anyone not rate joe lous in the top 2 greatest heavyweights?

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 07 Sep 2005, 18:04

BoxBuzz wrote:Indeed. All eyes look to the heavens for a sign. So it's important that I keep to the flight plan.

Fight or flight! that is the question!.
Do the pants know where the trousers are walking?.... 8)

:x

Rory McCloskey · Post by **Rory McCloskey** » 07 Sep 2005, 18:06

i never expected for the day to come where louis' competitors where challenged...maybe it was because he destroyed everyone... but who the heck did holmes fight? i think he fought in one of the weakest eras.

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 07 Sep 2005, 18:18

Your just smoooooothe there Silkster!

Rory McCloskey · Post by **Rory McCloskey** » 07 Sep 2005, 18:25

anyone think ali isnt one of the top 2 heavyweights?

The Great John L · Post by **The Great John L** » 07 Sep 2005, 18:35

Rory McCloskey wrote:anyone think ali isnt one of the top 2 heavyweights?

You should probably make that a new thread. And then someone can start a "Does anyone think Jack Johnson isnt one of the top 2 heavyweights?" thread.

vagabundo55 · Post by **vagabundo55** » 07 Sep 2005, 18:36

Read the first page of this thread and you'll see I have Ali as #3. (Wow.. that rhymes. It sounds stupid.)

BrocktonBlockbuster49 · Post by **BrocktonBlockbuster49** » 07 Sep 2005, 19:25

well IMO not having ali and louis in the top 2 is pathetic.

really, u can rate the 3-10 guys anywhere u want, but u cant have a good arguement of not rating louis or ali in the top 2.

and holmes didnt have the most power out of ali and johnson. i thought ali had more power than holmes. ali knocked out and stopped much much better competion.

holmes competetion wasnt that strong. the only case u have is he defended 21 times but id rather him defend ten times against top contenders than 21 times with a fair share of bums. and holmes had a lot of trouble in defenses with non great heavyweights. all those guys like weaver, witherspoon, bonecrusher, williams,berbick, they all gave him trouble and were not top 40 heavyweights of all time.

holmes defintely would not have kayoed louis. i see joe knocking him out. renaldo snipes nearly knocked out holmes, and holems was vunerable to big right hands and joe louis had probably the greatest right hand of all time. when louis hit holmes with it, holmes would go down. and then joe would flurry with the hardest combos holmes has ever been hit with and louis would ifnish him off.

past his prime or not, tyson showed u can knock out holmes, cause after holmes lost to tyson he was never stopped and managed to almost win a world title and tyson still knocked him out cold.

holmes also never even unified the title???? i mean come on. unify the goddamm title, instead of fighting lorzenzo zano and scott le deux.

vagabundo55 · Post by **vagabundo55** » 07 Sep 2005, 20:31

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:well IMO not having ali and louis in the top 2 is pathetic.

really, u can rate the 3-10 guys anywhere u want, but u cant have a good arguement of not rating louis or ali in the top 2.

and holmes didnt have the most power out of ali and johnson. i thought ali had more power than holmes. ali knocked out and stopped much much better competion.

holmes competetion wasnt that strong. the only case u have is he defended 21 times but id rather him defend ten times against top contenders than 21 times with a fair share of bums. and holmes had a lot of trouble in defenses with non great heavyweights. all those guys like weaver, witherspoon, bonecrusher, williams,berbick, they all gave him trouble and were not top 40 heavyweights of all time.

holmes defintely would not have kayoed louis. i see joe knocking him out. renaldo snipes nearly knocked out holmes, and holems was vunerable to big right hands and joe louis had probably the greatest right hand of all time. when louis hit holmes with it, holmes would go down. and then joe would flurry with the hardest combos holmes has ever been hit with and louis would ifnish him off.

past his prime or not, tyson showed u can knock out holmes, cause after holmes lost to tyson he was never stopped and managed to almost win a world title and tyson still knocked him out cold.

holmes also never even unified the title???? i mean come on. unify the goddamm title, instead of fighting lorzenzo zano and scott le deux.

Well, apparently your opinion is incorrect because I find I can argue against not having Ali in my top 2 as well as some can argue that they don't have Louis in their top 2. Maybe you should have thought it over and said, "Anyone that doesn't have Ali or Louis in their top 5 is pathetic." that's more reasonable..

Jaclem · Post by **Jaclem** » 08 Sep 2005, 00:57

well..silkov my friend (and i am not being sarcastic....all wise promoters and historians of our fading sport i consider a friend)..you seem determined to take my posts here as hostile, so i shall leave it at that.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 08 Sep 2005, 06:48

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:well IMO not having ali and louis in the top 2 is pathetic.

really, u can rate the 3-10 guys anywhere u want, but u cant have a good arguement of not rating louis or ali in the top 2.

and holmes didnt have the most power out of ali and johnson. i thought ali had more power than holmes. ali knocked out and stopped much much better competion.

holmes competetion wasnt that strong. the only case u have is he defended 21 times but id rather him defend ten times against top contenders than 21 times with a fair share of bums. and holmes had a lot of trouble in defenses with non great heavyweights. all those guys like weaver, witherspoon, bonecrusher, williams,berbick, they all gave him trouble and were not top 40 heavyweights of all time.

holmes defintely would not have kayoed louis. i see joe knocking him out. renaldo snipes nearly knocked out holmes, and holems was vunerable to big right hands and joe louis had probably the greatest right hand of all time. when louis hit holmes with it, holmes would go down. and then joe would flurry with the hardest combos holmes has ever been hit with and louis would ifnish him off.

past his prime or not, tyson showed u can knock out holmes, cause after holmes lost to tyson he was never stopped and managed to almost win a world title and tyson still knocked him out cold.

holmes also never even unified the title???? i mean come on. unify the goddamm title, instead of fighting lorzenzo zano and scott le deux.

You're entitled to your opinion as I am to mine, but if you really think that the likes of Witherspoon, Shavers, Williams, Norton, cOONEY, sMITH, Weaver and Spinks and a good few others would not have lived with or beaten the best challengers that Louis faced then I think you are deeply mistaken. But once again this thread has shown how underrated Holmes and all the fighters from his era are plus the fact that it seems to be almost blasphemous to pick anyone to beat Joe Louis especially Larry 'Jockstrap' Holmes.
There seems to be a real antipathy towards Holmes here and I think that is really sad. People say Ezzard Charles is the most underrated heavyweight champion but I think it is Larry Holmes and this thread proves it!.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 08 Sep 2005, 06:53

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:well IMO not having ali and louis in the top 2 is pathetic.

really, u can rate the 3-10 guys anywhere u want, but u cant have a good arguement of not rating louis or ali in the top 2.

and holmes didnt have the most power out of ali and johnson. i thought ali had more power than holmes. ali knocked out and stopped much much better competion.

holmes competetion wasnt that strong. the only case u have is he defended 21 times but id rather him defend ten times against top contenders than 21 times with a fair share of bums. and holmes had a lot of trouble in defenses with non great heavyweights. all those guys like weaver, witherspoon, bonecrusher, williams,berbick, they all gave him trouble and were not top 40 heavyweights of all time.

holmes defintely would not have kayoed louis. i see joe knocking him out. renaldo snipes nearly knocked out holmes, and holems was vunerable to big right hands and joe louis had probably the greatest right hand of all time. when louis hit holmes with it, holmes would go down. and then joe would flurry with the hardest combos holmes has ever been hit with and louis would ifnish him off.

past his prime or not, tyson showed u can knock out holmes, cause after holmes lost to tyson he was never stopped and managed to almost win a world title and tyson still knocked him out cold.

holmes also never even unified the title???? i mean come on. unify the goddamm title, instead of fighting lorzenzo zano and scott le deux.

Name me these marvelous fighters that Louis defended his title against that would have beaten Weaver, Norton, Cooney, Williams, etc.
To keep picking out the likes of Zanon as an example of Holmes opposition is ridiculous.
And Holmes didn't unify the titles because he wasn't allowed to!.
I have to question how much you actually know about Holmes and his reign?........ how many of his fights have you actually seen???.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 08 Sep 2005, 07:01

silkov wrote:
BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:well IMO not having ali and louis in the top 2 is pathetic.

really, u can rate the 3-10 guys anywhere u want, but u cant have a good arguement of not rating louis or ali in the top 2.

and holmes didnt have the most power out of ali and johnson. i thought ali had more power than holmes. ali knocked out and stopped much much better competion.

holmes competetion wasnt that strong. the only case u have is he defended 21 times but id rather him defend ten times against top contenders than 21 times with a fair share of bums. and holmes had a lot of trouble in defenses with non great heavyweights. all those guys like weaver, witherspoon, bonecrusher, williams,berbick, they all gave him trouble and were not top 40 heavyweights of all time.

holmes defintely would not have kayoed louis. i see joe knocking him out. renaldo snipes nearly knocked out holmes, and holems was vunerable to big right hands and joe louis had probably the greatest right hand of all time. when louis hit holmes with it, holmes would go down. and then joe would flurry with the hardest combos holmes has ever been hit with and louis would ifnish him off.

past his prime or not, tyson showed u can knock out holmes, cause after holmes lost to tyson he was never stopped and managed to almost win a world title and tyson still knocked him out cold.

holmes also never even unified the title???? i mean come on. unify the goddamm title, instead of fighting lorzenzo zano and scott le deux.
Name me these marvelous fighters that Louis defended his title against that would have beaten Weaver, Norton, Cooney, Williams, etc.
To keep picking out the likes of Zanon as an example of Holmes opposition is ridiculous.
And Holmes didn't unify the titles because he wasn't allowed to!.
I have to question how much you actually know about Holmes and his reign?........ how many of his fights have you actually seen???.

How can you take the example of Tyson knocking out a 38 yearold Holmes (who had been given just 3 weeks notice for the fight and had not fought for over 2 years) as having any bearing on how Holmes would have done with Louis???.
Louis was koed by Schmeling and Marciano and was dropped or hurt by Braddock, Baer, Galento, Walcott, Farr, Maurillo. Holmes had decent power and could have stopped Louis imo but whether he did or not he would definately have outboxed Louis and if you know much about Louis style you'll know that he always had trouble with movers so my saying that holmes could beat him is hardly 'patheitc'.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 08 Sep 2005, 07:07

Jaclem wrote:well..silkov my friend (and i am not being sarcastic....all wise promoters and historians of our fading sport i consider a friend)..you seem determined to take my posts here as hostile, so i shall leave it at that.

If you think, as your earlier comments seem to say, anyone who rates Louis out of the top 2 or 3 heavyweights of all time is showing a lack of knowledge in the sport... then yes I think your attitude is if not hostile then rather closed minded and not open to discussion. I have never said anyone who rates Louuis 1 or 2 is saying more about themselves than they are about Louis... then again, perhaps it does!.

Ezzard · Post by **Ezzard** » 08 Sep 2005, 07:20

During his prime Holmes fought everyone out there. When I think back the only guys he didn’t fight worth a mention were Dokes and Page (and Page blew his chance). He didn’t avoid them though. Larry wasn’t afraid of anyone. He was a mean SoaB and fear wasn’t in his psychological make-up. I always thought it a shame that he didn’t unify the title and don’t know why he didn’t. Silkov, maybe you can enlighten us to the politics because you seem to know why it didn’t happen.

The only things you might possibly say against Larry was that at the end he was too fixed on the 49-0 record. He allowed the IBF in by taking their title and giving it some credibility. This meant he could sidestep a rematch with Witherspoon and not fight Thomas. I was a bit disappointed when he chose to fight Michael Spinks but he wasn’t the first Heavyweight to fight a Light heavy Champion and I’m sure Larry thought he deserved to pick a few softer opponents. Of course it didn’t work out that way which shows what I know.

Louis’ record pre-championship is possibly the greatest ever. He beat so many ex champions and simply blew the whole division away. But once champion Louis didn’t fight the top black HWs of the day until much later in his reign. You can hardly say that he drew the colour line but to all intents and purposes that’s what happened. Joe was champion but other black fighters didn’t get a chance.

All champions fight a few lesser contenders and all champions have a contender or two who for one reason or another they never fought.

Both these guys are great. Everyone accepts Louis’ greatness they should accept Holmes’ too. You only have to look at his record as an old man, way past his prime to see how he could still handle himself and one of the key factors to Larry’s success was his superb physical conditioning; even with that gone he was still a top fighter.

iceman21287 · Post by **iceman21287** » 08 Sep 2005, 07:36

If the 7th round of the Earnie Shavers v. Larry Holmes fight had lasted another minute, no one would even be contemplating rating Holmes above Louis right now...

The Great John L · Post by **The Great John L** » 08 Sep 2005, 07:36

Ezzard wrote:Both these guys are great. Everyone accepts Louis’ greatness they should accept Holmes’ too.

Well said. Maybe that will bury this dead horse.

dalek · Post by **dalek** » 08 Sep 2005, 07:41

iceman21287 wrote:If the 7th round of the Earnie Shavers v. Larry Holmes fight had lasted another minute, no one would even be contemplating rating Holmes above Louis right now...

thats about as dumb a post as you can get!

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 08 Sep 2005, 07:46

The Great John L wrote:
Ezzard wrote:Both these guys are great. Everyone accepts Louis’ greatness they should accept Holmes’ too.

But they don't accept Holmes greatness do they?. It seems you don't know much about boxing if you dare think Holmes would beat Louis.
Makes me wonder how much these Louis supporters actually know about Louis because its common knowledge that he had trouble with clever, fast moving boxers.

Holmes didn't unifiey the title becuase the politics of the time wouldn't let him. As I said earlier the promoters and tv people realised that they could make more money with two champs than they could with one.
Also Holmes had already beaten the WBA champ Weaver who held that 'title' in the early 80s and the vast majority of people saw Holmes as the number one man. When Weaver lost the WBA title the title then changed hands with almost every fight and this proved futher that the true champion was Holmes.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 08 Sep 2005, 07:50

dalek wrote:
iceman21287 wrote:If the 7th round of the Earnie Shavers v. Larry Holmes fight had lasted another minute, no one would even be contemplating rating Holmes above Louis right now...
thats about as dumb a post as you can get!

Yes. He probably hasn't even seen the fight. Holmes had just about the best recupertive powers I've seen after Ali and got up from a punch that few of the other Heavyweight champions would have recovered from.
I don't see Louis getting up from that punch.

Ezzard · Post by **Ezzard** » 08 Sep 2005, 09:21

Holmes finish of Shavers was savage. Larry looked totally gone against Snipes too. How he came back from that I don't know.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 08 Sep 2005, 09:48

Ezzard wrote:Holmes finish of Shavers was savage. Larry looked totally gone against Snipes too. How he came back from that I don't know.

Holmes fought at his hardest when hurt. He had flu when he fought Weaver and was hurt but again came back to stop Weaver. And Weaver was a monster puncher right up there with Shavers almost.
Another thing about Holmes is that along with Ali and Johnson I'd consider him one of the cleverest champions... which is why he was able to handle himself in his 40s against many of the top contenders of the 90s.

Ezzard · Post by **Ezzard** » 08 Sep 2005, 10:50

silkov wrote:
Ezzard wrote:Holmes finish of Shavers was savage. Larry looked totally gone against Snipes too. How he came back from that I don't know.
Holmes fought at his hardest when hurt. He had flu when he fought Weaver and was hurt but again came back to stop Weaver. And Weaver was a monster puncher right up there with Shavers almost.
Another thing about Holmes is that along with Ali and Johnson I'd consider him one of the cleverest champions... which is why he was able to handle himself in his 40s against many of the top contenders of the 90s.

I liked Weaver. In that era of less than dedicated HWs he always came to the ring in shape and always gave his best. He was an exciting fighter too because of his power and his vulnerability. I haven't seen the Dokes fights but I have read that he was unlucky with the first round stoppage and the second fight being a draw.

Holmes was clever. You are spot on. You can see it with the greats though, they always have something.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 · Post by **BrocktonBlockbuster49** » 08 Sep 2005, 10:59

by now way am i underatinng holmes, i rate him 5th all time.

holmes was an all time great. but i defintely dont think he should be rated over joe louis.

and holmes did not duck greg page,mike dokes, pinklon thomas, etc but i would have rather seen him defend against those guys.

if one of the judges scorecards changed by one point in the holmes norton fight, we wuldnt be talking about holmes right now

Jaclem · Post by **Jaclem** » 08 Sep 2005, 12:22

..silkov.....i have never claimed to have an open mind. it got stuffed with so much knowledge i finally had to to close it up.

as for larry holmes.....as i've written before i saw him from ringside in a preliminary fight and it convinced me he was going to the heavyweight champion or at least a top contender just based on that short fight, which he got off the floor to win by a a knockout. luckily this was before i closed my mind, so i was glad to watch him go all the way to the top.

could he have beaten joe louis? sure....any of the best champions could have beaten any of the others on any given night.....but i wouldn't give him a chance in a rematch.

The Great John L · Post by **The Great John L** » 08 Sep 2005, 13:22

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:if one of the judges scorecards changed by one point in the holmes norton fight, we wuldnt be talking about holmes right now

Why not? One loss would certainly not have ended Larry's career. In fact, Larry may have ended up with a more complete career if he had dropped the decision to Norton. Certainly Louis's loss to Schmeling doesn't seem to have hurt his standing in history, and I seem to remember that Joe took a pretty good thrashing in that fight.

What about the one point swing in the Lastarza fight that would have removed the 0 from Marciano's record? Would that have ended his greatness? It may have made it a lot harder to get to the title. Or if the ref stops his match with Charles due to the cut in his nose? Does that put him in the list of "good" HW's instead of the "greats"?