YOUR FAVOURITE HBO LEGENDARY NIGHTS EPISODE

Whatever. I know you probably have a Holyfield poster above your bed, and you're like George Costanza when confronted with how great his body was, but face it, Holyfield was a small, under-powered heavyweight who was beaten soundly by Bowe, Lewis, and Moorer, three of the four best fighters he faced. His deficits as a heavyweight meant that a match up with Golota would never have made sense for a guy who'd built his pile with wins over the likes of Dokes, Cooper and Stewart. Take away Holyfield's clinch-ridden wins over a post-prison Tyson and you don't have shit.

As much as people like to talk about how great Holyfield's resume was, what's more notable is the list of contemporaries he never got around to fighting:

Ruddock
Tua
Bruno
McCall
Morrison
Golota
Maskaev
Tucker
Witherspoon


But he did fight Ruiz three times...

 

Double, the archives of this forum are filled with 1000s of your stupid, rambling posts. But this one might be the greatest of them all.

 

He does make sense. Holyfield is indeed overrated.

 

"God-Damned White Heavyweights- hey, you got a minute kid? I ain't told you my Richie Melito story yet"

 

In the very least, there's no question but that Holyfield's heavyweight resume is not beyond reproach. And I think that is what Steve Dave is responding to. In his head, Holyfield was a hero. And afraid of noone.

Holyfield himself was heard saying in the 90's that he had no interest in fighting the, "young" guys. Who knows how many times, and for how much of his career, was this a case that he and his team made.

Basically, Holyfield never fought any of the top up and comers in the 90's. And he waited as long as possible to face Lewis.

 

Regarding Cooney vs Holmes.
Holmes was introduced first (despite being the champion), ahead of Cooney. Now that doesn't happen, as the challenger is announced before the champion, so has this ever happened in any World Title fight in any weight division in history since this?

 

That's true actually I remember he was asked about facing Golota after Bowe Golota 2 (he was in attendance) and he said he doesn't want to fight "young guys" that they should fight each other instead or some nonsense like that.

 

That should never have happened.

The only time something like that has happened is during a Unification fight, when a compromise is arranged as to who comes in first and who gets announced first.

 

There's no good explanation as to why Holmes would've been introduced second, or why he would've agreed to it.

I brought this up before, and somebody said there'd been previous cases of it, but I can't remember what they were.

 

No, I'm responding to the assertion that Golota could beat Holyfield. I liked Evander, but he was never my favorite heavyweight. I was a Lennox Lewis fan.

Goloto lost to EVERYONE.

 

Apparently they introduced Holmes first so that when they introduced Cooney, Cooney's fans could build their cheers up so that they could drown out Holmes' fans. Madness really and I think Holmes believed that they weren't giving him enough credit or something.

 

What Cooney had to go through during his childhood, with the disrespect/abuse he received from his Father, the loss to Holmes which devastated him, believing he let down alot of people, going into deep depression and getting beat up bad in fights after the Holmes defeat, you gotta feel a sense sorrow for him.

 

People like to make out the Cooney fight as being the core of Holmes discontent. It wasn't. Larry was born pissed off. Having to retire Ali pissed him off even more, missing out on Marciano's record pissed him off even more again. He was so angry he then got involved with Tyson, calling him a "S.O.B". Larry was angry. Larry was so angry that he beat Butterbean.

 

More fudamentally, the U.S. has a history of racism, which by the time Holmes fought Cooney, it had not yet out-lived.

 

Don King was the prime move and shaker in most of these things......he would fuck Larry over, wave his American flag, then fuck him over some more. You can bet the cockroaches in the arena didn't fart that night without Don's say-so. Its not like the Klan orchestrated it so Larry got snubbed.

 

Chavez-Taylor and Foreman-Moorer were the best episodes.

However, I hate the fact that this series caused people all over message boards to say shit like:

• Leonard ducked Pryor. Why, asking someone for a fight in front of the media is so much more important than say, offering or signing a damn contract. Fucking "press conference fans", as Tam says.
• Taylor was already brain-damaged and done after the first fight with Chavez. Which is why he was good enough to move up in weight and win a world title a year later against a decent undefeated champ. In fact, I don't even think the Chavez fight really affected how successful his career would've been. He had weight problems at 140 and had to move up. Do people really see someone like Taylor lasting for that long at the top with guys at WW like Whitaker, Trinidad, Quartey, in the division or about to enter the division? Due to his lack of size and power at WW, I don't think Taylor ever beats Espana.
• One Nicaraguan judge had Arguello winning every round against Pryor. Yes, that "Nicaraguan" judge from Japan who had Arguello nearly ahead.

Really, this series should've been better edited or researched, as it distorts the actual truth for the sake of drama and entertainment.

 

Why haven't HBO produced more 'Legendary nights' episodes? I think there are 12 episodes in total.

Will they bring it back and have episodes on fights featuring Mayweather Jnr, Pacquiao once they officially retire for good?

 

this answers the question that Hut asked me earlier about my fascination with the press, media etc, in boxing.

If you look at the "Legendary Nights", half of it is about the buildup, the post-fight, rivalries, differing opinions etc. And they almost always involved two American fighters, or one American fighter at least.

Right now, Pac vs Floyd is the only fight which would fulfill the criteria outlined above, American fighter, big background with the race baiting and the drugs allegations. Of course they would ham it up and we would look back at it and not recognize it as being anywhere near as dramatic, but they should still be able to fool younger fans.

 

Larry really was an angry son of a bitch. I often wonder what would've become of him had he not gotten the close decision win over Norton. It's not unlikely his bitter ass would never have recovered if he'd not won that decision. And yet, it would not have been a crime, or even unjust if Norton had won that decision.

Does anyone know why there was never a rematch? Of a fight that was so good and so close?

 

I dont know....but Larry is angry because you asked.:nono:

 

There was a video on youtube that's been taken down on Holmes in the press conference after the first loss. After his "jockstrap" comment, he singles out someone from the Marciano family, I think his son, and goes "if I offended you....SO FUCKING WHAT?"

I couldn't help but laugh a bit.

 

If they did another series, I don't care to see recent episodes. I already lived through it. Show something from a long time ago, from the 70s and 80s. Only without the myths and exaggerations.

 

My biggest criticism of the Legendary Fights series is that they didn't find it necessary to conclude each episode with a broadcast of each fight in its entirety. I recognize that a majority of the target audience had either seen the fight already, or didn't care to see it, but speaking strictly from my point of view, it'd been cool to see all of the hype and drama of the build-up and after-math be trivialized by the violence and struggle of the actual fight.

Gomez/Pintor was on HBO. That fight should've been included on the list.

 

::

 

That would've cost more money.

 

Just found out they've got all legendary nights episodes on dvd. Something to buy myself in the new year.

 

well, as a consumer with my own preferences, i have the luxury of ignoring constraints like costs and the need for mass appeal. ::

i can understand there are many practical reasons for not showing the fights in their entirety. and i can't think of any other sports documentaries that included full broadcasts of the events being covered. but as a boxing fan, i still say legendary nights would've been better if they'd shown the whole fights.

 

Regarding challengers being introduced second to Champions, with a view toward snubbing the latter, it happened (I think?) in Ali-Chuvalo, back in the 60's.

 

The question is, has it ever happened with a non-white challenger and/or a non-black champion.

 

Doubt it