Larry Holmes vs Olexander Usyk

Prime Holmes knocks him out.

 

But what about the Holmes who looked like **** against the oft-beaten Mike Weaver, for who knocked nearly silly by relatively light-hitting Renaldo Snipes?

And was were Shavers and Norton? Two guys who between them have losses to Bob Stallings, Stan Johnson, Ron Stander, and Jose Luis Garcia. Won't even get into Cooney here.

I am on record saying in the thread that I don't think it is fair to say until Usyk's career is done, or at least further along, but again, there has been this odd hyper-inflation of Holmes accomplishments that I just don't get.

Just saying.

 

I thought we were talking prime Holmes which surely equates to his best performances against some of the higher ranking names on his resume. Usyk is 34 now and very injury prone and dare I say it, a bit fragile. I would have loved Usyk to test the waters at Heavyweight sooner than he did but, that ain't happening and neither is he having an ATG Heavyweight resume.

He's arguably the best Cruiser ever but, at Heavyweight his time will be too fleeting.

 

I would say the Snipes and Weaver fights were Holme's prime.

My bottom line on this is that time will tell, so I will be happy to leave it at that.

 

Fair enough and I'm not going in on Usyk at all, in the Super 6 especially, he was a joy to behold and not like anything we've really seen before. I just wish he was a few years younger and nearer his own physical prime so we could see him at his absolute best.

 

Holmes also arguably lost to Tim Witherspoon. Not saying Usyk beats him but people in this thread act like there is no way he could lose.

 

And Norton. His two best wins, which weren't all that great, were either-way affairs.

That is exactly what I am saying. You see guys rating Holmes in the top five, even two or one these days. He just didn't do all that well.

 

I like Usyk as much as the next man, but he edged a motivated Chisora, a second-tier HW in a second rate era, no disrespect to Tyson Fury. Holmes would be a shoe-in top 10 HW. On accomplishments at HW - Holmes. H2H, unless you feel there is some particular weakness Usyk can exploit against Holmes, it must be Holmes.

P4P and fundamentals are a different story. Usyk likes to work out his opponent and slowly tighten the screws. His technique, timing, fitness, athleticism are outstanding. Holmes had an outstanding jab, granite chin and recovery, but technically not as correct as Usyk. Can't really answer the fundamentals question because the definition is not clear. P4P, could be a close call, but possibly Holmes by a hair.

 

This puny Usyk would be thrown up against the turnbuckle and given a good thrashing by Holmes. Then once the fights over Larry would drag the scrawny cruiserweight outside and mercilessly pound him in the car park and give him the hogan leg drop off the top of a cars roof!

 

I just recall the trouble Usyk had with Bellews jab and counter punching, Bellew being a relatively small and poorly conditioned Cruiser with relatively poor length and not the greatest whiskers who's benefited from some pretty interesting match making to overachieve massively and make serious PPV bank.

Compare that to Holmes who has an ATG jab and ATG levels of recuperation; only ever stopped by Tyson when he was 42 years of age.

I get that Holmes squeeked out numerous wins but, there's no denying his achievements and there's no real shame in squeezing past the likes of Norton and Witherspoon who are several levels above the Chisora's of the world.

 

What about the Usyk you saw against Gassiev or Briedis?

 

Gassiev looked clueless against Usyk and strikes me as lacking any kind of level of motivation to consider him in the same breath as a prime Holmes, in fact, Gassiev isn't fit to sniff his jock strap, let alone carry it. Usyk didn't have it all his own way against Briedis either who again would be a good style match up for Holmes in my opinion. Holmes wouldn't mind the rough housing as he was pretty good at that himself.

I don't think that Holmes would fear Usyks power, has the better jab, Holmes work rate in some of his better performances I would argue is significantly higher than Usyks and Holmes hasn't any sign of quit in him either.

I think it would be a very competitive fight, no doubt, I just see Holmes at his absolutely best being a little bit better.

 

I wasn't comparing Gassiev and Briedis to Holmes directly; I'm saying that Usyk's performances against the top cruiserweights are a better indication of how he might compare against Holmes than a big come-forward tank like Chisora.

Holmes wouldn't fear Usyk's power but who does? I doubt he feared Michael Spinks's power either and that didn't turn out too well for him. What he should fear with Usyk would be his timing, angles, darting footwork and indomitable workrate. His explosive jab would deter Usyk from coming inside so long as he can time Usyk, but Holmes had a habit of switching off and letting fighters close range. Despite his common reputation he wasn't someone like Wlad who used his jab to mercilessly keep fighters at arms length; he could do for stretches, but he'd often find himself in a phone booth type fight at some point, sometimes self-initiated.

Higher workrate? Not sure where that comes from. Holmes fought in spurts, like a lot of heavies. Nowhere near the almost non-stop pressure of Usyk. He had faster hands though, and was a more explosive fighter. Usyk's handspeed isn't actually that exceptional, but he's so loose and relaxed when throwing punches and so mobile that he can hit fighters multiple times simply due to their inability to process the number of shots coming their way at so merciless a pace.

I'm not confident picking a winner just yet, but whoever wins they don't take it in a cakewalk. I'd like to see how Usyk performs against a solid jabber, as I don't recall him fighting anyone like Holmes in either the WSB or the WBSS. Someone like Whyte, weirdly, might give us more insight into how he does here.

 

Holmes tended to swerve challenging opponents but when he was in the ring few would ever dare question his heart. In that respect he reminds me (somewhat) of Tyson Fury, another guy whose resume is littered with less than stellar names, but who would always step it up when forced to do so. Usyk of course is both utterly fearless and also fights his heart out every time. Maybe that would be the difference. I don't know.

I have a lot of respect for Holmes as a fighter, but I feel like you do that he gets vastly overrated and painted as something he wasn't. He was definitely beatable by fighters with the right range of attributes, and I feel Usyk ticks more than enough boxes to give Holmes a very competitive fight. But there are also a few question marks there which I'd like answered before definitively siding one way.

So yeah, gonna be sitting on the fence on this one until more data's available.