This is a good balanced post. Up until C00oney he was excellent. From memory he didn't rematch Norton after the tough one as Shavers axed Norton. He was fighting the winner of these two? Pretty certain he was. Pre ****ey he was excellent. Post ****ey he was abysmal. How i wish he fought just 2 or 3 of them. Fighting Page when he was supposed to, Thomas and one more. A Spoon rematch, Coetzee whatever. Even the two would be ok, three would be excellent. The biggest shame is he never had any great fighters to take on, vs Ali who had an abundance of them. He did everything he could until post C00ney tho. It's a shame he had no ATG's to match as he would be a chance H2H in any fight imaginable at his best. I do disagree he'd have beaten even that version of Tyson, Buster was much like Page and co, woefully inconsistent but jeez he could rise pretty high when he put it together. He had vast amounts of talent and fought brilliantly that night even if Tyson was most ordinary.
Never seen so many excuses or criticisms of decent fighters. It is what it is and people need to decide for themselves how much it affects their rating. He still makes top 5 for me so it's not as if i am out to get him, just need to be balanced. If he fought 2 or 3 more he'd go up a spot, maybe two not sure. He'd have done all he could in an era berefit of another truly top line fighter. If he'd had a Frazier as well i'd be looking top 2, 3 worst even with Spinks. He was way past it by then and actually won the second fight comfortably.
The odds were going to be under that i reckon. I've definitely got them in a mag somewhere but finding it might be oh soooo hard lol Curious now tho. For some reason i was thinking 2-1.
3-1 or 2-1 seems fair. Coetzee was a big solid guy, it would have been very tough for Holmes but Larry was just too seasoned overall. He just always found a way to win. Spinks was just too fit and pacey for him. And that's not a problem Cietzee would give Larry. Coetzee, I think, would have faded in the later rounds as he did versus Weaver and Page. If only I had somewhere to keep all those mags. Have you got that April 84' edition? I'd be interested to know who those experts were who all picked Larry over Coetzee.
Yes he is, don't forget Holmes's terrible mismatch against Marvis Frazier and this quote from when we was 47-0 ''I want a lot of money and no more of those big hitters like Tim Witherspoon and Mike Weaver,” he told Pat Putnam of Sports Illustrated. “I’ve paid my dues and if they want me back, they’ve got to give me little people I can beat on without getting hurt.''
If he's your favorite fighter why does your avatar show Tyson belting him with a right hand, in which Larry got his a$$ beat?
Don't know about you but I love seeing my favorite fighters getting beat up, especially when they're old. James Toney vs Lucase Browne springs to mind.
Last I checked he beat both Spoon and Williams. Page was and always will be a fat lazy under achieving Ali copying joke in my eyes who got lucky a few times. More like right place right time.