All true! But I feel compelled to say that had Holmes defeated say any two of Dokes, Page and Coetzee, his historical standing would have been even greater. Having said that, he did defeat Cooney and there was a greater demand for Holmes to fight Cooney than the other three...BUT...that demand MAY have largely been from the borderline boxing fan, not the hard core.
Again, he was going to fight (and more than likely beat) Coetzee in 1984, but it was called off a month before they fought. If Holmes was going to get more money to fight Page or Dokes than he was offered to fight Frazier and Frank, you'd have seen Holmes in there with them. It was all business.
. Cooney was seen as a serious threat to the title. All those other guys were not threats, more like tests for Holmes. People forget but Cooney was the guy scoring exciting knockouts that had the wider public sit up. nobody sat up for dokes and page outside of us boxing folks and even then we were not that excited. There was a lot of lazy ali clones around then, they were good fighters but cooney stood out. among all the challengers to various heavyweight belts in the 1980's pre Tyson nobody was making an exciting splash with exciting knockouts. During this time Holmes first 8 defences finished inside the distance - weaver among them. I think dokes page and coetzee blew their chance with holmes. Holmes did not do anything wrong, he was the one guy back then who could keep a title.
Lennox Lewis is probably my number 3. And he beats Larry Holmes head to head more times than not as well.
Styles make fights. Did you forget to mention that anoither great fighter in Holyfield struggled with Mercer too? Also, Lennox would blow out any version of Shavers in 3 rounds.
Strongly disagree. I think Lewis doesn't do as well against dextrous boxer-type fighters. Like Ali, how many of those guys did we see him face? And how good were they? I think there are a lot of questions there. Larry has a greater jab, arguably better footwork... Very even as far as I can tell.
I think you're selling Earnie short. His chin was at the very least on par with Morrison's, and Shavers had more than enough power to have Lennox fighting a cautious fight.
I rate lewis he knocked out serious threats to his title and wanted to face them all. lennox is in my top ten but homes is higher beacuse he was never knocked out until hed already been retired, that goes a long way. lewis slipped up twice within his peak this must go against him. both great fighters.
top 5 the only ones i could see beating him are ali louis foreman and peak tyson i think he beats lewis .
In Ali's first reign, he never fought a tough strong young kid who could fight. Tim Witherspoon. 26, 6' 3" 219 lbs. Undefeated and confident. Not Holmes fault the division was a little on the light-side. Brain London got beat up by Judy Geesons boyfriend,,,,,Denham, in a sparring session.
Yeah, instead he fought savvy vets and two ATGs. Given, Tim was a very good scalp, and a good fighter, but still would get beaten by an old sonny liston and Floyd Patterson. I would like to see him beat Terrell.