Larry Holmes's all time placement?

top ten is ok with me, but top 3 or 4, is a bit to high for my likeing.

 

Name 3 fights where Witherspoon looked and performed better than the Holmes fight. Witherspoon was 15-0 when Holmes beat him BTW. Its hard enough to win a belt with guys like Holmes, Weaver, and Page holding them, and the main thing stopping them from trying to unify is Don King and politics.

 

Where is your range for him then? My range is 6-3.

 

Indeed.

 

about 6-10.
And Tim could have won a belt any time with all that flip flopping of the WBA title belt in the early 80's. I not even talking about unify the belt. Yes Tim nearly beat Holmes, but was Tim suppose to be THAT much trouble for Holmes?

Am I suppose to rise Ali stats any higher because he struggle with L Spinks? Or Wepner?

 

No, if anything, you should knock him for losing to Spinks. People don't bring up the fact that Ali fought Evangelista and Spinks, then bash Holmes for doing the same thing a year or two later. You didn't answer my initial question, when did Tim ever look and perform better then in his fight with Larry?

 

Lewis? He was a great fighter and all, but I'm not sure about top 3. I'm a pretty big Lewis fan too. I love his uppercuts.

 

He beat every man he ever faced. Beat a still respectable Holy twice, by the time Tyson finally showed up he hammered what was left etc. Huge, awesome power. Beat many many punchers, almost all the big punchers of his day actually. He also faced everyone he could with zero ducking.

I have no qualms with anyone ranking Holmes anywhere from 3 to 10. He one of those super rare fighters you can make rock solid cases both for and against.

 

Classic "Thad" stuff.


I have Holmes somewhere around #5.

 

Solid stuff. I’m not sure if a win over Page or Thomas would have elevated Holmes standing much.

However, if the judges correctly gave Holmes the win in the second Spinks fight, I think his standing would go up a notch.

I tend to think Holmes was a top 5 all time head to head great heavyweight.

 

I agree with all of this.

 

Holmes surely must be rated closely to Louis, no matter where you rank each. Both have very comprable records, especially longevity and defenses. You could argue that Louis fought better opposition, but Holmes aint far behind. They both showed tremendous recovery powers to turn around possible defeats into wins.

If you rank Louis as #2, then Holmes is around that area. And if you have Holmes at #9 then surely Louis is there or thereabouts.

 

Maybe not, did Louis avoid the 4 or so best fighters in the last half of his reign? The other thing might be Louis' total dominance in many wins.

 

Yeah, Lewis gets overlooked. For someone like Bert Sugar to rate Charles as #7 and Lewis around #20 is what I call nuthugging by an old historian beyond belief.

Charles reign as heavyweight champion was rather brief, although he was a great fighter as a light-heavyweight. I can't even come to the conclusion its even a debateable topic its so wide in favour of Lewis.

 

Bert wouldn't know **** from Sugar. Charles is not even in Lewis' league as a heavyweight in any way shape or form.