With all of the talk about Larry Holmes on here over the last few weeks or so, I started thinking about many of Holmes' fights that he had on the USA Network(Tuesday Night Fights) back in the early and mid 90's. His fight with Jesse Ferguson stands out as one of Holmes' more challenging and entertaining fights that he had on USA. I remember this fight took place right before Larry fought Oliver McCall for the title. Ferguson hurt Larry badly with a huge left hook and almost had Holmes out; Larry was hurt for like a full minute almost and was reeling up against the ropes! Holmes was obviously near the end of his comeback and Ferguson was past his best as well. But it was an interesting fight! I remember the decision was close and many in the crowd booed the decision in Larry's favor.
I saw that fight as well, along with many others on USA Tuesday night fights back in the early 90's. I was in highschool in those days and was an avid viewer. Sean O'Grady and Al Albert made a great team on the network. I had the opporunity to see many good prospects on the way up as well as a lot of good veterans on the comeback trail. Holmes, Foreman, Witherspoon, Biggs, Bonecrusher, Thomas, and many others were regulars. At the same time, I enjoyed watching ESPN fights on Thursday, and usually cought a championship fight on the weekends if something was on either HBO or showtime. At times I even cought matches on the Spanish channel. Hell, at one point I watched boxing up to 4 days a week, and now I catch a fight maybe 2 or 3 times a month if I'm lucky.
Sorry to take this slightly off topic, but bar none, the best fight ever on Tuesday Night Fights was Kevin Kelley-Troy Dorsey. Astounding punch rates.
Yeah, I really enjoyed the Tuesday Night Fights. I was in high school in the early 90's as well, and I always made sure to catch the fights. I watched just about all of Holmes' fights on USA as well as many others. I remember watching Chris Byrd knock out Jimmy Thunder in a surprising display of power by Byrd. And I remember that up-and-coming Mexican heavyweight named Alex Garcia get surprisingly knocked out by Dixon in a minor upset. Alot of the fights were junk fights, but every once in a while a good one would crreep in.
I knew Ferguson gave him a good fight, but since I haven't seen it I didn't know he had Holmes rocked like that. Good for Ferguson, and another example of Holmes' recuperative powers and canny ring generalship. Good prep for Larry for the McCall fight, much better than knocking about Ribalta and Garing Lane!
Never seen the fight. The most Ive seen is the poster on the wall next to the stepper. I happend to be standing next to it when I saw Larry for the first time, I took several glances at the poster, then back at Larry, then got yelled at by my trainer for not working out.
Chris Byrd and Jimmy Thunder were USA Tuesday Night Fights regulars. They just didn't face each other on that show. Byrd and Thunder squared off on HBO, as the co-feature which included Larry Donald vs. Tim Witherspoon.
Wow! I could have swore it was on USA. Oh, I might have been thinking of Maurice Harris and Jimmy Thunder. I think that's the fight I meant that took place on USA. Yeah, it was after Harris knocked out Thunder that Harris fought Larry Holmes.
