Larry Holmes's all time placement?

A lot of those experts probably felt that Holmes was past his prime, after viewing the Witherspoon fight. Given that Frazier had a bit more name recognition than Tim, due to his more extensive amateur career, and being brought up in a boxing family, that he might have done a bit better than Witherspoon against Larry.

........Needless to say, they were wrong............

 

Yeah, basically many thought he was ready to go. They thought it for quite a few fights but he kept pulling thru.

 

Joe "I like a man to go out like that" Frazier. Yeah, cheers for that dad. :good :-(


ps. Yeah, the ones who predicted a Marvis win over Larry: Randy Gordon was one, Dick Young another I think. One or two more did also. :yep

 

Chris, a lot of what you say is very fair.

I will focus on a few points of disagreement.

Norton is indeed less legendary than Holyfield, but '78 Norton is for me a vastly better win than '99 Holyfield. The '78 version of Norton was as well conditioned as ever and at the height of confidence and physical maturity. He also happened to be a terrible style match up for a great jabber without devastating one punch power, so a real challenge for a guy like Holmes.

'99 Holyfield - hmmm. I would have MUCH preferred to see how Lewis went over '96 Holyfield, but even that is less important than how he would have gone with the mobile, high punch output '90/91 version. We will never know, but as I have said in previous threads I take prime Holyfield versus prime Lewis.

One of our strongest points of disagreement is the validity of the Tyson win. I grant that win as much significance as Holmes win over Ali i.e. none at all. For me, Tyson was completely over as a fighter. He had no ambition, and bore no resemblance to the late 80s version. All that was left was a menacing exterior, but that was just a shell - all his wonderful physical gifts, particularly reflexes, speed and endurance, had long gone...

The fact that Tyson was given good odds tells more about the consensus on Lewis, particularly the memories of McCall, Rahman and Mercer.

Holmes was not given the benefit of the doubt when he was knocked down. He responded cogently when he got up, was correctly allowed to continue, and did an excellent job in holding himself together. Lewis MIGHT have been able to do that against McCall, but I have doubts. Did Lewis complain about an early stoppage after the fight?? I cant remember.

 

Crap. The rest of my previous post disappeared during the upload....

 

I have Holmes now #6 head to head.

1. Ali
2. Liston
3. Tyson
4. Louis
5. Johnson
6. Holmes

 

I'd currently put Holmes #8 AT Heavyweight, after (alpabetically) Ali, Dempsey, Johnson, Jefferies, Louis, Marciano and Sullivan.

 

Hmm, do you think so?
After Norton lost a close one to Holmes, he won against a relatively unknown and when stepping up, he got knocked out in one round by Shavers, followed by a 10-round draw against LeDoux (knocked down in the process), a split decision win over Cobb (haven't seen this one) and another first round KO loss to Cooney.

Holyfield, after losing a wide decision to Lewis, showed he wasn't done by putting on a better performance in the rematch, losing a competitive 8-4 or 7-5 decision. After that he went 1-1-1 with Ruiz, a boring fighter but a top ranked contender nonetheless. He beat another top ranked contender in Rahman although by dubious means, but he's always done that. After that he went south pretty hard, losing by stoppage to Toney, a fat but skillful ex middleweight and lost lopsided decision to master boxers Byrd and Donald (bad matchmaking). Still, after that he put on a decent winning streak over Savarese and Oquendo giving him another titleshot. Mind you, this was 8 years after fighting Lewis! He lost pretty one-sidedly, but held his own and managed to land some right hands.

I would love to know this as well. One thing apart from this discussion: i think the '94 version of Holyfield would match up better. At 200lbs, he seemed a bit too weak against a big skilled guy. He landed almost 3 punches for every 1 of Bowe, yet still came out as the more tired guy as early as round 5. I think those 12lbs of extra bulk helped him a lot.

Not for the first three rounds they hadn't.

Okay, i want you to do this if you can:

Watch the first round of Ali-Holmes and take a close look at Ali, how he moves, how much he does to Holmes etc.
Now watch the first round of Lewis-Tyson and take a good look at Tyson.

Can you honestly say that both were shot? I think we can agree that Ali couldn't kill a fly; all he did was walk around, showboot and took punches.. a sad sight.

Now Tyson, he came out very fast, went in for the kill. His hands were extremely quick, he used head movement. Of course this faded after a few rounds, but clearly he was still a big threat early on; as you can see by his knockout string over decent to good fighters, all Ali had was a loss and a win against Leon Spinks who was little more than a journeyman; at least Tyson still ate journeyman for breakfast in a few rounds.

This is true. Lewis was not very high regarded at all (particularly in the US) and of course, who dared betting against Tyson? Tyson is from the streets yo, the old Tyson is back, etc etc.

Well i'm not too sure about that. Crashing your head into the ring post and flopping all over the place is not exactly a 100% guarantee to go on.
Don't get me wrong: i think the referee made a good decision to give him a chance to continue, just like Lewis should've gotten.

Lewis complained right when he was stopped! He raise his arms in a "What the hell?" motion and his face said the same.
I don't think he complained about it after the fight, which is only a comliment. Shows great sportmanship that he doesn't ***** about it, but focuses on the future. Takes a man to accept what happened instead of making excuses.

 

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Thanks Chris, I appreciate your lengthy, considered replies.

Totally agree about the woefulness of '80 Ali against Holmes. A fly would have beaten Ali that night, and '80 Ali was certainly worse than '02 Tyson. But I am not too bothered about that particular comparison. What concerns me is that both Ali and Tyson were so far gone in their respective contests that Holmes and Lewis should not get any credit for the victories. When it comes to resume building I am only interested in scraping the bottom of the barrell if the fighter to be assessed actually lost the contest!!

I mean in all seriousness how much credit do you give Lewis for beating a man whose best days were 13-16 years earlier, and who is well known for being a very bright but very short burner.

[/quote] Lewis complained right when he was stopped! He raise his arms in a "What the hell?" motion and his face said the same.
I don't think he complained about it after the fight, which is only a comliment. Shows great sportmanship that he doesn't ***** about it, but focuses on the future. Takes a man to accept what happened instead of making excuses.[/quote]

This may be true, then again it may not be. For me, the burden of proof in instances of miraculous recoveries lies with the miracle worker. Only a few HWs in boxing hostory have shown miraculous recovery powers in rounds/bouts where they got smashed.

Ali was the best, Marciano was brilliant, and Holmes was excellent. I see no reason to believe Lewis could survive the round / fight when he got hit easily enough with decent shots even when cogent (e.g. Mercer, Bruno, McCall himself etc...). If he clams up and goes into a defensive shell, he loses his reach advantage - who knows what might happen.

Finally, I am wondering why the Mercer and Bruno fights don't concern you more. I mean if you get outboxed by big Frank and have to rely on a single shot, what does that say about your chances against the other rock-chinned TOP10 ATGs in H2H match-ups?? Single shots are not going to bail you out against Liston, Ali, Holmes, Tyson et al - you have to be able to outbox your opponent in a sustained fashion for 12-15 rounds and presumably withstand numerous rocky moments when you get hurt/wobbled.

 

I think you're underestimating 2002's Tyson. No, he wasn't nearly as good as he was in the late 80's. But he was still a hard hitting contender for a few rounds. How can you ignore his one-punch knockout (the best of his career argubly) over Botha? He destroyed Golota in 2 rounds, only Lewis and Brewster did that. He knocked out all other tomato cans. If a fighter called John Gun would start his career in 1999 and did the same as Tyson, then Lewis would have a win over a very limited but very hard puncher with fast hands. You cannot ignore the knockouts that i just described. I know you don't like the idea because it is still "Mike Tyson" and neither do i, but you have to face it for what it's worth: Tyson was still a hard, fast puncher for a few rounds.

By the way, another overlooked fact is that Lewis was 36 years old himself. At that age, Ali, Dempsey, Marciano, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, etc etc were all retired or ****. This is also one of the reasons that the odds were relatively close: there was a good chance that Lewis aged over night, as many greats have. He didn't, and deserves credit for that longetivity.

But you can say exactly the same thing about Holmes if the referee didn't give him a chance to recover! I don't know if Lewis would've made it out of the round against McCall.

But i suggest you watch Lewis vs Briggs, 0:30 of round 1. Briggs lands a left hook flush when Lewis throws a double jab, Lewis staggers into the ropes, covers up and survives. When Klitschko stung him, he survived. There is certainly evidence in his other fights that show he could have survived. And i say "could have", not "would have".

I am wondering why the Doug Jones, Henry Cooper and Ken Norton fights don't concern you more about Ali's greatness. If Ali has to rely on Cooper's cut susceptibility , what does that say about his chances against other rock hard skinned top10 ATG's in H2H match-ups?? Why the Shavers, Witherspoon, Weaver and Williams fights don't bother you more of Holmes' greatness. Why Liston's quit job against a light hitting opponnent in round 6 doesn't bother you. Why Tyson being battered by Douglas doesn't bother you.

You get the point: you can make this kind of criticism for every single heavyweight that ever lived. No fighter is perfect, although the formerly mentioned come pretty damn close in each his own way.
You can always pick a mediocre fighter (compared to all time greats) who did better than he should've and then say "what is that was Mike Tyson and not Henry Cooper". Give me a fighter and i'll make you an argument like that, it just doesn't work that way.


Oh, and single shots certainly CAN bail you out. Especially if your name is Lewis, i believe he punches as hard as anyone ever did. A single shot damn-near bailed Shavers out........... what if that was a good finisher instead of Shavers? (oops, i did it again) A single shot basically took Tyson out in his fight with Holyfield. This is heavyweight boxing. When you weigh over 210 pounds, a knockout can always happen, certainly with technique, delivery and talent of Lewis.

 

Well, first of all I agree that Lewis aged very gracefully for a HW, and I think I mentioned that very point in a previous post. This is something I mark him very highly for.

But on the other hand, at age 35 he hadn't had many fights in total, he hadn't had 15 rounders like some of the comparison fighters you mention, and he hadn't had the wars that both of us would like to have seen had he gotten up against Rahman and McCall and been allowed to continue. These factors helped his cause.

Your comparison of Holmes not being allowed to continue is stretching things a bit. He was rightfully allowed to continue and won the fights. The referee stopped Lewis because he didn't respond well enough, end of story. Holmes could have lost those fights, but like all great champions he found a way to survive and win. Those are uncontroversial statements of facts, and count a long way in my book.

Re: Ali - Ali thrashed Cooper and beat Jones in style (particularly the last 3 rounds where he closed the show extremely well). His greatness is also assured independent of these fights, unlike Lewis whose greatness is debatable on ESB.

Re: Holmes - Shavers doesnt bother me as a number of fighters independently called him the hardest hitter they ever faced. And Holmes took his best punch flush, and still beat him. I have no idea what you are driving at, surely observations like this seal Holmes greatness...

Re: Liston - Ali is the consensus GOAT, so losing to prime Ali is a negative, but not as negative as losing to McCall and Rahman. Also, calling the fastest, and greatest combo puncher a light-hitting is stretching things a bit.

I agree criticisms can be made of all fighters, as you say. But it seems to me they can be made more easily against Lewis.

A single shot did not take Tyson out against Holyfield. Holyfield beat him with accumulation, the last two rounds were barrages of punches, he had decked him much earlier in the fight, and he had out- psyched him. That surely is a combination of factors, not a single shot.

Anyway, Ive enjoyed the toing and froing and can see validity in many of your points about Lewis, but I would like to hear you concede that the criticisms you made of Holmes were in fights he ACTUALLY WON!!