How good was Larry Holmes really??

anything you say sonny.

 

BS!

Holmes was a much better boxer than Foreman. Per-Ali, Foreman was just a dumb brawler with not much boxing skills, but very strong with a huge punch. He reminded me a lot of Sonny Liston.

Holmes gets a lot of flack due to the way he beat Ali when Ali was at the end of his career, but Holmes was a great champion. He picked up the slack when Ali retired but fought in Ali's shadow.

 

Homes was a Ali wannabe inside the ring and outside

 

Ali greatly influenced many boxers.
Holmes's style was the closest thing to Ali, then came Sugar Ray Leonard and Michael Nunn.

Holmes was a very great champion to have to come out on the coat tails of Ali. That's the hardest act to follow in boxing.

 

Calm down Mac. I said "most" of Holmes opponents were quite rightly viewed as poor. (Not every single one).
You have cherry-picked the BEST men he faced.

And as Plank has accurately pointed out even most of THEM were either flawed or very flawed to say the least.

Let me re-state - I followed that scene AT THE TIME buddy.

Just be clear - I have always been a Holmes fan, then and now. He was a great champion. Very, very good and very tough. But I wont stand for rewriting history and propagating myths.
In recent times it has become fashionable (most likely among young fans who never saw him at the time) to elevate Larry to God-like status in boxing. He was very good - but not that good.

 

I think, in general, that his opposition looks better in retrospect than it did at the time.

Smith, Witherspoon, Weaver, Ocasio and Berbick all had title reigns. Norton and Shavers were mainstays in one of the heavyweight golden ages. Cooney was a legit hard hitting contender for a while. Ditto Snipes. Bey and Jones weren't great; but they were both coming off wins over legit contenders coming into their challenges.

The opposition isn't amazing collectively, but it's not all that poor either. It's a respectable group of opponents was by and large was dispatched with some efficiency by one of the better heavyweights who stepped inside the ring.

 

op

 

Oh yeah that Jab would have the mummy see Elizabeth Taylor in his locker room again :yep

 

This. How many people were alive were Holmes was champ.

The heavyweight were horrible

 

tyson was seen as the savior. the guy delivering us from the worst hw era ever.

 

He was clearly underrated in his day and is a tad overrated currently.

The usual chants of 'weak era' by those living through it and their nostalgia for the recent departure from the scene of Liston, Ali, Frazier, Foreman and to a lesser degree, Norton, even though there was overlap.

He carried (and still does) a huge chip on his shoulder around the issue of not getting his dues, living in Ali's shadow. He was certainly not the most likeable dude on the scene, and that didn't help him with fans in his day.

I scored his fight with Norton a draw (there should have been a rematch) and I thought Tim beat him clearly. The fight was close, too close to term a robbery, but IMO, Tim took it. Neither man was given a rematch.

He failed to take on all comers, but did build up a very decent resume of the possibles of his era. He had a very solid chin that saved him on occasion, and all round good technical skills. I rank Liston (and Wlad !) above him in the jab department and Ali in footwork and movement, and even though he was a better boxer than Foreman, I think he would have lost to early Foreman.

In addition to having a great run, second only to Louis in title defences, he had an excellent run through the nineties, taking Ray Mercer's zero and giving a 14 years younger prime Holyfield a serious scrap.

He bears some responsibility for the existence of the IBF as he confered legitimacy as its fledgling flagship champion, but it might have survived to muddy the waters even if he'd stuck with the WBC.

I have him 5 or 6 alltime in the HW rankings.

A bit higher in the alltime **** category.

 

never tried to unify. had quite a streak of defences against novices. was a horrible racist. ducked as much as anyone, ever.

 

He made me by clothing and sports shoes by 'Pony'.

 

Holmes...was mot good but Great! A prime Holmes beats 90% of past and present HW with ease!