This content is protected Nice interview with Holmes. Larry makes some good points, but like all fighters, he talks his fair share of crap.
He had few, but he was ultimately neither fish nor fowl. He wasn't defensive enough, to beat the greatest offensive fighters in history. He perhaps wasn't offensive enough, to beat the best defensive fighters in history. That meant that there were a lot of ways, to make a fight with him competitive, and it showed!
Larry Holmes in his prime years as champion was technically sound, very confident, and had a very punishing left jab while utilizing lateral movement, could take a punch. Holmes had better than average stamina, his title bouts were 15 rounds. But I believe in some of his bouts he was overconfident, and susceptible to a hard right hand, Earnie Shavers, Mike Weaver, and Renaldo Snipes. we are talking prime years.
I don't think he had any weaknesses. He was way above average in every department, except punching power where he was average.
While his legendary heart speaks for itself, the truth is Larry looked pretty sloppy when badly hurt and didn't have particularly great defense or survival skills. It was often sheer grit that allowed for him to avoid getting stopped. He was not the best clincher and when he covered up there were plenty of gaps in the guard. Look at how Witherspoon was lighting him up with shots from multiple angles.
I sympathize with this, but I do have to cite the Mercer (and to a less effective degree, the Holyfield) matches as at times striking displays of defensive intelligence. It does bear mentioning that for some reason Larry seemed to get better defensively later in his career (well, in some, specific ways). Maybe the Tyson fight made him clean his act up from that perspective.
I don't think Holmes had much choice but to go to the ropes against Holyfield and Mercer. His legs were gone. It's awfully hard to look good against a guy using this tactic. But you need good defensive awareness and a good deal of toughness to go to the ropes like that.
Tendency to get drawn into firefights against shorter, slower, or cruder men. Falling short with his jab or right cross. Weakness to good jabs and occasionally switching off to big shots that he should have blocked or evaded. Fighting flat-footed and letting opponents come into his wheelhouse when he had the ability to keep them at range.
He was excellent at moving in particular. The problem really was head movement, he seemed to lose that progressively from right around 1980 on. To me, Holmes would have put Cooney away MUCH sooner had he the head movement he exhibited against Shavers in 1978. Cooney shouldn't have landed half of what he did. I mean, Larry still had amazing skills, but that one had eroded.