Anyone pick Ibeabuchi? It seems wrong to pick him given his short career and how little he accomplished compared to Holmes. But given Holme ' s life and death struggles with fighters like Witherspoon I'd give Ike a chance to win this.
Ike sure is given high praise for a man who LOST to Tua. Oh yeah, destroyed Turd..... Hate to break it ya, Larry Holmes was not Chris Byrd. There's not a single all time heavyweight great who I could envision Ike beating. Holmes by wide UD.
Holmes was past prime when he was in the latter stages of his reign and Witherspoon had a perfect style to trouble him
He fought witherspoon in 83. That wasn't his prime? Was his prime like two years long? Perfect example of a bullshit argument.
No, "Trinidad had illegal foreign objects for fists" is a perfect example of a bullshit argument Larry Holmes was at his best in the 1970s
True. many people don`t seem to realize that Holmes was already 30 by the time he had beaten Ali. His best years were in the 70s. He was still prime up to about `82 I`d say and then gradually and ever so slightly began to slip.
30 can be comatose (Wilfred Benitez, Saad, Cuevas) or it can be vintage (Joe Brown, Hopkins) ... Biological age in sports but especially boxing just doesn't carry a lot of weight until you start getting into ages which are old in all sports (40+ really) larry was still terrific in 1983 but he was sharper and faster in 1978 ... Furthermore, Witherspoon was a very good fighter with an ideal style to trouble him... There's no shame in having a tough time with an in-shape Tim Witherspoon
Basically 30, 25, 35 don't mean a whole lot out of context... At 18, Benitez and Cuevas were stars, champions... By 25 they were irrelevant... At 18, Hopkins was an anonymous street criminal... At 25 he was still unknown and just starting his middleweight career
There's no shame in it. No. But that wasn't my point. My point was that it has bearing on the matchup here. The fact a guy like Witherspoon was able to seriously trouble Holmes suggests that yes, Ike could possibly get to Holmes.
Who in the HELL is even to say that Ike beats Witherspoon? You're acting like Terrible Tim was some scrub, and that Ike was an established great. This is what I mean about Ike being insanely overrated.
