The ' Who did he beat' question

You're correct. Plus, you can only beat the best fighters of your time.

 

The Holmes issue is so funny to me, because I've heard everything under the sun about Holmes- "He doesn't have any quality wins", "He ducked many fighters", "He fought mostly paper bags", "He robbed multiple fighters of wins", and it just seems so apparent at a certain point that people don't know what they're talking about when it comes to the era that Holmes reigned over.
He won out over Norton, Weaver, Shavers, Berbick, Spinks, Snipes, Cooney, Witherspoon, Frazier, Smith, and Williams during his reign, with everything post Cooney being on a decline, and him purposefully choosing to take it easy- And through this, he STILL gave opportunities and fights to anybody who was worth a shot. But let's take a look at some fighters he might've "ducked" and see how it comes out.
Ken Norton - Holmes never gave Norton a rematch due to him starting to decline after their fight together, but people still will claim this as an issue on Larry's part, when Norton had only five fights in the following three years, in which he went 2-2-1 against high and low opposition, and in which four of those five men (Shavers, LeDoux, Cobb, and Cooney) later fought Holmes, it wasn't that Holmes was ducking Norton, but rather that Kenny couldn't earn a title shot.
Gerrie Coetzee - Holmes Vs Coetzee was scheduled for '84, but promotional and financial issues made it hard for the fight to happen, money fell through, and Coetzee wasn't a popular fighter at the time due to him being South African and apartheid being a fervent issue at the time (Just look at his fights against Snipes and Thomas where he was robbed of a decision twice).
Michael Dokes - Dokes never earned his way to a title shot or a unification bout with Holmes due to his poor (Randall Cobb, Gerrie Coetzee) or odd performances in the ring (Had a fluke knockout of Weaver and robbed him of a win in the following match).
Greg Page - Page originally was turned down for a shot at the title due to there being a low cost purse attached to their would be fight, and Holmes fought Frazier instead, but after this- Page nearly earned his way to a title shot only to lose to Witherspoon before he fully made it, leading to Tim getting his match against Holmes instead.
Pinklon Thomas - Thomas didn't earn a chance to fight Holmes, with him only beating James Tillis and getting a robbery draw against Gerrie Coetzee, who whooped him quite badly in their match, and thus, he earned the chance to fight Witherspoon instead. On top of that, all of Thomas' callouts of Holmes past that point didn't matter much because of his tendency to not unify.
I think it's just silly when he fought the best men that his era had to offer.

 

People are always hyper critical of heavyweights.

Lighter-weight boxers get a huge pass, by comparison.

Ricardo Lopez is a Hall of Famer. He went 51-0-1. He's considered the greatest fighter ever in his weight class.

Nobody complains about his quality of opposition, even though there's no one he faced AT ALL who anyone would consider a "great" fighter.

Who did he beat to be considered one of the best fighters ever? (Crickets)

 

Kudos to those very thorough breakdowns above. So many arm chair critics who never take the full reality into analysis and cite inaccurate, misleading or complete manipulation into such breakdowns... Boxing is littered with so many proper & ligitimate reasons for contests happening or not and not always sacred.

As I always say there are hundreds of great fighters at the TOP with little between them, except of of course, as pointed out here, Life, Circumstances and Machination.

Funny too, when I read some of the breakdowns of fighters on Internet forums, I always think, do you think, the Boxers and people who were there and actually know what transpired or not, do you think they give a monkeys F what people years or decades later try to say about them...

I also think, go have a pop at them, if you're so sure they don't add up to much and see what the outcome would be ..

Great explanations of reality presented here gentleman and especially when and if such truths indeed can be found written in Recorded History.

Well spoken Sirs.

 

Media can brainwash people very easily, painting terrible faces on someone is pretty much the easiest way to get clicks. Cashing in on people's rage or cluelessness on the subject matter.

Floyd definitely suffers from this, people showed a lot of bad things about him and bringing up so many excuses all the time regarding his achievements. Every fighter he won against is either he waited them aged or untalented and also bring up wins that he supposedly should've loss (Manny especially). Even if we do acknowledge some of his wins as loss, than he'd still be great.

During his end of career in boxing, he got two wins over a Maidana who is a fairly great boxer at the time and the champion at the time. Schooled Canelo who is pretty green but at peak shape, young, hungry, undefeated and would not lose till going up against another light-heavyweight. Wins over Diego Corrales, Luis Ortiz, Juan Manuel Marquez, Ricky Hatton, Zab Judah and Jose Luis Castillo. Shane Mosley wasn't in his prime years but was at a very good shape while also having two knockout wins over Margarito and Mayorga prior to the fight.

 

I’m not convinced, personally. But as you like it. Holmes & Tyson were great fighters, I think. Between them they couldn’t come up with a victim on their ledgers I couldn’t beat, though. That counts against them.

 

But who denies Holmes was a great fighter? Very few. Tyson? More, but still a minority.

 

True, but if the fighters of your era all suck, you don't get bonus points just for beating them.

 

I don't know anyone who considers Lopez one of the best fighters ever.

 

Sometimes you transcend achievement and the herds animal instinct elects you Sultan, Henry Maske what a fighter.

 

it's always gotta be a mixture of record and who did they beat, with context.

lopez was a good example of someone i'd consider a great fighter but his relatvley weak opposition has to be considerd.

a few of the black murders row guys didn't have the best looking records but op quality was top notch and is the reason they get talked of as great fighters.

 

Often it is contradictory also. Because you get a champion like Ali beating boxers like Frazier and Foreman and Norton who get ranked because Frazier and Norton beat Ali . & Foreman because he beat Frazier and Norton. So if Ali never lost they probably would say his challengers were not so special.

 

Very true.

 

Its's not often I see Norton mentioned as that special. Maybe against those who weren't big punchers, but he's never mentioned as an ATG.

Frazier would have a pretty darned good record even without Ali. He stopped two of the top 3 fighters of the era to become champion and had some other decent wins. What other champion had a win against someone like that?

So Foreman crushing him like that would be a pretty big deal even without Ali in the picture.

And then we have Liston, who actually most likely would have a higher standing today if not for Ali.