Holmes was the ultimate ****talker

It sounds like he want to have Holyfield frustrated before the fight. Especially with the way he fought off of the ropes, even though he said he was going to go right at him.

 

I believe he also introduced the phrase, "You can kiss my big black ass."

 

You don't want to mess with Larry on the outside.Though he ducked Greg Page and Pinklon Thomas in it.

 

He usually came across as crass and not too classy.

 

After he vacated the WBC title and Witherspoon beat Page, Larry said "I told you neither of them could fight."

He neglected to mention Witherspoon had him (Larry) badly hurt and gave him a very tough fight.

Let's just say Larry was not loved for his personality.

 

I think Larry was a class act deep down, he was frustrated because kind of like Sonny Liston he was a champ no one wanted. People cheered for Spinks against him just because they didn't want Marciano's record broken, and he felt he got screwed by the judges over it. People hated him for beating up on Ali too, even though he never wanted the fight and cried afterwards because of punishing a Parkinson's riddled Ali. He also got a lot of threats from white supremacists before and after the Coo-ney fight.

Man took a lot of flak in his career he didn't deserve, and didn't get recognized for being the fighter he was till much later on. Its not necessarily an excuse for his behavior sometimes, but it made it halfway understandable.

Only issue I really have with Holmes is his disrespect of George Foreman. No cause for that. Great though he was, Larry might want to count his blessings that Foreman was retired during the tail end of the 70's and early 80's when he had his reign, because George during those years if he got the right trainer might have been a monster we never saw, his speed and movement still in tact from the early 70's, and his ring savvy and smarts from the early 90's all rolled into one fighter. Think about it, Foreman was a guy whose prime we never saw, and he still went 76-5.

 

He always came across as a massive bafoon.

 

Larry could have given Tim that rematch, but he chumped out. And Page was going through a lot of **** with Don King at the time, given his personality, he couldn't handle. Larry was indeed a trip at times.

 

The one thing Larry excels at is picking heavyweight fights. For a long time now. He's one of the few ex-boxers I bother to pay attention to. He has deep insight into things and is seldom wrong.