Prime Holmes in the 90s

I understand what you’re saying and see the merit in the logic. But just because Mcall beat Lewis, Foreman beat Moorer, Bowe beat Holy and Douglas beat Tyson doesn’t necessarily = Holmes going 48-0. Boxing as crazy as it is doesn’t work that way. As for the 80s also being shark infested, I think we can all agree that Holmes spent more than his fair share of time hiding out in the safety of the shark cage.

 

It doesn't necessarily take "a special threat" to end an undefeated run.

 

I always like and respect your posts, but I don't see Holmes hiding. He beat Witherspoon, who ended up becoming a two-time heavyweight champion. He beat Smith, who ended up knocking out Witherspoon in one round and taking a prime time Tyson the distance. He beat Weaver, who later knocked out Coetzee (not to mention knocked the living bejesus out of Williams). He beat Berbick and Bey, both of whom beat Page. Thomas got beat by another of Holmes' wins. I realize you don't see any merit in the logic...but there is some merit there. He beat the guys who beat the guys he was supposed to be hiding from.

I do feel, however, that the 90s were a bit more competitive. The 80s had overwhelmingly Holmes and Tyson (the rest seemed to too often get beat by people they shouldn't have been beaten by). The 90s had Lewis, Holy, Bowe, Foreman, and no joke competition like Mercer, Tua, Golota, McCall, Tyson,

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Not at all. I’ve watched Holmes fight With Tim Witherspoon a few times and frankly I think terrible Tim was robbed. To paint the picture, Witherspoon had practically no amateur career. He was off for a whole year before facing Holmes. He had his jaw broken in his last bout against snipes who some felt beat him and lastly Tim only had 15 pro bouts. There’s a very good reason why we never saw a rematch there nor any Holmes meetings with spoons piers.

 

I respect your opinion, but I felt Tim (like Williams) didn't do enough to win a world championship belt (besides seriously hurting Holmes in the 9th and acting like a prematurely overconfident fool in the 12th without actually doing anything significant).

Both Williams and Witherspoon thought they had it in the bag when they didn't and the last rounds against Holmes proved they didn't deserve the nod.

Granted, it was a sign of their (understandable) immaturity.

 

Thank you for the compliments and I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. None of these future alphabet champions had any real standing at the time Holmes fought them. Weaver was a 19-8 gate keeper. Spoon was a 15 fight novice. Berbick was green. Williams was nobody. Boncrusher was ranked #11 by the WBC so not even top 10. All these guys were basically fringe opponents - most of whom gave Larry fits and some were even robbed.. NONE got rematches. For as great as Larry was, I can’t see this career pattern boding well in the 90s. At best he might reach 48-0 by steering clear of the dangerous propositions. Maybe drop a belt to fight Damiani or Mercer for the obscure WBO. Defend against Morrison. Take soft touch against Orlin Norris.. probably campaign heavily for a big purse with an aged Foreman. But facing Bowe, Tyson, Holy, Lewis and Moorer in procession and beating all of them with an open welcome mat to a rematch ??? Doubtful.

 

I’ll say it like this... I think Holmes could have replicated his 48-0 record in the 90s by repeating exactly what he did in the 80s. Cherry picking opponents, dropping one belt for another and letting the top 3-5 guys battle against each other while his record and bank account steadily grew..

 

I don't think Mr. Magoo is much of a fan of Holmes and hey, more power to him. Either that or it's my admitted Holmes fanboyism lol.

 

Not true. Big Larry fan here. And in truth I used to make many of the same arguments in his defense that you are making now. You could probably find some of them on here from 10-13 years ago. But after looking at this thing from multiple angles over the years I’ve come to the irrefutable conclusion that his reign had some very noticeable flaws.

 

Tim did look excellent in the Holmes fight...but also, as Mr. Magoo intimated, green. He made the rookie mistake of getting overconfident waaay too early and it cost him the fight. Judges don't like to award championship belts to fighters who goof off early thinking they have the fight in the bag, same with Williams (who got hurt pretty bad toward the end of his fight with Larry).

That said, had either fighter another year under their respective belts before meeting Larry, they might have handily won.

 

Spoon was very good in both the 80s AND 90s. Was he as good when he fought Holmes with 15 fights and a year of inactivity ? Not sure. Did Larry pick spoon because he thought of him as a credible defense ? Highly doubt it. Did Holmes even deserve the decision win he received in that fight ? Not in MY opinion..Did spoon ever get a rematch ? Not to my knowledge.

 

So does any other reign (and I'll bet money you already knew that).

 

Indeed. One of the reason why I said that I don’t think anyone not even Ali or Louis goes undefeated in the 90s..

 

So do I and it's not discrediting Holmes to suggest that he'd be unlikely to replicate the same, during the '90s.

 

I LOVED the 90s heavyweights, 70s too. Larry would have had, to paraphrase Teddy Atlas, the Ginger to his Fred Astaire if he'd fought in those eras. In the 90s I could see a Holyfield rematch and perhaps a Lewis trilogy! Imagine how great those would be...and I wouldn't doubt Larry might lose one or possibly even two out of those projected five fights.