Holmes says he would have beaten Ali in his prime

Every great fighter is overrated to some degree. With each champion comes a different generation of people who witnessed both his rise and fall, and feel that he was the best. There really are no exceptions. Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jack Dempsey and Jack Johnson have all been accused of being overrated at some time or another. The same thing will happen in 20 or 30 years when people look back on the careers of fighters like Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.

It tends to come with the territory of historical hindsite.

 

Ali & Marciano are not overrated, especially Marciano.

 

Ali is overrated. I even saw someone say that Ali was a huge hitter, though I saw the same thing on Larry's website.

I think 1980-1982 Holmes vs 1966-1967 Ali, I think Ali wins 2/3. It's not like Ali would be able to dance circles around Larry, Larry could dance when he wanted/needed to in his prime, he just chose not to. Larry would win the battle of jabs and on the inside, but Ali was good at stealing rounds and good at making people looking like fools. One thing that I think should be mentioned is that the best of Larry was usually brought out in the important fights, the first Shavers fight, the Norton fight (even though he had a torn tricep), the Cooney fight, and the Mercer fight. He looked great in all of these. I doubt anyone would get knocked down or out. They both lacked the power to majorly damage eachothers chins. I think Larry hit a tad harder, but I think Ali's chin was a tad better.

It would be a great fight, and I would have loved to watch it.

 

What was up with Holmes going into fights injured?

He had a scrwed up hand against Tiger Williams?

 

You there!

Respect Jurgle Blin!

 

I really don't think Holmes would have problems at all against Rocky. The only little guy he every had problems with was Tyson, and that is because he was old and coming out of retirement.

I think a prime Holmes would have destroyed Marciano and stopped him. Holmes would have busted him up and hurt him. Rocky may have landed some punches, but he was no one punch kayo artist. He would have paid a terrible price trying to get inside Larry's jab and defense. I see the fight getting stopped by the 8th round.

 

:bart

:rofl

 

Some one had not seen the Marciano Walcott and Layne fights.

Marciano has the style to relly give Holmes trouble, If Cooney can do what he did vs Holmes pretty good, than a better version, Rocky Marciano would do better imo. I think its 50 50, and would not write either off like your doing. Holmes will NOT have a easy time with the Rock.

 

Marciano - Holmes, I would favor Marciano in this matchup. Marciano would be all over him from round 1 until the fight ended and Holmes had a tendency to get hit with the right hand at times. Add Holmes' willingness to brawl at times to all this and you would have a recipe for a Marciano win.

Ali - Holmes is very interesting and could possibly go either way but I'd favor Ali. Both present troubling styles for the other but in this case, I believe Ali's speed would be more of a factor than Holmes' power and would give the nod to Ali by decision most likely.

 

No, he busted his hand on his head in the 3rd, the same right hand he broke on Michael Spinks's head in their rematch in the 3rd. He went into the first Weaver fight with the flu.

 

I'll confess, I'm a Holmes fan. But it really annoys me what he's said about Lewis in the past. He said "Lewis lacked heart, never had a jab, and who did he fight, Tyson and Holyfield were past their primes and washed up". Thats double standards from Holmes when he questions Lewis' quality of opposition when he himself hardly fought any great fighters. You can't hold it against Holmes too much because he more or less fought the best fighters his particular era had to offer, with the exception of Page and a couple of others. I don't mind Holmes knocking Lewis, but he just knocks him down far too much IMO.

 

I agree, but I sort of think that he's just used to going about things that way because that's what happend to him with Ali. People don't bash Ali for fighting Evangelista or Spinks, but they rip Larry apart for it. So I think that's what he's doing now.

 

http://larryholmes.ytmnd.com/

 

Holmes overrated? I disagree. Larry was never given the credit he rightly deserved by the fans or the experts when he was champion. It was only when Holmes retired the first time that people really started given him his due!

Holmes is one of the most underrated fighters of all time & in my opinion, the most underrated HW of all time. Larry was a special fighter. Unlike other champions, Holmes's road to the title was a lot tougher than because people didn't want him as a champ. He worked his ass off & got to the top.

 

Holmes ,likely could have beaten Ali a lot earlier given the chance,Prime for Prime,I think he loses ,but not by much say a split dec.