Some good points. I see Holmes at his prime, at least as I remember him, to be sharper and more disciplined than Lewis. I think prime Holmes would outpoint prime Lewis. Certainly don't base an evaluation of Holmes on the Tyson fight.
Larry Holmes is the best. Him and Riddick Bowe are my two top favorite fighters of all time. Larry had the best jab in heavyweight history imho and is greatly undercredited. A true warrior who would have given any heavyweight throughout history a tough night with more than a 90% chance of beating them.
Larry is definite top ten, and he probably had the best jab of the heavyweights ever, but it hurt him a little that he didn't unify the title(somewhat out of his hands), and that he didn't fight Greg Page, and Pinklon Thomas, and rematch Tim Witherspoon, among other things.
Garbage. Tyson had em outta there in like 7 rnds , and cooney even hurt him a couple times. When he reigned, it was like a rerun of the Joe Louis "bum of the month " reign. The he got beat twice by an also weak light heavyweight.. Hes luck Shavers didnt ko him as well
Top 5 all time. Completely dominated the division for years. some of the best quotes as well. When asked with all his money why he still lived in Easton, "Cuz in Easton you don't keep up with the joneses you keep up with the Holmeses.
Larry Holmes was the best of his time and one of the best of all time. He could do everything Muhammad Ali could do except draw the fans. Holmes was a PR disaster. Every time he opened his mouth he stuck he stuck both feet in. If he had never said a word he probably would have made a lot more money.
We had an argument regarding Liston recently. While Liston would NOT beat Lewis nor Vitaly... Holmes is a far better option for that job. I have both Lewis and Vitaly in my top 7 ATG HW in H2H terms. Holmes is also their (Liston is not).
One of the things that prompted the question was I looked at Larry's career record (focusing obviously just up to the Spinks fights) and while he had an amazing amount of consecutive title defenses I noticed two things. 1). (Forgive me b/c i'll probably get teh belts wrong from memory) but it seemed like he defended maybe the WBC title numerous times and then just went straight to the IBF. Makes me wonder if he ducked a fighter and got stripped and 2). While he was champion (and had the 2 different belts I mentioned) for so long why didn't he ever attempt to unify the championships?
Larry Holmes is without a doubt, top 5 alltime heavy material. In his prime, he would`ve decisevely beat Holyfield and Lewis. Why? He had THE best jab in history. This is not a misprint. His jab was extemely fast and unusually heavy. He could shoot down to the body and snap it up to the head with tremendous precision. Great footwork, boxing savvy and ring generalship. You could touch his chin, but (unlike Lewis) you couldn`t finish him and when he got up , look out...A truly prime time Holmes is trouble for ANYONE in the upper heavy echelon. What I liked most about Larry is that he fought with an atitude. He always felt disrespected so he fought with something to prove every time out. He would have done to Holyfield what Bowe did to him first time out. Except he would have done it with more distance between them. And Holy would not have been able to solve Holmes` jab and right uppercut. He would have carefully and smartly outboxed Lewis as well. The legacy of the `Easton Assasin` lives on...
Name an atg he beat in his prime chief.. He lost to a bad lhw 2x..he nearly got ko'd by fringe contendor shavers.. His best win was clumsy cooney, anddinosaur Ali..please