Prime Holmes - Impossible to knock out?

Holmes chin probably wasn't the heavyweight version of Hagler's, and there have likely been tougher heavyweight chins, such as those of George Chuvalo or Oliver McCall. But what Holmes had to support his durability was an elite combination of superb conditioning and instinctual savvy/ring IQ. And, this enabled a top-tier survival mode and powers of recovery.

I tend to agree that, given what we saw an aged, creaking Holmes do in those last moments of his fateful bout with Tyson, a prime Holmes would have been more apt to survive such an event, if not avoid it altogether.

 

Larry Holmes was extremely difficult to knock out in his prime, thanks to his tough chin, excellent defense, and will to fight, as he proved in battles against punchers like Shavers and Cooney. However, he often engaged in exchanges, and Shavers knocked him down cleanly with the hardest punch Larry ever took. A fatigued Shavers, despite his power, was unable to finish Holmes, and Larry survived. The question is how many times could Larry have gotten back up after going down?

 

I don't think so.

Put Holmes in vs a hard hitting southpaw and i think he will struggle. He did not have the reflexes of Ali.

Now i rank Holmes as a top 3-4 heavyweight due to his consistency and well roundedness. But he wasn't "impossible" to knock out. He did not face a puncher who had the skill of Sonny Liston or the durability of George Foreman. Shavers was a great puncher, sure, but he was wild compared to even Foreman and lacked a good chin.

Larry was an excellent fighter but he also came along at the right time - he did not have to deal with punchers with skills of Liston and Frazier, or the extreme all round physical ability of Foreman. A lot harder to survive those guys than more limited ones like Cooney and Shavers.

I would give a hard hitting southpaw like Sanders or Zhang at least a 20% chance of stopping prime Holmes. Now i think Holmes probably beats them but it isn't a guarantee.

 

I'm a fan of Holmes but I don't think he's impossible to knock out no I think a prime Tyson could stop Holmes even at his best.

Holmes had a good chin but I wouldn't say he has a cast iron chin he can be badly hurt and floored and more than likely he could've been finished off by Shavers in their 2nd fight had he found one more punch and not been so sloppy.

Would I say a prime Holmes would be very hard to stop ? Yes. But impossible? Certainly not no.

 

Impossible? Nope. He avoided some real close calls. Hard to knock out? Yes. He was fairly durable to start, he’d recover pretty quick from being hurt, and he had good survival instincts when hurt and out on his feet.

 

I’ve never understood the confidence people have in Holmes’ durability. His feats here are plenty questionable. The guys who had him down were light-punching, average contender Snipes & a rather tired, one-dimensional Shavers, the guys who had him hurt were Weaver & Norton, lesser fighters than Holmes, at lesser points in their careers. He passed every test, so I don’t see a problem with calling him durable, but where does the iron faith in him stem from exactly? He faced not a single quality puncher & finisher until Tyson, yet people want to give him the benefit of the doubt when injured against Foreman, Liston, Tyson, Dempsey? He could certainly survive hurt against all of them, but the fact is he does not have the runs on the board against ATG dangerous fighters.

It’s an open question people seem to have an awful lot of faith in Holmes on. I am certain, for one thing, that Louis would have knocked him senseless.

 

He needed over 45 seconds to put an old Holmes away? That’s some sort of mark against Tyson? Stop it. That’s ludicrous marking.

Reasonable minds can disagree on prime Holmes vs Tyson. It’s a very open-ended fight IMO. Biggest danger for Holmes is the fact he is actually the slower man vs Tyson. That’s the real danger there.

 

He was able to be hurt,but he can always recover quickly, opposite to Edwin Rosario who had good durability but rather shid recovery.

 

Damn near impossible IMO. Unlike Tyson their was no quite in Holmes

 

Any fighter that was seriously hurt and dropped as many times
as Holmes was is certainly NOT impossible to ko.
Holmes was hurt and on the verge of getting ko'ed by quite
a few fighters not considered ko artist or great.
What if Louis, Frazier, Liston, Prime Tyson, Young Foreman or Holyfield had him
on the verge?
Would he have survived?
The more I watch Holmes in my old age, (I saw the entirety of
his career during it's prime)
The more holes I see in his skill set. The more I watch the
caliber of his competition he faced, and now knowing not
one would be remembered as special , the more I question
it.
Yes he deserves credit for his many title defenses, but
I can tell you especially at the end he avoided the best
competition available.
So "NO" he wasn't impossible to ko, it was the luck of
coming along when not many great ko artist were
available.

 

It could be done, but it would have to be done by breaking him down incrementally, not by landing a few big shots.

 

Great at recovering, balls of steel... yes.
But no one is impossible to KO.

 

It is not possible to knock out Holmes.
But circumstances changed:
1. H2H beast peak Mike Tyson
2. Holmes far from his prime
Holmes, who fought Witherspoon and Coney, would not have been knocked out since 1988 Mike Tyson, 2000 Lewis, 1967 Ali...

 

Joe Louis, FOTC Frazier, Liston could have stopped him. That's it. Prime Foreman, Tyson, Wilder, etc. also could have stopped him, but just didn't have the resiliency the first three had imo.

That's about it. Awaiting NoNeck to set things straight. I see Ney is already hard at work lol.

 

I just find it hard to figure where the immense faith comes from. He survived Shavers & Snipes? So?