+ year old way past it Larry Holmes beat Ray Mercer far more convincingly than prime Lennox Lewis did.

 

:goodWell put.Nice post:good

 

Yesiree:good