Larry Holmes: "Joe Frazier hit me harder than Mike Tyson."

funny because holmes didn't go to sleep.

 

No, he was just resting :dead

 

Oh OK - was it a slip.atsch

 

he didn't get counted out dumb**** it was a tko not a ko.

 

he wasn't counted out.

 

He never gives Tyson any credit for knocking him out cold, the only fighter to ever have done that to him in his career. Pretty petty stuff

 

I disagree. In this case, and similar ones.
I think often it's just a case of being more impressionable when you are younger and less experienced.
Often fighters will cite some early fight or sparring session as being the hardest or toughest. They will talk about the fighters they fought early on with more reverence than the ones who came years later. They will remember the punches they took when first mixing with the top pros as being harder than the ones they were hit with after a long career, when they'd already seen it and done it all.
That's perfectly understandable.
All of us are more impressionable when we are younger.

 

A little cat nap, maybe? :conf

 

I really don't know what point he is trying to make. Holmes was utterly finished and no way could he have beaten a 10 count, had there been one.

 

Think you may be on to something here.

It certainly is hard to see it as an objective truth that Frazier hit Holmes harder in sparring than the bombs Tyson landed.

The thing he said about Shavers being a harder hitter than Tyson - but Tyson being sharper, of course - seems quite reasonable to me, though.

 

But his arm got stuck in the ropes! Holmes would have turned the tide after the 5th, as do all Tyson opponents.

 

Tyson was overall a more explosive puncher than Joe Frazier. Though Holmes stated that Joe broke his ribs while they were sparring. That is something that would stick in your memory for a long time. Frazier may have just caught him the right way with that vicious hook.

 

I don't think the referee bothered to count - he was more concerned that Holmes might be dead.