Larry Holmes career...if

[man]

Mr. Larry ain't the athlete here, he's a tubby overachiever, a good and game, feisty fighter in some fun slug'em ups, but nobody ever had any problems hitting him save maybe Shavers who inexplicably went crazy wild after he knocked down Holmes and blew his knockout opportunity.

i simply disagree. in the shavers fight
larry proved he can take a punch and
be game when it counts.

to me larry is ATG10, possibly 5 and i
am always tempted but in the end
hesitant to put george foreman there
too. i believe he was super talented, but
relied way too much on power and totally
lacked footwork and ring smarts in his
first career.

i guess i am just less impressed by power
and KO streaks than you are. whenever
someone could box, foreman was clueless,
as many punchers are.

[Caractacus]

George Foreman had a better prime.
His early career was prime rib to Holmes Big Mac hamburger.

[man]

George Foreman had a better prime.
His early career was prime rib to Holmes Big Mac hamburger.

ali, young and to me as well ron lyle
proved that a prime foreman could
look quite normal. so that prime rib
was quite burned at places.

the greatest achievement of george
foreman was the utter destruction of
joe frazier. styles make fights and for
whatever reason, foreman could do
nothing wrong against smoking' joe.

[Ambling Alp II]

This is sort of like the Bowe-Lewis thread recently.

You can point out certain fights (or at least parts of certain fights) and say that Foreman was not that good. (Not sure why the Ali fight is mentioned; he landed some haymakers that would have worked against almost anyone else.) He did look bad against Young. Looked both good and bad against Lyle.

And you can do the same with Holmes. Decked by Shavers and lets not forget Renaldo Snipes had him in major trouble.

You can also point out fights that Foreman looked terrific. Same with Holmes.

The real question is not whether each was capable of beating the other. They each were. The question is what is most likely to have happened.

[man]

larry ... boxer puncher
george ... puncher

my math tells me the one that can
box will usually win.

[davie]

This is sort of like the Bowe-Lewis thread recently.

You can point out certain fights (or at least parts of certain fights) and say that Foreman was not that good. (Not sure why the Ali fight is mentioned; he landed some haymakers that would have worked against almost anyone else.) He did look bad against Young. Looked both good and bad against Lyle.

And you can do the same with Holmes. Decked by Shavers and lets not forget Renaldo Snipes had him in major trouble.

You can also point out fights that Foreman looked terrific. Same with Holmes.

The real question is not whether each was capable of beating the other. They each were. The question is what is most likely to have happened.

It's not unthinkable that they may have had 2 or 3 fights with different winners, while spending the rest of the decade holding different versions of the title and ruling the heavyweight scene in tandem.....until Tyson appeared

I'm going Holmes to win the rubber match to take the series 2-1 and forever being bitter that George still got favoured as the better fighter because of his career in the 70s

[man]

the real thing with larry is that he preferred
to be sparring partner at the peak of the hw
division.