Larry Holmes is underrated H2H

Massively overrated. Arguably lost to Norton and Witherspoon, and almost knocked out by Snipes and Shavers. None of these guys were that good.

And lest some of y'all try to cite other, better wins, well, no. Norton and Witherspoon were it, and Shavers would be somewhere in the top five.

Just a very overrated guy who can-crushed and ducked fighters for years.

 

That's my point - he wouldn't breeze past any of them. They are all great fighters.

 

Walcott beating Holmes is some kind of sick joke. And so is Dempsey, The Klitschko's and Marciano.

 

Holmes in fact did / nearly- lost to Withersppom, Spinks, amd Norton. Putting Holmes in the ring with a true ATG like Marciano, Walcott, the K bros, or Dempsey - Holmes either gets Ko'd or outpointed.

If you think those proven ATG fighters could not win a few more rounds than the Witherspoons and Mercer's of the world, then that is your opinion. It is a bad one IMO, but nonetheless yours.

 

Marciano did in fact nearly lose to Lowry, LaStarza, Walcott and Charles. Wlad did in fact lose to Brewster, Sanders, Purity and Fury. Vitali did in fact lose to Byrd and an ancient undertrained Lewis. Dempsey lost to Tunney, Meehan and Flynn. Walcott lost to TWENTY times.

Your loss/almost loss-based argument is awful, considering that you're trying to argue that close wins over Norton and Witherspoon, are worse results than factual losses to Sanders, Brewster and Purity, for example. Your argument has no regard for styles, and you move the goalpost for the fighters you're rating over Holmes.

Stylistically, please explain why Walcott and Dempsey beat Holmes. How does Dempsey, who couldn't get past Tunney's jab in seventeen rounds, beat Larry Holmes? How does Walcott, the shorter, slower boxer with the worse jab, beat Larry Holmes?

 

My top 10 H2H
1. Ali
2. Louis
3. Liston
4. Foreman
5. Holmes
6. Frazier
7. Tyson
8. Lewis
9. Fury (he may very well move up after his career is all said and done).
10. Holyfield

I see no reasonable way to exclude Holmes from the top 10 unless you have an agenda.

 

I don't think Dempsey beats Holmes but I also don't think using the performance of a past his prime,aging, rusty Dempsey who hadn't fought in 3 years does anybody good.

 

I don't either. But if he's willing to hold the Spinks losses against Holmes, then I think it's fair game to hold Dempsey's against Tunney to him.

 

One can argue he was a more technical version of Ali.

Ken Norton. It was a hard fought win. But in the end it's still a win against an ATG Heavyweight.

The alpha titles were created during his reign and one can argue that the creation of those alpha titles at that time cheapened what it meant to be a heavyweight champion. In any case he had his fair share of Alpha Champs on his win column.

Norton, Shavers, Cooney, Spinks, Witherspoon, Weaver, Smith, Williams, Berbick not to mention a big win over Mercer later in his career. Those are possibly his Top 10 names on his resume and they (with the exception of Shavers and Cooney) all held a title at some point in their career.

Agreed.

Anybody could get hit and get hurt, that's not exclusive to Larry Holmes.

Spinks was a great fighter even if you don't believe he had the capacity to be a great heavyweight. In any case great fighters on any given night can pull off spectacular wins. Spinks could have arguably dropped down to cruiserweight after the 2nd fight with Holmes and beaten Holyfield for the WBA title in place of Qawi (who he also beat). The Spinks loss shouldn't take away what Holmes had already done up until that point and what he did afterwards. It's not like there's even a Top 10 ATG Heavyweight in your list that retired undefeated aside from Marciano. 9 out of your top 10 fighters dealt with a loss at some point.

Also if you take any ATG Heavyweight in history at 38 years old and substitute them with Larry Holmes the night he faced Mike Tyson, they probably lose all the same.

As for never dominating? 7 Years and 20 title defenses says otherwise.

Fortunately most of us give his legacy the respect it deserves. You're entitled to your opinion but based on the reasons that you're giving, I fail to see how or why Holmes is outside of your Top 10. You're contradicting yourself with your own rationale.

I don't think he's good either, I think he's great.

 

Now that I think about it, Holmes doesn't need anyone to defend him. Look at his accomplishments and record, can't change that, losses or no.

 

Oh I missed that part! In that case, Dempsey's losses to Tunney are fair game. My apologies!

 

Larry is a top ten all timer, possibly top 5. What hurts him in my book is, after fighting Tim Witherspoon and arguablly losing that fight, cheapened the title by fighting guys like Scott Frank and Marvis Frazier. Then took on someone like Carl Williams, and arguably lost that fight. Him losing to Michael Spinks was like karma coming back to bite his ass.

 

Holmes is a difficult one to gauge. He started late, fought low quality fighters for a few years, and then immediately was propelled to the top after he wiped out Shavers in his late 20's. Some say he began to go downhill as early as Cooney. And he did bloat up about 10 lbs after that fight.

He beat 4 up-and-comers who went on to become champions (Weaver, Witherspoon, Berbick, and Bonecrusher Smith). Which is a bit of a double-edge sword because none of them received rematches (why I don't know, I wasn't alive so have no insight into promotional struggles, etc.). At the same time they were champions not long after the Holmes fights, so how far pre-prime they were is also up for debate.

Somewhat past prime, I thought he was beat pretty handily by the tiny Spinks in the first fight. Again, I don't know which factor to weigh more highly.

I think a lot of how you view Holmes depends on how good you think Norton was, overall but especially at that time.

So to sum it up, yeah I'm even more confused now than when I started typing this.

 

I love Larry Holmes. Up there at the top with Ali, Louis and Lennox easily. In fact only Lennox maybe and Ali beat him head to head for me.

 

This is one of the stupidest and most one-sided posts I've ever seen here.

You mention his losses/tough performances against Witherspoon, Spinks, and Norton, yet neglect to mention Holmes conditions for these fights. He was 34 for Witherspoon and somewhat past prime.

Against Norton, he had an injured left arm verified by doctors and wasn't sparring at all. He was actually advised to delay the bout but refused to do so.

Against Spinks he was 36 years old and very noticeably lost his step, and clearly past his prime yet according to most still won the 2nd fight (many including myself thought he won the 1st as well).

Let's at least TRY to be fair.