Holmes or Lewis?

Well i think we should use are common sense and credit Holmes for coming back at age 35 (or 36?) to beat the only man who legitly beat him, Spinks. I don't want to question all decision, but calls like Holmes vs Spinks II and Lewis vs Holyfield I are seen as ridiculous by nearly every boxing observer.

 

I understand the points that you are trying to make, and I agree Holmes-SpinksII and Holyfield-LewisI were bad decisions. So was Whitaker-Chavez, Snipes-Coetzee and Whitaker-Ramirez, Leonard-HearnsII, Lewis-Mercer, etc. We can go on and on about bad decisions, but we can't ad numbers to the win columns of these fighters just because we disagree with the outcomes of their fights.

 

Holmes. And it's not even close. Lewis is very overrated. You never saw Larry Holmes taken out early by fighters like Rahman or McCall.

 

Don't kid yaself.

 

You also never saw Lewis giving title shots to Evangelista, Cobb, Rodriguez, Ledoux, L. Spinks, Bey, Frank, Ocasio and M.Frazier. You also never saw him duck nearly as many top challengers, or failing to unify titles.

But hey, what's that got to do with anything?

 

You never saw Holmes duck anyone either. You never saw Lewis have to deal with as much **** as Holmes, and you never saw new titles being made (formed/known) while Lewis was champ.

 

After months of debating this issue, I know you know this statement not to be true.

 

Of course not. Those guys weren't active fighters during Lewis's reign, or if they were they were OLD MEN.
(Lewis did fight an old Ocasio in an early non-title bout).

Lewis made title defenses against men of his era, like Phil Jackson, Zelko Mavrovic, Andrew Golota, Frans Botha, Hasim Rahman.

 

Please, I know Lewis fought a few bums here and there, but do you really think those guys that you listed were worse than Leon Spinks, Alfredo Evangelista or Lucien Rodriguez? I know those men were not the best fighters that Holmes fought with all due respect to Larry, but overall, I think Lewis fought better comp.

 

Let me guess, you were thinking of Gerrie Coetzee, Greg Page, Pinklon Thomas, and Michael Dokes? I think if you looked more into politics had most to do with it. Holmes and Coetzee came with in 1 month of fighting.

 

Larry fought 3 of the guys Lewis fought, the only difference were all 3 were in their primes, and they weren't when Lewis got to them. I won't go into Tyson again, but Larry clearly beat Mercer. A strong argument can be made that Mercer deserved the nod in the fight against Lewis. Larry fought prime Holyfield, and gave him hell. Ledderman scored it 7-5 Holyfield, I scored it the same way. Lewis beat the **** out of an older Holyfield in the first fight, and the 2nd one was a lot closer. Its pretty clear what a prime Holmes would have done in the 90's IMO.

 

I'm not disagreeing that Holmes may have been a better fighter head to head. I will also ad that I don't think Larry ever would have lossed to McCall or Rahman. But if we're looking at legacies and comp quality the edge may very well go to Lewis. Lewis may have ducked Chris Byrd, but Holmes gave shots to Rodiriguez, Frazier and Frank during a time when Dokes, Page and Thomas were meandering about. Lewis had some bad losses but avenged them both, one of which came at 35, the same age that Holmes was when he lost to Spinks. Sure, the fight was a robbery, but Lewis was far more decisive in knocking out Rahman. Cooney, Shavers and Norton were likely Holmes' best wins. Not bad victories of course, but Lewis beat prime versions of Ruddock, Mason, Klitschko, Tua, Morrison and a number of others who were at their peaks. Norton and Shavers were still competitive, but declining. Cooney was off for 13 months and only fought 1 round in the previous two years, plus was relatively untested. Witherspoon was 15-0, and may have been gifted a decision against Snipes in his last fight. All of the above fighters gave Holmes a handful of trouble, and except for Shavers, none got rematches.

 

Not quite convinced by this Mr.Woddy!

While Ruddock was the most dramatic showcase of Lewis's ability, Ruddock was coming off two consecutive losses. He was physically close to prime, but perhaps psychologically damaged goods...

Tua was overweight for the Lewis fight, Morrison was so sick it was thought he had contracted AIDS, and Mason is/was ordinary.

I am not a particular fan of Lewis's comp, any more than I am a fan of Holmes comp.

 

I don't know how sick Morrison really was, but it wasn't made known that he had contracted HIV until after the Lewis fight. Simply carrying the virus is no guarantee that it will effect an athlete's performance. Magic Johnson led the Lakers to the NBA finals in 1991, while carrying HIV, he still had a great year, depite being 32 years old, and playing in 82 games. Ruddock may have been damaged goods after the Tyson fight, but we don't know for sure. Thats just a guess, and anyway I don't think anyone could have done to him what Lewis did in 1992. Tua was a bit of a lard ass against Lewis, but Lewis was 35 years old himself. Holmes at 35 was fighting Carl Williams who had 16 fights, and barely lost to Holmes by a razor thin margin. Mason was ordinary, but he was undefeated in 35 fights with 32 KOs and was likely no worse than some of the fighters Holmes gave title shots to, and Lewis was 14-0 when he faced him.

 

The other guys had their own versions of the alpha titles, and King wasn't about to give up millions by letting Holmes unify, and Larry wasn't willing to go through Kings crap for any longer anyway. He didn't use King if he didn't have to.