larry holmes

Its been in the reports today so you might hear quite a lot about larry holmes in the coming daytimes.



When people talk about heavyweight boxing in the 1980's there's 2 definable periods for the division with 2 separate dominant fighters. With Mike Tyson dominating the latter half of the decade, it is Larry Holmes who took the first half and acted as king during the post-Ali pre-Tyson era.

Born in Cuthbert, Georgia, on November 3rd 1949 he made his debut in 1973 in a decade that is remembered as one of the most exciting heavyweight scenes history had ever seen, fighters like Ali, Frazier and Foreman dominated the decade whilst other top fighters were there or thereabouts. Fighters like Ken Norton, Ron Lyle and Earnie Shavers were the key challengers, though in almost any other decade they could each have had a decent title run.

After making his debut in March he had racked up 7 wins by December, a rather busy year by anyone's standards though this was the way that Holmes career often seemed. Despite only 3 fights in 1974 (totalling 12 rounds) they were again all wins, leaving him 10-0 inside 24 months as a professional fighter. 1975 made up for the lack of fights the previous year with 9 fights again winning them all 8 by KO. It was also in 1975 that that Holmes fought outside of the US for the first time, appearing on the undercard of the third Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight, better known as The Thrilla in Manilla, in the Philippines. This was possibly a form of thank you for Holmes who had previously acted as a sparring partner for Ali.

1976 was a quiet year again with just 3 fights for Holmes, which went a total of 20 rounds (2 KO's going 2 rounds and 8 and a 10 round decision). 4 fights in 1977 had left Holmes highly ranked and unbeaten with 26 straight wins. The following year changed his life completely though, as Ali lost his WBC and WBA titles to Leon Spinks, and Spinks deciding to rematch Ali the WBC title was stripped away from Spinks. Ken Norton was effectively given the title due to his in in an eliminator against Jimmy Young. In Holmes' first fight of the year he fought an eliminator for the WBC title against hard hitting and experienced fight Earnie Shavers (who had a record 54-6-1 with 52 KO's). Holmes won an easy points decision by 12 points on 2 of the cards and 10 on the third to be given a shot at Norton.

The fight with Norton (40-4) was fought on July 9th in Holmes' second fight of the year, in a close 15 round contest that was given to Holmes by the narrowest of margins (the scores were 143-142 twice to Holmes and the same to Norton on the third card for a split decision). It was to be the the start of the Holmes era that would last well into the following decade and his last close fight for a long time.

The reign started with 7 straight stoppage wins (1 at the end of 1978 and 3 in 1979 and 1980) before the proverbial torch was passed as Ali came out of retirement to face his former sparring partner at the end of 1980. The fight was a sadly 1 sided affair that saw Ali, a shadow of himself toyed with by the excellent jab of Holmes that so many other opponents had had their own attacks negated by. In the end Angelo Dundee (Ali's trainer) did the good thing and saved his man from a longer beating, though this was after 10 rounds. During the fight it repeatedly seemed like Holmes was unwilling to try and finish Ali instead asking the referee to step in Richard Greene seemed unhappy to do so as despite it being one sided Ali never seemed in genuine trouble of being harmed (the problem with having a rather granite chin).

1981 saw Holmes defend his WBC title over Trevor Berbick (the first man to take Holmes the distance after he won the title) before stopping Leon Spinks and the previously unbeaten Renaldo Snipes (who put Holmes down). 1982 saw one of the richest fights of the 1980's when Holmes the unbeaten black champion (39-0) faced the Great white hope Gerry Cooney who was also unbeaten (25-0). The fight was almost solely sold on the race element and had been been a tense build up, their hadn't been a white champion since Ingenmar Johansson had held the belt in 1960, and their hadn't been a white American champion since Rocky Marciano retired in 1956. Cooney was seen as the the best chance white America had of regaining the title until Holmes stopped him in the 13th round. It wouldn't be until Tommy Morrison in 1993 that a white American would hold a heavyweight belt.

After the Cooney fight Holmes followed it with a one sided beat down of Randall Tex Cobb, a beating so bad that it's often cited as the reason that Howard Cossell gave up commentating on boxing. The fact Cobb lasted the distance was more a case of him having an impressive chin and the referee (Steve Crosson) letting it go, as it could have been stopped plenty of times.

Wins over Lucien Rodriguez and Tim Witherspoon (the first close fight of Holmes' reign with Holmes winning a split decision against the previously unbeaten Terrible Tim) started 1983, these were followed up by stoppage wins over unbeaten fighters Scott Frank and Marvis Frazier (son of Smokin' Joe).

With the foundation of the International Boxing Federation in 1983 they had been relatively obscure since the break away from the WBA and in an attempt to gain to establish itself, it offered Holmes a chance to become their inaugural champion. In return he vacated the WBC title to take up the position as the IBF's title holder. He would make the first defence of this title against James Bonecrusher Smith (who would go on to be a future WBA champion). At the time the records of the fighters were 45-0 (Holmes) and 14-1 (Smith) a rather large disparity in experience and quality as Holmes stopped him in the 12th round (of 15).

1985 Started with a TKO victory (in the 10th) over unbeaten David Bey, he followed this with a victory over another unbeaten fight in Carl Williams (unanimous decision). This left Holmes at 48-0 1 victory short of tying Rocky Marciano's record of 49-0. Holmes' third fight of 1985 was against former light Heavyweight kind Michael Spinks, who was unbeaten in 27 fights (all victory's) and a gold medallist (in the middleweight division at Montreal in 1976).

In the Ring magazine upset of the year (1985) Spinks beat Holmes by a unanimous decision to end Holmes' streak and become the first Light Heavyweight champion to become World Heavyweight champion (Bob Fitzsimmons had done it the other way around 80 years previous). Spinks with his brother (Leon) also became the first brothers to hold the World heavyweight titles (though the Klitschkos became the first to hold titles at the same time). He was also the first Olympic middleweight gold medallist since Floyd Patterson to win a heavyweight title.

A rematch the following year was again given to Spinks (though it was a split decision), this lead to Holmes' retiring for the first time with a record of 48-2. The retirement lasted less than 2 years as he came back to face Mike Tyson who had become the first man to re-unify the then three world titles (WBC, WBA and IBF). Tyson was unbeaten with 32 wins and was being spoken about himself as possibly being able to beat Marciano's record. For the first (and only) time in Holmes' career he was stopped in the 4th round.

Another retirement followed before a comeback in 1991, 3 years after the Tyson fight, a string of 6 straight wins (including one against a then unbeaten Ray Mercer) had elevated Holmes to a position to fight for the unified WBC/WBA/IBF titles then held by Evander Holyfield. Holyfield would defeat Holmes via points decision but only by 4 points (on 2 cards) and 6 points (on the third).

After running up another 7 wins in a with out a loss Holmes was given another chance to win the title. He was put up against the Atomic Bull Oliver McCall the WBC champion who managed to win a close but unanimous decision (scores of 112-115, 114-115 and 113-114 all favouring McCall). This would be his last chance at the accepted titles, though 4 more wins over rather poor opposition lead to him getting a fight with Brian Nielsen from Denmark.

Nielsen had won 38 straight and held the lowly regarded IBO title at the time, Nielsen went on to beat Holmes via split decision over a decade after Holmes had originally retired. Ironically Nielsen actually did go 49-0 before losing via 10th round TKO to Dicky Ryan.

After that loss Holmes would fight but rather infrequently, having 4 fights between 1997 and 2002. The opponents here were journeyman Maurice Harris, former champions James Bonecrusher Smith and Mike Weaver who we're also well past their best. In 2002 though Holmes had his last fight, against Eric Esch, better known as Butterbean. Holmes would twin this then retire with a record of 69(44KO's)-6. At that point he was 52 years old.

Inside the ring it was his piston like jab that had made him such a force, out side of the ring though his mouth had often put the crowd off him. Comments regarding Rocky Marciano (after failing to tie his record) were the most infamous though other comments haven't helped.

In title fights, Holmes, otherwise known as the "Easton Assassin" went 21-5 with 20 straight defences during a career that spanned from 1973-2002.

Though Holmes may never get the full respect he deserves due to the fact he he wasn't as charismatic as the man before him (Ali) or as destructive as the man after him (Tyson). His reign was one of the most dominant (only Joe Louis has more defences of the heavyweight title in history) he beat a host of great fighters and he deserves the place in every top 10 heavyweight list. One of the most under-rated heavyweight champions in history who hopefully with time will get the recognition he deserves.