Tyson vs Holmes (Remember what you promised)

OK I'll give you that. Maybe he makes it to the end of the round. Granted Holmes had great recovery to, but it's still not going to change the fact Holmes would have been beaten. He'd been out of the ring to long , with no warm up fight. Holmes is a atg no matter, but against a young Tyson you need to be at your best just to survive.

 

Yep I've just posted a answer to that Wass. But it still wouldn't made a difference to the result. Same as the uppercut.

 

Larry himself stated he could not beat Tyson at that time. He took the fight for the paycheck.

 

Anybody else not called Larry Holmes wouldn't have got past the first round, with a lay off like that. I'll state that Holmes in prime defeat s Tyson, just not the 88 version.

 

If Tyson didn't land then he would have soon after anyway don't you think, Larry was on the ropes taking a pounding? he wasn't letting Homles off the hook so to speak, how many more times after the previous two knock downs would Larry have been able to take? Holmes was pure balls but even his courage couldn't keep taking Tyson that night.

 

I remember reading a quote from Larry just after Tyson beat him and it was something like he could beat everyone else but not Tyson by that point. He probably knew the man was too relentless and without his prime form he wouldn't be able to keep him off.

 

You are referring to interviews AFTER Holmes was certain that Ali was washed up for good. However, in prior interviews, when Ali was still causing him ego distress because of popularity, Larry Holmes had repeatedly expressed resentment in how Ali had treated him as a sparring partner. Said that Ali was a selfish person who would denigrate anyone in order to aggrandize himself at their expense. Felt himself always plagued by Ali's popularity as opposed to his own.

 

Interesting info. As much as I like Ali in the ring, out side he could show a nasty selfish side. He got away with a lot because he did it with a smile but I'm not sure joe Frazier found it amusing.

 

True, he could go overboard. Joe Frazier was under severe distress from some of his comments. The uncle Tom and gorilla statements proved particularly annoying to him.


BTW
There was an interview where Frazier crooned a few notes after being asked about his musical career and Ali jumped in and told him to stick to boxing. Frazier was visibly offended. LOL!

 

Tyson's display against Holmes was awesome.

 

Holmes was deluded.
At that stage he wasn't good enough to beat "everyone else but Tyson".
He'd already lost to Spinks and arguably deserved to lose against Carl Williams, and that was 3 years earlier.
Okay, there weren't many good HWs around at the time but in 1987-88 Witherspoon, Tucker, Williams, Spinks should be favoured, Douglas too, even Tubbs and Biggs, possibly Bruno.
Holmes was a tired old man.

 

Nope.

 

If, if, if...........

It's the speculation of losers

But, since we are speculating, I will make an educated guess.

Holmes would have made it trough the round.

But, would he have lasted the full 12 rounds ?

Highly unlikely.

He didn't have the legs to move for the duration.

And, he had shown no indication of being able to hurt Tyson. In fact, he barely hit him.

Could he have hurt Tyson with one miracle right uppercut?

Most likely, no. Tyson was hit with a big uppercut by Tony Tucker and nothing really happened.

This was peak Tyson and way past peak Holmes.

Tyson would have caught and hurt him again and again until putting him away.

When would that have occured ?

Sometime before the end of the scheduled 12 rounds.

Tyson by KO.

 

If Holmes's hand hadn't got caught, his uppercut could well have missed badly and Tyson would have nailed him with something similar to what he did in those remaining two seconds anyway.
OR ...Holmes might have survived the round.
I can't imagine him going beyond the 6th or 7th after that kind of round anyway.