Some Extremely Interesting Larry Holmes Comments

'Like me or loathe me-I'm going to give it to you straight. Tyson, Holyfield-you wound't have heard of them if they had fought back in the seventies. Smokin Joe Frazier would have bombed Tyson out. So would have Bonavena, Lyle, Shavers, Norton, and Quarry. Those were big, strong punching suckers. Even Mac Foster and Ernie Terrell would have beat them. Ali would have ambushed him as Tyson charged foward. Foreman? After he hit Tyson, Little Mikey would have been ready for socail Security. There are people who tell me I'm dead wrong about this. But I'm a student of boxing and can tell you that while Tyson is a good fighter for today, he's not one of the great fighters of all time. Not even close. He can't take a punch. Every time Tyson gets knocked down, he dosen't get up. Thats when you prove yourself as a great fighter. Holyfield has a lot of courage, but as a heavyweight he'd have been a sparring parther back when Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Shavers and Holmes were working. He simply gets hit to much. And while he can get away with it in todays Heavyweight scene, he'd have been dead meat back in my time. Out of his league. Ali would have slapped him silly with the jab. It would have been a cakewalk. Foreman who went the distance with him as a old man, would have creamed him back then. At least Holyfield has a warrior's heart. It's more than I can say for Lennox Lewis. He's a joke-a big, athletic guy who's strictly a front runner. Put him against a fighter who stands up to him-like say Ray Mercer did- and Lewis is exposed as a man who dosen't like a real fight. Lennox Lewis is just a Heavyweight wanna-be. Hell, he stopped by to see me in Easton once and, when I asked him why he wound't fight me, he said: ''I can't give you a fight. You got too good a jab. Teach me the jab'' ''I don't wanna teach you'' I told him. ''I wanna fight you'' ''Nah'' he said ''I don't want to mess with that jab'' If the roles had been reversed....if I were the young kid and he were the old champ challenging me, i'd have told him ''Bring me the money and I'II kick your ass'' One guy who had some talent was Riddick Bowe. He punched good and had the moves. But Bowe lacked the staying power. Soon as he won the title, he ate himself into a fatman, and fight by fight he seemed to lose his passion for the game. By the time Andrew Golota got in there with him, Bowe was a shell of himself. It takes a whole lot to keep it together, to have the longevity that fighters from my era-Ali, Frazier, Foreman, myself-had. ''Larry Holmes''