If Shavers was ever a near loss for Holmes, then Dempsey has to be regarded as a near loss for Tunney. The only round clearly lost was the one in which the single knockdown was sustained. Weaver was a decisive win for Holmes, as was Snipes. Yes, Larry had more difficulty than expected, but a conclusive outcome resulted both times. Holmes had two true near losses during his reign, Witherspoon and Williams. Shavers, Snipes and Weaver should be acknowledged for what they were, conclusive stoppage wins where Holmes had built an insurmountable lead on the scorecards when the referee called them off. Snipes is credited by many as Greg Page's best win, yet Renaldo went the 12 round distance then, where Larry stopped him in 11. For me, Mercer was a better win than Moorer, because Holmes had to sustain it over the 12 round distance. (Yet it was the 42 year old Holmes who insisted on the longer limit.) Moorer's chin had already been exposed by Bigfoot, Cooper and Holyfield when Foreman took him on. Mercer's lack of skill had been exposed by Ocasio, Damiani and Morrison. Moorer is disdainful of Foreman's win, deriding it as a lucky punch brought on by an error in judgment on his own part. After Holmes, Mercer said, "I guess I better learn how to box!" For Larry, that's a pretty good compliment. I can't overlook the fact that Holyfield had impaired heart functioning when Moorer beat him. Their rematch betrayed the true separation between them. He had a respectable IBF HW Title run between Foreman and Holyfield II. As an individual scalp? My first choice would be the 12 round, 34 out of 36 minute domination of Shavers in 1978. With Henry Clark I, Tiger Williams and Ali, Earnie had seemingly put the questions about his stamina behind him. Jerry Quarry had blown him out, but nobody had ever dominated him from wire to wire in a longer bout. Lyle had to get off the floor, and many believed he deserved the win over Ali. Norton, Jeff Sims and Bugner were still ahead of Shavers. Head to head, is there any way the LHW chinned Moorer beats the Shavers Holmes defeated twice?
if we are to make comparisons between holmes and foremans second careers the first one must be how many times did george realy win on points? stewart? shultz? grimsly? savarese? There is a good argument for foreman losing his last 6 fights!!
He definitely lost the Schultz fight, but was arguably robbed against Shannon Briggs, so that's an even trade, if you want to flip flop those fights and hand him the Schultz defeat, but give him the Briggs win, then he actually comes out better. As for Savarese and Stewart, they were close, but he didn't lose those. Stewart ****ed up his face, but fell victim to two unanswered knockdowns, and in a 10 round fight, that just doesn't cut a decision win. I did not see the Grimsley fight, how did that go? As for Holmes, he may very well have won more decisively in a few of his bouts, but come on, who was he fighting? Instead of taking on a 36-0 Savarese or Alex Stewart, he was fighting the exumed remains of Jesse Ferguson and Jose Ribalta.. Instead of fighting guys like Axel Schultz or Shannon Briggs, his last few fights came against Butterbean and an ancient Jim Smith...
Al Bernstein was at Foreman-Shultz, and he had George winning it. Scoring from ringside is different than evaluating a live transmission or recorded footage. Bernstein was questioned strenuously on ESPN in the controversial aftermath, and stood by his assertion that the decision was correct. Watch how Mercer-Morrison ends again. Holmes was Mercer's very next opponent. Everybody thought Larry was taking his life in his hands, recalling how Tyson-Holmes ended. Later, Holmes was McCall's first opponent after Ollie knocked out Lennox, and Larry pushed him right to the brink on the cards. Later, he was robbed by a hometown SD against an undefeated Nielson, at age 47. In his next fight, he took on 21 year old 9-8-2 prospect Maurice Harris, coming off an upset knockout of Jimmy Thunder. This time, the SD eked out in his favor. Harris would then go on a two year tear (the best streak of his career to date), climaxing with a win over Jeremy Williams. The 6'4" Harris had gotten his act together over the year prior to meeting Holmes, and today he is the newly crowned USBA HW Champion. A good example of a slow starter picking up steam. The hot and cold Ferguson proved he was not completely washed up with his 1996 and 1997 campaign. He also won twice in 1998 after taking an undefeated Rahman the 12 round route. Each of his six remaining victories were against winning competition. Every opponent Larry fought in the 1990s had a winning record at the time he took them on. Foreman took on four with losing records on his way to Holyfield.
Foreman defeated the better opposition, in his comeback than Holmes did in his second career, and I broke down the differences in detail in a long ago thread. Sure he beat 4 men with losing records, while Holmes fought none,but George also had an additional 10 comeback fights, and defeated some 4 guys who were undefeated, while Holmes beat only a single one. It works both ways in that respect. It was a nice effort to show loyalty to the boogyman on your part, but saying that he was better than a young, undefeated Savarese at that junction, just doesn't cut it for me.. Foreman also defeated the likes of Addilson Rodriguez, Alex Stewart, Pierre Coetzer, Bert Cooper, Dwight Qawi, and several others... Holmes' only notable win was over Mercer, and though it was a great win, it was over a man with 18 fights, who very*nearly was outboxed by the obscure Francesco Damiani... Anyway, for the record, I rate Holmes higher on an all time list, but the purpose of this thread was to ask people exactly who, or how many victories Holmes had that were better or more valuable than a win over Moorer... Since I created the thread ( over a year ago ), perhaps only 3 people understood the intended message, while others assumed that it was a question of which fighters were better in a " head to head " sense than Moorer, or some other misconstrued notion... Moorer was a lineal champion, undefeated in 35 fights and in the peak of his prime, while Foreman was a huge underdog at 45 and coming off something like a 16 month layoff and a loss at the hands of Tommy Morrison..... I really don't think that Ray Mercer, a 15 fight Witherspoon, an underdog weaver, Gerry Cooney, or an aged Norton can be justified as better wins... Tougher fights? Maybe, but not quite as valuable in the context that I am referring.
I believe Holmes took a harder road to the Holy fight too. He wasnt the attraction George was, and could never cherrypick his way to a shot, especially with King. Talk about a close fight how about his fight with Mcall, Larry was very close to winning that fight. As for Foremans fights, he beat Savarese in a close but competitive fight. Its by far the most impressive fight of Foremans comeback just due to sheer workrate. Foreman was able to operate at a fast pace and he did for the entire fight outfighting the just as limited Lou Savarese. He beat Grimsley BUT, Grimsley was nothing more than a club fighter and he would later go on to be knocked out in the quickest knockout in heavyweight history by James Thunder. Grimsley just using a little mobility gave George hell for the full route. I had Foreman beating Briggs too. Briggs did just enough to keep Foreman off of him and lose. As for the Shultz fight, I dont know what fight Bernstein was watching but Shultz won clearly. Even George knew it and refused to rematch him and was stripped of his title.
I think the main point here is that even though some of these names werent stellar, they were stylistic nightmares for Foreman. Holmes could easily outbox a lot of these limited guys, but Foreman could just as easily be outboxed himself. Foreman chose fighters who would be there to hit, some showed up with rollerskates on and turned his world upside down. Holmes would have been able to handle them regardless.