Larry Holmes Interview - Tyson/Lewis arent great fighters

I love Larry, but he always was a bitter person.

 

So your completely dismissing a prime Larry Holmes ,funny but I have seen lesser fighters be able to deal with Mike's head movement .

Your really under rating Larry Holmes as a fighter in his prime but I'm not surprised at what I read here any more .

 

Both would knock out him out prime vs prime.

 

Sure he did LL was no ring general like Larry !

 

Ok Lets get all this in the right perspective..........

1..... Larry Holmes was a very good heavyweight champion. It was unfortunate for him he had to follow the Greatest Muhammad Ali. Larry thought he never got the respect he deserved , he probably didnt so he has been bitter ever since. To claim his win over a totally shot Ali was legitimate is absurd. In his prime Ali would have beaten Holmes easily. Seems ironic he says he wasnt in shape for Tyson & only in it for the $$$$$$$$
Why did he think Ali tried to fight him??? Some of the things Holmes said about other great champions, like his attack on Rocky Marciano, were totally out of line

2..... That brings us to Lennox Lewis. Lennox would have been too big & too powereful
for Holmes he would have stopped Holmes late. For him to say Lennox Lewis quit against McCall is also absurd. McCall threw a wild shot , if you look at a tape you'll see he had his eyes closed, that Lewis didnt see & it knocked him down. Now there is no bigger Lennox supporter than me but If you look at the tape againLennox is up on his feet. He's unsteady on his feet but look at his eyes. Lennox is OUT The ref did a good job in stopping the fight. Sure Lennox wanted to continue but it would have been dangerous to do so.
Lennox only lost when he went to the ring under prepared & over confident eg McCall & Rahman. When in shape & frocussed he massacred both. Folk say about Lennox & Vitali Klitchko. Name me one other champion that put his title on the line against his #1 mandatory challenger on 10 days notice like Lennox did Vitali. Lennox was barely 80% he was prepared for a warm up fight only. He STILL TKO'd Vitali almost destroying his face. Lennox had beaten Vitali what was the incentive to have to do it again??. I think Lennox retired at just the right time a very wealthy healthy contented family man & a great World Heavyweight Champion. Without a doubt in my opinion the best since Ali

 

Here's a good interview with Larry from last year.



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I know the two are on good terms now and enjoy eachothers company. I'm not really sure why Larry becomes bitter in interviews and is such a nice guy in person when you meet him. He's friends with just about every boxing figure out there except for Foreman.

Seeing how the interview states that at the time Larry's most recent fight was his rematch was with Mike Weaver, it means the interview was done between November, 2000 and July, 2002. At that time Lennox was also being heavily criticized by more than just Larry, especially if it was around the time of the Rahman disaster.

Around the time of their fight, Holmes and Tyson had a genuine dislike for eachother. I believe when they met, Holmes went to shake Tyson's hand and was blown off, and he called Mike out on it and they basically just had a short few words with eachother. Holmes also openly stated that Tyson would self destruct with his lifestyle (he was correct) but that obviously further caused Mike to dislike Larry.

Fast forward 25 years and they get along fine.

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Holmes could've fought Tyson on his best day ever with his prime raised to the prime power and he still would've gotten KTFO

Tyson wins 100/100

 

Thats funny, considering Mike Tysons post fight interview right after knocking Larry out.

IIRC Mike said something about the fight having been totally different if Larry was in his prime, and he wasn't happy about pounding on one of his idols like that.

 

Both are better than Holmes, who is the most overrated HW in the history of the sport.

 

Larry Holmes is a legend though, he said he used to drink a budweiser before every fight, and he would only run maybe two or three times every week and take days off when he felt like it.

And he still whooped on people the way he did...

A bad, bad man.

 

It's quite possible.

What Tyson said in that post-fight interview was all from the mouth of the wise Jim Jacobs. Tyson was still sore after the fight about what Larry had said about him in the press, and actually planned to say exactly what he thought of Holmes in the interview.
Jacobs got wind of this, became mortified at how this would look on camera, and hurried over to Mike for some impromptu Mr. nice guy lessons.

 

Yep. D'Amato (when alive), Jacobs, and Cayton all worked very hard to protect Mike's image. D'Amato had been covering up Mike's antics and trouble from the time Mike got to Catskill.

A misconception is that they kept Mike out of trouble and when King got involved, Mike started getting back into trouble. This was not the case. Mike had always been getting into trouble, but he had people covering it up and orchestrating an image to create a popular superstar. The main thing they did better than King was actually getting Mike to the gym and working his best.

King just milked as much as he could and Mike eventually stopped even training like he could and the trouble he was in would reach the press. We all know what happened in that period from 1989 until his eventual time in prison and further troubles after he got out.

 

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