Who would you say did better overall against Mercer and McCall -- an ageing Larry Holmes, or Lennox Lewis?
Holmes, clearly. I think Holmes's class was highlighted later in his career; the fact he could hang with these guys and more showed how good he really was.
different styles and different conditioned athlete, Mercer had an iron chin but light punchers like Jesse Ferguson outpointed Mercer around the time as the Holmes fight. Lewis fought the wrong fight looking to bomb Mercer instead of just touch him. McCall sparked a young Lewis but cried his way out of his fight with a primer version and Holmes lost a decision again McCall could be touched but had an iron chin, i think Vlad learned the same lesson against Purity, some guys you can break some guys you just got to touch and pile up points I am not sure Larry could beat the Lennox version of Tyson or the younger greener version of Vitali....Lewis had a short career and a lot of his wins were not over prime guys but I still think he beats Holmes resume as far as fighting guys at their best, not novice or old
Larry's schooling of Mercer helped pave the way for Ray's own near upset of Lennox, after Mercer finally came to the realization, "I guess I'd better learn how to box!" Obviously, Holmes did far better against McCall than Lennox just had, but Larry also had the luxury of advanced notice about Ollie's right. [In fact, it was McCall's ninth round left which finally turned things his way.] It's always been my contention that peak Holmes would have gotten up from McCall and Rachman to win, while Shavers and Snipes would have stopped Lennox then and there with those seventh round KD's they pulled on Larry.
Not really. I vacillate between rating Lennox or Holmes higher. It's more a not-so-veiled suggestion that fighters who developed in the 70's must have been pretty good by modern standards.
The success of the older versions of Holmes and Foreman in the 90s, should give serious pause for thought to those who think that this was a golden era due to the preponderance of punchers and larger heavyweights.
Yep. Boxing is generally a young man's game, but it's also one of the few where a fat old guy can beat the crap out of a stronger, faster contender in his prime.
"They don't have jabs."-Larry Holmes about his 1990s competition. The Assassin had noted that Foreman was succeeding in large part by having Archie Moore dust off George's jab, and turn it into a serviceably accurate weapon despite lack of speed. [It wasn't unusual for Foreman to have a 50% scoring rate with his jab in the 1990s against top flight opponents like Holyfield.] Body punching had fallen out of vogue, but Futch disciple Bowe applied it. Unlike many tall heavyweights, he met shorter opponents on the inside with punches instead of clinches or Foremanesque shove-aways, and had a pretty good career record with Futch's developmental background as a professional underpinning. Due to Eddie's influence, he was something of a throwback in that respect.
