Max Schmeling v Larry Holmes

:bbb

 

Holmes by SD.

 

True that, with the posibility that the other Max has a shot

 

Yet you're skeptical about him beating Schmeling:huh

 

Exhausted Shavers? He rose after being dropped by a rather lively Shavers and from a shot that would have otherwise left most men on ***** street. Tim Witherspoon, Mike Weaver, Gerry Cooney and Trevor Berbick were every bit as good as Greg Page, Michael Dokes and Pinklon Thomas. In fact most of the lesser had better careers than most of the latter. And what's this about berating Shavers' power? You pick the fight with Quarry in which he never lasted long enough to get a shot off. The Stander and Rondon fights came within his first dozen matches and Cobb was one of the most durable fighters of all time who by the way, fought Shavers when he was past it...

No offense, but your examples and comparisons really suck.

 

Holmes would probably win a close decision. He'd eat up some right hands along the way, though I think Schmeling would be in worse shape.

 

holmes will bust up max...

 

So an Aging Norton and Embryo Witherspoon can take holmes to one point split decision, weaver could give holmes all sorts of problems for 11 rounds, and snipes could nearly knockout holmes....YET none of these far superior fighters lose to holmes without giving him too many problems? doesn't make sense my friend

 

The counter arguments that you are making are reasonable to some extent, but you have to consider that it works both ways.

McGrain could just as easily come back and say:

" so an aging deconditioned Tony Tubbs and Andrew Golata could give Bowe all sorts of problems, but a prime all time great like Holmes can't"

or lets try this one

" an aging Joe Louis knocked out Joe Walcott in their rematch, but a peak Holmes couldn't beat him? "

Of course, we can always lean towards this direction as well:

" Wlad lost to Sanders, Purity, and Brewster all during his prime years, but Holmes has no chance? "

Now here's my take, comparisons made by looking at lackluster performances have to be taken with a grain of sult. Styles are what we really need to be looking at, and frankly I agree with McGrain that Holmes has a pretty good chance of beating the men that he listed. On the flipside, I disagree with BOTH you and McGrain that Schmeling would be a problem for Holmes, but I'm not about to make comparisons among bad performances of either man to do it.

 

STOP HAVING BLIND FAITH....AND LETS NOT get carried away with praise ...here are the fact regarding Earnie Shavers

his 1st loss was a UD to 180 lb Stan Ward

2nd loss Ron Stander took Earnies best and came back to stop Earnie in 5

He went to NY to fight Quarry (Iwas there) and he landed some hard shots on Jerry (got his irish going) and Quarry Stopped him in 1

Lost a UD to 5"9 Bob Stallings who had a 21-24 record (Bob was stopped 6 times(one of then by Jack Bodell)...Stallings took Earnies best and dropped Earnie for a 9 count in rd.9,winning a UD

Fought a Draw with 13-4-1 Jimmy Young (most felt Shavers lost that fight

Shavers Dropped ponderous Ron Lyle but Lyle got up and stopped Shavers in 6

Lost a UD to Ali ( no knock downs) Ali said Shavers was hardest puncher but I think Cooper,Banks and Frazier would argue that point...

Shaver was stopped by Larry Holmes in 11 after having Holmes down in the 7th

6 months later Shaver gets ko'd in Bernardo Mercado in 8th after dropping Mercado ...Earnie can not pull the trigger and Mercado takes over for KO

5 months after Mercado and 11 months after the Holmes fight Earnie hit Randell Tex Cobb with everything but the kitchen sink but Earnie withers and Cobb takes over for the Stop

Shavers did KO Norton (can be KO'd) in 1 but in 1 rd its hard to punch yourself out and Norton could not fight a puncher

as far as Witherspoon being better than Page (both men were not known for there training or consistancy but IMO when Page was conditoned he hit harder (good right hand (sneaky and FAST) and had a solid chin and boxing skills...and remember the Withspoon who fought Holmes had only 15 fights and a lot of people thought he beat Holmes and we know Larry never rematched him nor Williams or Weaver

Thomas, Tate,Coetzee,Page and Dokes had more energy than Witherspoon...Tim did not press fought a slower pace but again when he fought Holmes he only had 15 fights

You use Mike Weaver as an exampile but Holmes fought a 19-8 Weaver who had already been Ko'd by the likes of Howard Smith.Billy Ryan,Larry Frazier,Duane Bobick (all of them stiopped him in under 7 rds. It was not until Weaver almost beat Holmes did he start to feel good about his ability and later won a title ( Holmes would not rematch the improved Weaver)

Berbick was ordinary ,Cooney had the hook (power)but little else and the point is that the RIGHT Hand bombers and quicker hands were avoided by Holmes (until M. Spinks)

Page
Dokes
Coetzee
Weaver

I know you want to make Shavers into a mountain (he was a excellent puncher with little follow up and poor stamina)

And to say a 15 fight Witherspoon was a bold challange but to quote you


"No offense, but your examples and comparisons really suck "

 

Originally Posted by Bummy Davis
Well I dont know if those points are not relevant, If holmes would have been tested by a puncher who had the ability to follow up like Page,Dokes,Thomas, we may know the answers...Just because Larry survived the KD from an exausted SHAVERS AND A LIMITED SNIPES does not mean he would have been able to against a 2 fisted finisher. We do not know because he did not fight those guys who may have had that ability. Holmes weakness to the right hand was exposed but not really capitalized on the way a serious finisher would capitalise on it. Remember Shavers fought a lot of guys that took his right hand flush and did not hit the floor Lightheavyweight Vincent Rondon,Quarry,5" 9 Bob Stallings(dropped him and beat him)Tex Cobb,Ron Stander and others....So yes we give Larry credit for getting up but lets not forget that he went down hard vs Shavers (who was a puncher but not a finisher) and Snipes who was not known as either.

 

You still don't have the "facts". The fighter's name was Stan Johnson, and he was a 6-0 prospect fighting Earnie in only his 3rd pro fight in a 6 round match. Big deal.

Again, this fight took place nearly a decade before Shavers made his mark in the division, and when two young prospects with under a dozen pro fights were going at it. Let me ask you something Bummy, do you consider a fighter to be at the same ability level regardless of what phase of his career he's in?

Here is the fight on youtube, why don't you count the number of " BIG SHOTS" that Earnie supposedly landed. I myself didn't see anything more than maybe a few left jabs, and a couple of very short uppercuts on the inside where Shavers really didn't have much of an angle to do anything. Earnie's signature punch was his clubbing overhand right. How many times can you see that he landed this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEpVPBH12Ik

Jimmy Young fought every big puncher and his brother over a 20 year period and was only stopped on two occasions ( one of them by shavers, albeit when he was a greenhorn. ) Are you really going to tell me that this says something about Shavers' power? As for Stallings, he performed like **** against a mediocre opponent, but why would that imply that his power was anything less?

Lyle got up a number of times against Foreman too and even managed to drop him.. What's your point?

...

Cooper and Banks?

What does this have to do with punching power? so far you have nonshalantly shuffled asside the testimonies of two of the most durable heavyweights of all time, who claim that Earnie was the hardest punching fighter that either had ever fought.

None of these things say anything about the man's power.

More irrelevant ****.

" when Page was conditioned " doesn't mean jack ****. What counts is what a fighter ACTUALLY did in his prime, and Spoon takes the poster boy award for being the best of the lost generation. Page doesn't come close.

Weaver never survived the distance and Holmes win over Spoon was no robbery. The Williams fight was close, but how old was Holmes?

Yet none of them managed to win as many big fights as he did, and all were stopped on more occasions during the 1980's.

The improved Weaver that you speak of was lucky to squeak out a win over John Tate who was not only inferior to Holmes, but had Weaver completely outboxed in one-sided fashion. Weaver twice fought a known cocaine addict in Michael Dokes and while both outcomes were controversially in nature, still never came up with a single win. Weaver also lost a lot of his prime by sitting out and mending injuries during the early 80's. Believe me, I don't view him as a threat to Holmes title regardless of putting on a good show the first time against a " probably " complacent Holmes.

Yet he beat a large bunch of the men whom you are describing as being able to walk on water, ie. Page, Thomas, Tate, etc.

This post has more holes in it than swiss cheese.

I'm not making him into anything. I'm just having a laugh at the great lengths that you are going through to dimimish him.

I stand by my statement. Your examples and comparisons DO SUCK.

 

In order to apply the form and results of Schmeling v Louis to a theoretical match between Schmeling v Holmes some facts need to be imagined away. Here are the two most significant.

1. One must pretend that Holmes had the defensive inadequacies of Louis. Holmes had good lateral movement, was swift of foot, had a better defensive stance, and was good at shutting down his opponent's offensive tactics. He could get tagged, as the discussants recognize. But he was tagged a lot less frequently than Louis, who was tagged a lot by fighters would never would have been allowed in the ring against Holmes (despite some obvious exceptions, by the standards of the 1970s and 1980s, Louis' era was dismal in terms of opposition).

2. One must pretend that Holmes' chin was as dentable (is that a word?) as Louis'. Holmes could be dropped, as the discussants recognize. But, except for the Tyson fight, when a rusty and aging Holmes met a rampaging Tyson on the rise, he held up under tremendous thunder and quickly recovered from knockdowns. The Shavers punch sounded like a gun went off in the stadium, and Holmes dropped like he'd been shot. But he got up and went on to win. Does anybody believe Louis would have survived that shot? Schmeling hurt Louis several times and beat down the man. Louis was floored on several occasions against opponents whom he went on to defeat because they were bums. Larry would have destroyed most of the boxers who put Louis on the canvas.

Louis was an all time great fighter. Offensively he was incredible. But there were serious flaws in his form that lock him into a particular historical period. The same is true for Schmeling. Schmeling's victory over Louis was one for the ages. He executed a game plan with near perfection. He exposed Louis' career-long flaw. Why more couldn't repeat that accomplishment is a testament to Louis' offensive excellence at a historical moment when he was ahead of his time. Some fighters I can see competing in any era. Others I have a more difficult time imagining as timeless.

As for Holmes, he was also an all time great. But he also had his flaws. He was lucky that his career started when it did. The heavyweight division was weak during Holmes' prime. Put him in the middle of the 1970s and I don't think he does nearly as well. But I think Holmes, unlike Louis and Schmeling, translates well outside his period given his physical assets and ring smarts.