Why is it not held against Holmes legacy more that he was never the undisputed HW champion of boxing

I have addressed it.

It’s you who’s ignored various circumstances.


What should he have tried to have done harder?

The Coatzee fight fell through 3 times.


There was only one other belt, which was passed around constantly, and owned by a guy who he had a strained relationship with.


He only missed just a handful of relevant guys.

Guys that would only have added just a little bit of value to his resume/legacy.


There were no huge omissions.

 

I disagree.

He’s a great poster. But a lot of what he’s said simply doesn’t stack up.

 

Look at the timelines and the circumstances etc.

 

It's been done a million times in here. Sure, we'll do it again when I get time.

 

Was that an horrendous quote?

Spoken by a mid 30’s Larry, who’d had almost 50 fights, who’d been the champ for 7 years, where he’d consistently fought 3-4 times per year?


He said he’d paid his dues.

It’s not the worst quote ever.


As we know, after this quote, he then took on prime versions of Mike, Evander and Mercer, when in his mid 30’s-early 40’s.

 

I rate Holmes quite highly I was just saying it's a interesting discussion.

 

Absolutely.

 

Yeah, it's bad. As one pundit noted, lot's of champions have used the title to protect themselves, but Holmes in the first in history to OPENLY do so.

He took on Mike, Evander, and Mercer IN HIS QUEST TO GERT THE TITLE BACK. That is a different thing altogether.

 

I'll get my reply done before the weekend is out, maybe much sooner. Keep an open mind as others have (magoo, DP, Bokaj, Swag and countless others) and you might be surprised.

 

That's exactly the point, once it was gone he didn't have it to lose, nothing to protect etc

 

Yes, you have addressed it to satisfy yourself. Most of the Coetzee negotiations took place after he had accepted the IBF belt, so he was not contributing to unification even if the fight was made, because he had already contributed to proliferation. Nor do I buy that in five years until he switched titles he could not find any opportunity to unify.

 

There are those who say that they outright don't count, which I think is just plain nonsense that they know on their hearts is not true.

 

How bad was it though?

Considering that he was 35, and he’d fought almost 50 fights, in a 7 year reign, where he’d fought 3-4 times per year?

 

Considering that he was talking about holding onto a world title and oly defending it against people that he was sure he could beat and not hurt him, it's pretty bad.

I mean, look at what Usyk just got before he vacated.

 

No.

Everytime you post on this subject, you seem overly harsh, where there’s a number of factors that you don’t acknowledge.

Just last month, you argued that the landscape back then wasn’t different to what it is today, which was bizarre.


The Coatzee fight kept getting delayed.

At the time of the first negotiations, he was the WBA champ, where Larry still had the WBC.


I keep asking you and JT the same thing:

Who did you want him to fight, who’d have added genuine value to his legacy?


There was only really Pinklon Thomas.

Page and Dokes wouldn’t really have added anything.


Also, he was fighting 3-4 times per year.

So he couldn’t literally fight everyone out there.

It wasn’t possible.


Now had he have fought Thomas, Dokes, Page and Tate etc, but at the expense of some of the others, then what??

You’d probably be on here criticising him for having fought Page and Dokes, instead of having fought Witherspoon and whoever else he’d have missed.

A no win situation.


There were absolutely no glaring omissions from his resume.