Larry Holmes -vs- Lennox Lewis

Was he? Or did Holmes just make him look so silly that it created the illusion that he was better against Lewis. Personally, I don't think Mercer looked physically any better, nor more skilled against Lewis. It should also be noted that he was 10 Lbs heavier, and 4 years older in that fight.

 

No, but most of the time when he struggled against someone in his prime he wasn't 100%. In the Witherspoon fight he was still near his peak time wise, but he went down hill very fast. His hand speed and legs were pretty much shot by the Frazier and Frank fights. Against Witherspoon his handspeed was slowing and his legs were too.

 

Because it did. Just because he was throwing it doesn't mean it was 100%. His jab in the Norton fight didn't look like it had the same snap, just the speed.

 

This is true, although it should be noted that Mercer looked pretty good against Holyfield.

I know you're not making the argument, but i think the people who say "look at what an old Holmes did to Mercer compared to a prime Lewis, nuff said" are overlooking things. First of all, it would be exaggerating to base that conclusion on one fight, and second, it has a lot to do with styles. Holmes was great against Mercer whereas Lewis struggled with him. But on the other hand, i'm pretty sure Lewis would blow out Norton with ease as well as Weaver (slow starter, questionable durability), whereas Holmes struggled with them. It goes both ways.

 

Right. Saying that Holmes "steered around an accident in the ring while Lewis crashed and burned" is a short-sighted statement that only looks at the negatives on one side and the positives of the other side. Holmes was in just as bad shape against Snipes as Lewis was against McCall. Lewis pulled out hard wins in wars against Klitschko, Mason, Mercer and avenged both his defeats.

 

Like Chris said, Mercer looked very good against Holyfield. I think that Mercer overlooked Holmes, thinking he was simply an old man coming back who he was going to knock out. Against Lewis, he knew he was against a very good fighter who he'd have to be on his A game to contend with.

And styles make fights. Frazier beat Ali and got blown out by Foreman, but Ali was able to KO Foreman. I think this applies to this situation as well..

 

I agree Holmes had slowed by the Terrible Tim fight, but he was still very near to his best. Witherspoon was landing on Holmes with right hands for much of the night and Lewis would be as well..

 

Holmes recently gave an interview were he stated he was supposed to have a warm up fight before taking on Tyson,but King manouvered him out of it ,I don't think he could have beaten Tyson at that stage of his career ,but he would probably have put up a much better fight,he said his judgement of distance was well off during the fight,it seems he was there for the dough really.As to Lewis against Holmes,I watched Lennox against Holyfield 2,by round 7 Lewis was blowng like a cart horse,if he couldnt drop an aging Evander who was right in front of him I doubt he stops Holmes .Lewis has a good jab but it is underused and often not much more than a push ,he rarely puts stream on it,as to his uppercuts ,Holmes is the best heavyweight exponent of this punch since Johnson imo. I like Larry to win by dec ,he was faster had better stamina quicker feet and marvellous recuperative powers when tagged ,something singularly lacking in Lennox.

 

Realistically Holmes had a bad match up in Tyson and I do not think anything but a prime Holmes beats Tyson ... however, the conditions under which Holmes took the fight were bad and the outcome painful to watch. Larry took the fight for the money. If he could fight Wlad tomorrow for a few million he would do it in a second.

 

I'm not maintaining that a 1992 Holmes would beat a 1996 Lewis. Please understand that this is not my position. I'm simply claiming that its preposterous to think that Mercer was a better rendition of himself against Lewis than he was against Holmes. There are way too many factors that point to the contrary. And Frankly, I think that a lot of them should be common sense based. If we are going to credit Mercer as being better in 1996 than in 1991, then we might as well credit Gerry Cooney as being better against Spinks in 1987 than he was in 1982 against Holmes. I mean, why not? Cooney was younger than Mercer when he fought Spinks wasn't he? He had a better recent record than Mercer didn't he? He had only gained ten pounds since the Holmes fight, didn't he, same as Mercer? In fact, he actually had a very close level of recent activity.

Of course the Cooney comparison is ridiculous, and I don't really believe that there is any real congruency between the two examples, but I just wanted to point out the preposterousness that is generated by some who are trying to claim that Mercer was a BETTER fighter against Lewis, than the one who faced Holmes.

 

Painful to watch? How do you think it was to be Larry?

 

I was actually at that fight and remember how angry I was that he took the fight and went out that way ...now I'm older and realize how much $ 1.8 million dollars ...

 

He got 3.8 million.

 

Mercer physically may have been the same or heck maybe a little worse but motivational wise the one that fought Lewis had the clear edge and was the more dangerous fighter because of it...

 

Mercer was just comming off of his biggest career win going into the Holmes fight, so he was clearly very confident. Maybe too confident, but in the Lewis fight he was probably having some doubts with how lack luster and inactive he was up to then.