if larry holmes retired 48-0

48 have tried, 48 failed... He's a gorilla, he's a dawg, nothing left to prove :-((

That crap would probably have gone on for a couple of years and then people would have said; "Tyson would KO Holmes inside a round" :bart

 

His team of advisers have done a hell of a job with his career

 

ATG2 behind joey C

 

My ATG List:
1) Calzaghe
2) Marciano
3) Floyd Mayweather
4) Chavez Jr
5) Steve Ottie

I think he would be ranked number 5 if he remained undefeated

 

I would regard his career as SAFE, and non-challenged due to ducking the best opponents, but of course, Holmes was no British sissy wearing lace knickers.
Knickers. LOL!!!:rofl

 

In reality Holmes lost to Witherspoon, so i'd consider him 47-1 in my books anyway...

 

I had him losing to the Truth, Norton, the Tiger, Shavers, Rodriguez and Cobb too, so I would consider him 41-7, with a DQ against Frazier for posting.

 

No need to be sarcastic.

Holmes closely scraped by Williams & Norton, whereas the others he clearly beat*.

*Except for his generous gift decision against Spoon.

 

I can see what you're doing here, but I think it's unfair to group Marciano with the rest as he didn't have the luxury of defending a paper title and actually cleaned out his respective division albeit not a particular strong one.

Apart from the HOF quartet, he also defeated top of the heap like Cockell, Matthews and the terribly underated LaStarza.

Even if Marciano boxed on for a few more years: Moore and Patterson fought for the vacant title (Marciano already beat Moore, and I'd favour Marciano over Patterson - D'Amato dileberately waited for Marciano to retire before moving Patterson to heavy).

I'd also favour him against the other notable contenders of the late fifties as well like Machen, Cooper, Folley, Williams and brief champ Johansson (and bear in mind Marciano would have been well passed his best in his late 30s). I'd probably had favoured Sonny Liston in a fight but he didn't really break onto the scene until 1959/60 and Marciano would have been like 37 anyway.

 

I can accept thinking that Witherspoon won, but not that it was a gift.

 

if Holmes retired 48-0, he would be undefeated.

 

Your on to something, i can feel it

 

The perception that never having lost a fight must mean that you cant lose, is just a idea created by people who want to believe that some athletes are somehow immortal. It plays into our own disillusions, but really if he retired with an undefeated record he would rank any higher if we are being objective. He would still have the same wins as he has today.

 

Yes, I concur. Impossible to be an ATG without the elite "0" :deal