January 2002 - July 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation

dangerous.The reverse was through with Dokes and Page. Holmes avoided
them and let them self destruct as a result of their own bad habits.I
may be wrong but I thought Holmes beat Shavers pretty convincingly in their 1st
fight.I pretty much agree with your ranking of Holmes among past
champions|
|9/15/05 10:07:27 AM|Pete|Cleveland||N/A||||10|Gerry, those were very good
insights about Larry Holmes regarding his title defenses.I am not trying
to put the knock on Holmes, but as a champion he was very clever in picking his
opponents for title defenses.Holmes would try and fight young contenders
on the way up before they reached their full potential. Witness Whiterspoon, and
Carl Williams. Holmes knew if he waited a year these guys would be too
dangerous.The reverse was through with Dokes and Page. Holmes avoided
them and let them self destruct as a result of their own bad habits.I
may be wrong but I thought Holmes beat Shavers pretty convincingly in their 1st
fight.I pretty much agree with your ranking of Holmes among past
champions|
|9/15/05 10:39:53 AM|Kent|Murrieta, Ca||kentallent@aol.com||||10|Larry Holmes
didn't fight every contender of his era. He didn't fight Michael Dokes, Greg
Page, Gerrie Coetzee, and Pinklon Thomas. I seem to remember he signed to fight
Coetzee but there was an injury to one of the fighters during training so the
fight didn't happen.Still between 1978 and 1983, Holmes was great and he
dominated most of his fights. It wasn't until about 1984 that Holmes started to
have more difficulty in his title defenses although the Witherspoon fight did
happen during his prime and it was a difficult fight for Holmes.Holmes
verses Frazier would likely be similar to Ali verses Frazier because of styles.
I would pick Holmes by a narrow decision in this one but Joe would give Larry
hell on the way.I rate Holmes over Frazier all time because Holmes would
likely win this one, even if only by a slight margin.I rate Holmes top
five of all time because at his best he had the skills to beat almost every
fighter of any era. He was really something special to watch.I would
even pick Holmes over Foreman, prime verses prime as Holmes' very hard jab would
land often and disrupt Foreman's timing. Holmes would also land enough hard
right hands to keep Foreman honest. Defense and movement would also be a
key as Holmes was one of the best defensive heayweights of all time. Only Ali,
Jimmy Young, and maybe Chirs Byrd might be better. Good defense would give
Foreman trouble as shown by Ali's and Young's wins over Foreman.Another
key to beating Foreman at his best was to hit him hard to show him he was in a
real fight and not just a walk over, something Frazier and Norton didn't do,
neither landed their best punches before they were badly hurt and knocked out.
On the other hand, Lyle and Ali did hit him hard, with their best
punches and Ali beat Foreman and Lyle came very close to winning.By the
way, Frazier had nine title defenses as the NYSAC world heavyweight title was
considered equal to the WBA title, which Frazier got when he unified the title
with his win in 1970 over Jimmy Ellis. So Frazier had four title defenses of the
undisputed title.Frazier's NYSAC title was also recognized by five other
states in the U.S. as well as Mexico and parts of South America, part of the
group that would later become the WBC.|
|9/15/05 11:19:16 AM|Massimo|Roma||4||||10|Mike Tyson rates Jack Johnson (as)
the best defensive fighter ever. Mike once said "he was a genius in defense". I
haven't seen enough of Jack Johnson in the ring to judge whether this is true or
not.|
|9/15/05 12:43:17 PM|Gerry|Cleveland||same||||10|Good points, Noam, Pete, Kent
on Holmes.While I still disagree, there's no question the guy was one of the
greatest heavies ever, no matter where you rank him.The matchup with Frazier
is interesting. On the surface, Holmes appears to handily have it, 69 wins to
32, 20 defenses to 9. But, of course, there's more to the story.Did
style give greater longevity to one of them? No doubt. Frazier was an in-your-