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

I don’t think it is, considering the specific time that he said it.

 

Usyk should have fought Kabayel instead of a kick-boxer.

Usyk has only been fighting once per year for the last few years.

He’s only fought 5/6 opponents across around 10 fights.


Completely different circumstances to Larry.

 

I know...you've got it all worked out dout to where it didn't matter that he didn't unify, instead proliferated the belts, and rarely fought a #1 contender. But again...split titles went back a very long time, and every major champ before and after has unified, with a few notable exceptions like Bowe.

That is not a small thing. You have it worked out to where it doesn't matter to you. All well and good. I am saying it matters to me.

 

Yes, Larry should not have proliferated titles so that he could fight guys he though he could beat.

 

I didn’t say that it didn’t matter.

I said that he was operating under certain circumstances, that other fighters in other eras weren’t.


Every fighter has different circumstances surrounding them.

Which means that unifying the titles in the 60’s or 70’s, wasn’t exactly the same as in the early 80’s with Larry, or in other eras.


All I’m asking, is that you look at each case objectively.


The WBA belt was passed around like a game of ‘pass the parcel’ mostly by B level guys.

It was also owned by King, who Larry had a strained relationship with.


That meant that they were exceptional circumstances.


It’s not like Larry wouldn’t fight a fellow long reigning champ in the division, where there was a huge demand for the fight.

No.


It was an era where Larry was seen by everyone as being ‘The Man’

It wasn’t a case of him specifically ducking people, or having zero ambition.


Under different circumstances, things may have been very different.


Now you are just flat out wrong in stating that the landscape back then wasn’t different to the one today.

 

That’s easy for you to say.


Again, at that specific time, he’d had a falling out with King, where he had the opportunity to break away from him in order to earn more money.

Or are we just going to omit this information?


This was also after he’d tried to unify earlier.


Now simply tell me who he should have fought instead.

Who did he duck?

Who were these deserving guys who he should have fought?


Not only did he try to unify at one point, again, most of the WBA champs were B level guys who couldn’t hang on to it, and who’d already lost to Larry, or guys who Larry had already beaten.

 

No one is omitting anything--it is a fact that Larry Holmes helped the IBF survive by giving hem credibility.

Again, you have things wrapped up in your thinking to where all these shortcomings don't matter. You are welcome to that. I don't see it that way, and neither do a number of other people on this thread.

 

Every point mentioned is good but hindsight. Holmes didn’t feel the need. Be himself has pointed at money being his main motivation, like most. But I do see him getting a higher ranking if he had held the WBA-WBC-Ring-Lineal then IBF titles just like Hagler.

 

Wlad can certainly rank higher. Unifications are bigger fights. Why not take the fight?

 

We’re going around in circles.

So this will be my last post to you, unless you want to debate something else.

At the end of the day, you’re just fixated on what he didn’t do, without acknowledging that they were genuine, valid reasons why he did what he did.

In every post and on every thread, you just highlight the negatives, without allowing for the circumstances.

The circumstances have to matter.

They have to.

Now I’ve said that he should have found time to have fought Thomas.

But the others weren’t really relevant.

And I know for sure, that had he have fought Tate, Dokes and Page etc, but at the expense of others, you would literally be on here criticising why he’d not fought whoever those guys were.

Basically, you haven’t at all being objective.

So we’ll leave it there.

 

He wouldn’t get a higher ranking though.

It has to matter who you fight and at what point.

Beating Tate or Coatzee for the belt would have been nice.

Nice additions.

But it wouldn’t have moved him up the rankings.

Ali and Louis are in most people’s top 2.

Larry is 3rd or 4th on most people’s lists.

It also goes without saying that there’s many factors to assess when ranking a fighter, and not just their accomplishments.

 

What criteria are you using to rank Wlad higher?

There’s many factors to look at.

Those early losses really hurt Wlad.

Three losses to non great fighters, whilst in his 20’s, where they weren’t all avenged??

That’s huge.

Tag teaming the division with his brother, with bizarre contract stipulations.


Put them head to head:

He didn’t have more ability than Larry.

His resume/best wins aren’t on another level.

You could say that he officially accomplished more. However, he fought in a 4 belt era under completely different circumstances.

He didn’t have Larry’s longevity.

Prime for prime, he wasn’t better.


I could never rank him higher than Larry or Lennox, who normally occupy 3rd and 4th positions.

The guy impersonated an octopus against Povetkin.

He hit the deck 13 times in his career, including where he struggled with the crude Sam Peter.

And this was a SHW who had huge physical gifts over his opponents.

Those weren’t the actions of the 3rd or 4th greatest HW.


You have mentioned unifications etc, but again, that’s only one factor to assess.


All things considered, I could never rank him higher than Larry.

 

The only thing Wlad has on Larry is the fact that he missed less top contenders than Larry did during his reign. And that's it really.

 

To all intents and purposes, I virtually disregard alphabet titles when assessing a fighters career in an historical context. There is only ever 1 champion. I'm not too fussed about who the ABCs, who openly take sanctioning fees, call their particular titlest.

 

Very well said