Boxing has a proud lineage that deserves respect and admiration. But history often elevates prowess. And history often blurs clear sight?
There?s boxing and then there?s heavyweight boxing.
Heavyweights fight differently, often relying on brute power to cover a multitude of sweet-science sins. Heavyweights draw crowds, filling seats with laymen and boxing aficionados alike. Heavyweights reign as kings of the world, physical manifestations of Darwin?s rule. Heavyweights intrigue and inspire.
When two big men do battle, something different happens in the arena. The possibility of split-second brutality keeps us focused in a way lighter-division fights can?t. We watch and we wait with expectation to the very last second, hoping, and if you?re honest you know this is your hope, to see one man loosed from his senses. Few moments in life or sport provide such an emblem of complete dominance. When a heavyweight falls, spectacularly backward or, more fascinating because more dangerous, brutally forward, the crowd receives what the crowd paid for: a catharsis that comes from witnessing violence, which feeds our hearts of darkness, which reminds us who we really are. The one-punch knockout, the equalizer, is boxing?s greatest allure. That?s why heavyweights are so alluring.
Of course, there?s one more element to the heavyweight equation. If a big man can take another big man?s punch, if a big man has the will to stay disciplined and control his fear and beat another big man using mind and skill, a different catharsis happens. In this scenario, a scenario most highly dramatized in a heavyweight fight because the threat of danger is so magnified, we see the civilized part of man dominating the animal part of man. That?s alluring too.
Because more people know or think they know heavyweight boxing, finding a consensus about who the greatest heavyweight of all time really is can be a maddening exercise. Non-combatants are ready to lace on their proverbial gloves to pound their picks into us. Like all measurements, the yardsticks for boxing are often subjective, perhaps more subjective than for any other sport where statistics often rule. How does one measure the will to win? How does one rate a spectacular come-from-behind victory against a display of persistent dominance? Matt McGrain?s recent series about the heavyweight division?s top 100 fighters (I?m looking forward to the final installment) provides an in-depth, well-crafted analysis of the division?s most visible and glamorous weight class, putting each fighter in historical context and highlighting the tangibles as well as that intangible residue, which is such an important part of greatness. He makes his case, heavyweight by heavyweight, beautifully.
I am not a boxing historian. I admit it. But I do think I know boxing, at least the boxing I know. Too often old-timers and historians dismiss newer-timers as illegitimate judges of fistic prowess because we haven?t studied the past, as if knowing boxing?s past were the only litmus test of boxing knowledge. Of course, history is important. Of course, boxing has a proud lineage that deserves respect and admiration. But history often elevates prowess. And history often blurs clear sight. Were the good old days really that good? Nope.
The fighters I know are the fighters I?ve watched in my lifetime. I love George Bellows? painting, but I never saw Firpo knock Dempsey through the ropes. I?m sometimes interested in boxing?s grainy films of yesteryear, but I wasn?t around when Louis demolished Schmeling. My first boxing memory, sitting next to my Dad in front of our black-and-white TV, was watching Ali beat Oscar Bonavena. I was not as fascinated by the fight itself as by Bonavena?s swollen face, a bull beaten into submission who kept repeating Ali?s name, over and over, like a sentimental drunk. ?Ali best. I fight Frazier. I fight Ali. Ali beat Frazier. Ali best.? His prediction didn?t come true, at least in the Fight of the Century, but the memory stuck and my fascination with boxing began.
So what do I know? I know Larry Holmes was the reigning heavyweight during my young life. I watched him many, many times. And I also watched many, many fights in many, many divisions. These were my formative years and they were my formative boxing years. I formed my boxing knowledge. I formed my boxing tastes. I formed my boxing opinions.
The greatest heavyweights of my time have been Muhammad Ali (really a little before my time), Larry Holmes, and Mike Tyson. These are the heavyweights I know. And if I pitted these men against each other in their primes (and in an individual sport like boxing, where one man faces another man with nothing but gloves, this seems like the most honest gauge), Larry Holmes comes out on top.
When Holmes beat Ali, Holmes was coming up and Ali was going down, so that?s clearly an unfair yardstick. But Holmes, a former sparring partner of Ali, would have walked out of the ring with the same verdict had the two met when they were both young and healthy and fight-ready. Holmes was the same size as Ali. Holmes had the better jab. Holmes? right hand, a stinging punch that doesn?t get enough credit, had as much power as Ali?s. And Holmes was never intimidated. Ali got into the heads of his opponents, talked so incessantly, preached his greatness so confidently, that fighters committed the biggest sin a fighter can commit against himself: they doubted. Had Ali pulled the stunts he pulled against, say, Joe Frazier, who seethed for a lifetime, Holmes would have laughed?not a false laugh (the way a fighter smiles falsely when hurt), but a genuine, dismissive laugh. Inside the ring, Holmes, as he always was, would have been all blue-collar, steel-worker business. After fifteen rounds or twelve rounds, no matter, Holmes would have landed more punches, more crisp punches, and defeated Ali by points.
Against Tyson, Holmes lost. But again, one fighter was peaking while the other was plummeting. (Ali was 38 when he lost to Holmes just as Holmes was 38 when he lost to Tyson). Before Tyson fought James ?Buster? Douglas, he got into the heads of his opponents, not by what he said (like Ali), but by what he did. Iron Mike?s highlight reel of cartoon-style knockouts was indeed intimidating. But Tyson had trouble with tall heavyweights who could box. Tony Tucker took him twelve. Douglas, five inches taller at 6?3?, beat Tyson with a measured, powerful jab, tenderizing Mike?s will until the 42-to-1 favorite was rendered helpless, stumbling around the canvas looking for his mouthpiece. And post-Douglas, the taller Lennox Lewis used his length to melt Mike?s iron with ease. Holmes would have jabbed Tyson, even a pre-Douglas Tyson whose will and prowess had not yet been broken, into a state of fury and frustration. He would have been able to take Tyson?s shots?just as he took Earnie Shavers? bombs for a total of 23 rounds. (Shavers was 28 when he first fought Holmes, 29 during the rematch, and while he may have been a little shot, he, like most fighters, had retained his power). A prime Holmes jabs, jabs, jabs, follows with clean rights as the rounds progress, and knocks out a prime Tyson around Round 10, just like Buster Douglas did.
So the way I see it, Holmes beats a heavyweight in Ali, who ruled the ?60s and some of the ?70s (and who considered himself and many consider the greatest). And in Tyson, Holmes knocks out a heavyweight who ruled the ?80s. Holmes, who ruled his own era, went 32-0 in the ?70s and 16-0 in the? 80s until his title was controversially, very controversially, taken. The way I see it, had these three fighters been in their primes and had they stayed in their primes during the three decades where each of them ruled, Larry Holmes would have dominated for thirty years.
Did Holmes have great competition? Like every heavyweight, including today?s heavyweight champion, he had to wade through his own bum-of-the-month slush pile. But Holmes fought some tough, tough men and some elite fighters. He beat Shavers twice. He beat Ken Norton, the man who gave the self-proclaimed ?Greatest? so much trouble. He beat a list of serious heavyweights (serious because they could punch or serious because they could box or serious because they had held at least one part of the title) in Mike Weaver and Trevor Berbick and Renaldo Snipes and Tim Witherspoon and James ?Bonecrusher? Smith and Carl Williams and Oliver McCall (who knocked out Lennox Lewis, who many consider a top-ten heavyweight great) and Ray Mercer (who gave Lewis all he could handle). Holmes stepped up in a fight seeping with racial tension and schooled Gerry Cooney, a fight I didn?t witness first-hand, but heard about second-hand, standing with a crowd of fans outside Madison Square Garden, which was showing the closed-circuit telecast. During his whole career, Larry Holmes ducked nobody, fought everybody, won 69 fights (44 within the distance), lost only 6 (all after age 35), and was stopped only once.
Holmes had masterful skills. Holmes had tremendous heart; he got up from the canvas a number of times. Holmes had a Mensa-level ring IQ. He would have beaten the other two greatest heavies of my time. As for boxing?s historically great heavyweights, well, as I said, I am not a historian, but I have seen some old fights. I believe Jack Dempsey, a fierce brawler, would have been kept at arm?s length if he ever fought Holmes. I believe Joe Louis would have struggled with Holmes, who understood angles and distance. If Billy Conn could outbox Louis, think what Holmes would have done?unlike Conn, Holmes would never have ?lost his head? and engaged in a brawl because Holmes had the kind of poise born from total, true self-confidence to fight within himself at all times. Against Rocky Marciano, I believe Holmes, who knew how to fight moving backward, would have done just that all night long against the forward-moving brawler. And while it?s almost doctrine in boxing that styles make fights, I?d argue that if you halfway-accept my premise that Holmes beats Ali, that Holmes? jab, which was Ali?s great weapon, was the superior jab, then in a man-who-beat-the-man-who-beat-the-man kind of logic (the logic we use to determine the linear heavyweight champ), I?d say the following: Because Ali beat Liston, Frazier and Foreman, Holmes does the same. So on any given round-robin night, Holmes has more than a good chance against all of the viable top-ten contenders for greatest heavyweight of all time.
The Holmes era followed the Ali era. That was The Easton Assassin?s historical curse. Ali was so much in the sun that Holmes? career seems cast in shadow?he was the king of a heavyweight landscape lacking in charisma. The other curse that taints Holmes? legacy is his post-fight behavior, justifiable yet angry rants after his two losses to Michael Spinks. In the same way it?s better not to hear movie stars speak, their pedestrian, self-important bullshit often diminishing their moving work on screen, in the same way it?s best to separate the art from the artist, we should judge boxers by their fighting careers only. After his first loss, where he failed to tie Marciano?s undefeated heavyweight record, Holmes said, ?Rocky Marciano couldn?t carry my jockstrap.? After his second loss, a split decision that, on my card, was a travesty, Holmes was blunter, ?The judges, the referees, the promoters can kiss me where the sun don?t shine?and because we?re on HBO, that?s my big black behind.? Would it have been better if Holmes never said these things? Of course, though I admired his candor and still do. Holmes was never a braggart and said what he felt, not what he was supposed to say. But Holmes was right about one thing. The sun didn?t shine on him?because he was not as charismatic as Ali, because he didn?t knock people cold like Mike Tyson. Still, in my book, Holmes the fighter beats Ali the fighter and Tyson the fighter. In my book Holmes is the man.
The greatest heavyweights have often concussed their opponents. But the greatest heavyweights were professionals first, who possessed sound minds in their sound bodies, who developed, through years of hard work and training, finely-tuned skills that allowed them to punch places that either spelled Lights Out or tallied points victories. Teddy Atlas often speaks of a fighter needing a delivery system to land that big punch, a missile to carry that payload. Holmes, with his beautiful, jarring jab, with his complete command of the ring, with his focus (recall his clear, sane eyes, never wavering), with his iron will, with his blue-collar work ethic, was the ultimate missile. He wasn?t called the Easton Assassin for nothing. His killings were professional cold, not passion hot. From cooler distances, which is the kind of perspective history ideally grants, it?s really not far-fetched to say Larry Holmes was the greatest.
There?s boxing and there?s heavyweight boxing.
There are boxing opinions and there are heavyweight-boxing opinions.
I expect to get hammered here, or dismissed, and that?s fine. Talking about boxing and boxers, engaging in spirited debate, is one of the joys of being a boxing fan and a boxing writer. So bring it on. With Holmes? superlative jab to protect me, well, I don?t think anyone will land a knockout blow.
Adam Berlin is the author of the recently published boxing novel Both Members of the Club (Texas Review Press/winner of the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize). His other novels are The Number of Missing (Spuyten Duyvil), Belmondo Style (St. Martin?s Press/winner of The Publishing Triangle?s Ferro-Grumley Award) and Headlock (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). His stories and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. He teaches writing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and co-edits J Journal: New Writing on Justice. For more, please visit adamberlin.com.
