Why was Holmes better in the 90s than late 80s?

Holmes adapted his style in his 40s by sitting on the ropes more because he no longer had his legs anymore kind of like what Ali did later in his career.

If you pit the 90s version of Holmes against Spinks, Williams, Tyson, then Holmes would do significantly worse. How in the world is a 40+ year old Holmes sitting on the ropes who was significantly slower with no legs going to do better vs the opposition above ?

 

He was not better.They robbed him in the 2nd Spinks fight,The first one could have gone either way

 

Lets look deeper.

Holmes was a massive 6-1 favorite.
Spinks had never fought at heavyweight in his life, he didn't even have a tuneup.
Holmes was still finding ways to sneak home, even if the Williams verdit was controversial.

Spinks absolutely boxed a masterpiece. One doesn't have to look pretty to be awesomely effective. Spinks was always herky jerky, it was his signature style. Stats are only one part of things but Spinks landed 318 of 697 punches at 46%, Holmes 248 of 567 at 44%.

Spinks used everything at his disposal to keep Holmes off balance and not set. His defense was sterling and his offensive rushes were superbly timed and varied. He gave him plenty of angles both offensively and defensively.

For me it was a 10-10 performance. It was the best Spinks could do with what he had. It's one of the finer efforts in boxing history for mine and was extremely noteworthy at the time.

 

I must rewatch the first one I thought it was very close but it was 8 years ago when I last saw it.

 

He pulled it off in a really creative manner. I have to admit that.

I was thunderstruck, not that he won the decision (I had MIchael winning by one point) but...
I was pretty sure, before the judge's cards were revealed, the judges would give Holmes the Champion's/Apollo Creed Benefit of a Doubt and give it to Larry anyway.

Spinks never landed anything that seemed to more than temporarily irritate Larry. Holmes at the time was two fights into his Big Decline but to my eyes he landed more effective blows that had more of his body behind them. The reason I gave the fight to Michael by one point is because he made Larry miss a lot with all of his goony contortions and (despite my being the hugest Holmes fanboy on this fourm) I felt more than a few times in the fight he seemed to literally outfight him (though again I knew that Larry was hurting Michael more than vice versa).

I was and remain a massive fan of Michael as a light-heavy, he was a total Master imo. But I don't really think his heavyweight career was impressive, and he was right to check out after he fought Iron Mike. If Spinks-Holmes happened in 1981 Spinks would have been demolished in 3 imo.

 

Thanks for the smile, my friend. Hope you're having a wonderful 2025.