Underrated reason why Holmes was the best of his era

And lost to a career LHW. And probably should have been beaten by Williams.

I give Holmes credit for being a great, but a second-tier one. These guys who rate him 2 or 3, or talk about how great he was head to head when no such thing was ever proven, are crazy. He's lower end of the top ten, and I could see a lot of fighters giving him some trouble.

 

I've never seen anyone rate Holmes as top 2 TBH. I would say he's normally rated about 4 or 5 but he does have the 4th most wins over ranked Heavyweights in history. I think only Ali, Louis, and maybe Wladimir ? Have more.

I mean realistically apart from Louis, Ali, who pretty much trump any Heavyweight by a landslide in the rankings. I wouldn't say there's many other Heavyweights you could say are definitely above Holmes.

Maybe Marciano for his undefeated streak, Lewis for his slightly stronger opposition and who is also close to Holmes in the amount of ranked opponents he beat. And finally Wladimir for having slightly more title defences. But after that I wouldn’t say there's many other Heavyweights to be quite honest.

 

I have.

But who were the wins and how impressive were they? You have given your own benchmark of the metric itself failing. So Wlad has more...does that make Wlad better?

It's a fairly empty metric. It's not nothing, but its one of dozens of ways you might give a fighter some points.

How about Forman? Better single win in Frazier....beat a better version of Norton, Holme's best....beat Lyle who was a bit better than Shavers, who almost knocked Holmes out....more notable achievement in being lineal champ in BOTH of boxing's golden eras, rather than being a company champ.

I would honestly say that you could make the argument that any undisputed champ has something over Larry.

To me, lower end of top ten for Larry.

 

My post wasn’t that serious either.

But generally there’s a bit more decorum here on the Classic forum and trolling isn’t encouraged.

I guess some people like that but this seems to be the one place we can generally have serious (and fun) discussions about boxing without the usual toilet-stirring you find elsewhere. It’s a shame some would rather troll here.

 

The term, “ranked opponent,” is taking on political spin doctoring levels of disproportion in relation to him, lately. It’s easy to be ranked in a putrid division. Who is his best win? An over-the-hill Norton? Never-waser Cooney? Green Witherspoon? Please.

But apparently he deserves more respect for almost winning a portion of the Heavyweight crown vs Oliver McCall. LMAO.

 

Well what is your criteria for ranking Heavyweights then ? There isn't a whole lot of Heavyweights with deep resumes with alot of great names aside from a select few. The smaller divisions on average have more talent and that's why you normally see deeper resumes in smaller weightclasses.

Holmes has some very good credentials in his favour that IMO makes him a highly ranked Heavyweight. His consistent wins over ranked opponents, never lost in his prime, 20 world title wins, doesn’t have any real glaring weaknesses.

As for Foreman I had this debate last week and to be honest I'm quite baffled how anyone could have Foreman over Holmes. He lost convincingly twice before the age 30 in his physical prime, had two very brief title reigns and in the 2nd one never defended the title against a top 10 opponent, doesn’t even half the amount of wins against top 10 ranked opponents that Holmes has, only beat 1 ranked fighter after the age of 27.

Foreman has the best single win in Frazier but both Holmes and Foreman both beat Norton, yes Foreman beat Norton more impressively but Holmes also beat Norton when he was a champion and still in very good form. As for Lyle being better than Shavers well the likes of Witherspoon, Weaver, Berbick, achieved more than Lyle did so you could say that aswell.

Apart from Foreman beating Frazier there isn't really anyother name on his resume that stands out to Holmes apart from the win over Moorer. But let's be real Moorer won the title off of a seriously depleted Holyfield with health issues and got dismantled in the rematch by Holyfield. Proving that win was fortunate that Moorer was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of a weakened opponent nowhere near his best.

 

Not to mention Holmes beat Shavers twice (winning pretty much every round but the knockdown round) and Shavers knocked out Norton in one and gave Ali a much better fight than Foreman did.

There’s hardly a fighter ever whom you couldn’t deconstruct their record and say ‘well this guy was this, that guy was that’ — but Foreman’s resume pales in comparison to Holmes’ in pretty much any way you could measure it.

 

The criteria are many, and depth is one of them, but again, quality is the bigger one.

As for Foreman, already explained...Foreman's top 2 wins are better than anything on Holme's resume.

Depth has become a thing in the last two years precisely because of Holmes and Wlad...a lot of guys are trying to push fighters whose best accomplishments are squashing a huge number of no-hopers who got ratings in an era of multiple belts.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree whilst I understand your point me personally i don't think Foreman has enough quality to trump Holmes's quantity.

Holmes didn't fight ATG competition some names like Weaver, Witherspoon, Berbick, Mercer, would be amongst Foreman’s best wins which is what I'm on about with a lack of depth in regards Foreman’s resume.

You have Frazier, Norton, and then not too much else after that really separates him from Holmes to be quite honest. And he doesn't have the numbers either in regards to title defenses or wins against ranked opposition to make up for it.

People are saying I'm being dishonest for bringing up ranked opposition but if it was that easy why does Foreman only have 1 win against top 10 opposition after the age of 27 ? I mean Foreman in his physical prime after the Ali loss fought two top 10 ranked opponents Lyle, Young, and he went 1-1 and come within a whisker of going 0-2 barely surviving against Lyle.

And whilst Young, Lyle, are solid opponents I would favour Holmes over both by a considerable margin.

 

Yeah, 3-6 could done be in several different orders with the fighters you mention imo. Seen to resume, Johnson is in that mix as well.

 

Well, everybody has an excuse, but in the case of Foreman we could say he was damaged goods after RITJ, so much that he suffered some kind of mental meltdown right after his defeat to Young and decided to call it quits.

In any case I agree Larry would be the clear favorite versus Lyle and Young.

 

I have it

3. Holmes
4. Lewis
5. Marciano
6. Johnson
7. Wlad

I can easily see 3 and 4, and 6 and 7, being the opposite way round, even applying exactly the same criteria as I do. With a subtly different criteria to me, you can credibly rank these 5 in any order.

 

Larry would have fought Young but he lost to Osasio in his tuneup and then lost to him again (after getting in shape). And Holmes dominated Ocasio, who proved twice head-to-head that he was better than Young (at least at that stage) — Young would look better on a resume because of name recognition but Jaws ended Jimmy’s days as a viable contender so he was the better defense for Holmes to make between the two.

 

Such a hater. At the least you have to give the guy credit for in the ring courage . As if Johnson, Dempsey, Louis or Marciano fought better title competition ...

 

I don’t deny I hate Holmes. But we have someone in this discussion so contemptuous of Foreman they are claiming there is, “no case” for him to be ranked above Holmes. That’s the most extreme hatred you’ll find here, where objectivity has been flung into the Sun.

Louis didn’t fight better competition? LOL.