Question to those who followed boxing in the early 80s

I started following Holmes in 77. By the second Shavers win I already had him as an all time great. As time has passed I have him in my top 5 H2H HW champ.

 

Yes I felt he was the goods, but remember he was coming after one of the most charismatic fighters in history. He was boring and not embraced like Ali and Tyson after. Holmes was bitter about that, and it came across in his personality which turned people off.

 

Holmes was good but great no way.

 

I used to argue with my father about Holmes. He hated Holmes, his views always represented the general publics mainstreem view. That was the view - Alis gone, boxing is dead, they were looking for "personality" and had stopped looking at how capable a champion was. Boxing was too mainstreem people who knew nothing had an opinion. Ali owned the public and in the end he conned them into thinking he still had it when he was barley getting away with wins beacuse he was so loved. Holmes looked like a poor imitation of ALI to general sports fans, I always argued "whats he doing wrong? he fights good and is a good champion". later respect came but more beacuse larry was still there but by then holmes was seen as bitter and tired. Boxing people always knew larry was the best at that time though. It was too difficult to draw comparisons after the ali circus. with hindsight larry was 20 times the champion ali had been after manilla but nobody could bring themselves to say it. Ali had been that big, it had stopped being boxing and had been the muhammad ali show.

 

Holmes was truly something special skill-wise; however he lacked the gift of gab of his predecessor, Ali. Holmes just had the misfortune of having a tough act to follow.

 

I, too, was a Holmes believer -- but the general public and most of the media did not accept that they were watching an ATG

 

Holmes needed a Foreman or Frazier type opponent...otherwise their challengers were very comparable (for Ali post 1970).

 

In the early 80s, Holmes was viewed largely as a guy, if you will pardon the expression, who couldn't carry Ali's jockstrap. A lot of people, in fact, deeply resented him for beating on the shell of Ali. And, his comments to the press didn't help any. Most people were rooting for Cooney to beat him.

A lot of fans criticized his opposition as soft. The era was viewed as being quite weak at the time, with a lot of (justified) complaining about fractured titles. Holmes was viewed as the top dog in a very weak division, kind of the way the Klitschkos are viewed today.

It is only since he returned in the 1990s that Holmes's stock began to rise, to the point where he is viewed as a "no doubt about it" ATG today.

 

He had polio legs and sloping shoulders and the people skills of a Hornet, but most people 'in boxing' rated him highly pretty early early...of course not like Ali...

 

That is the problem that Holmes had being compared to Ali.
He was gifted and deserved more appreciation and recognition
However, Larry was his own worst enemy because he was always
yapping about getting respect. If he would of kept his mouth shut
concerning RESPECT, then he likely would have got more.

Sometimes you don't always get what you want, but over time
others will measure the boxer for skills and achievement and
the personality stuff will drift away but ever so slowly.

 

Holmes was definitely a great. Apart from Ken Norton,who was coming to the end of his career,Larry never had a rivalry. The division was pretty poor in depth,compared to the 70's when we had Ali,Foreman,Frazier,Young and the peak Norton.

 

From what i remember he was universally unloved for a variety of reasons; beating Ali, uncharismatic, no rematches and non-unification....but at the same time everyone knew he was the man, even the other belt-holders AND the average joe

 

That's basically the same way that I remember him as a child, when listening to elder fight fans talk about him... I did not catch Holmes until the end of his career first career around 1984, when I was maybe 10 years old, but the mood was basically negative surrounding him... He was known as the man who punished Ali unnecessarily.. The man who beat on no hopers.. The man who seemed to have an attitude towards the press and public.. The focus at the time was primarily on stars of the lighter divisions like Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler.... There was a lot of dislike or disinterest in Larry Holmes from what I can remember.... Makes you wonder what people might think of Wladimir Klitchko 30 years from now.