What is the greater accomplishment?

[DondiNeverLeft]

Interesting,are there any fights inparticular that you believe were influenced by something outside of the ring?

Honestly...No I dont want to make it seem as if I researched it and noticed certain things....Just speculation on my part.

[The_Demon]

Honestly...No I dont want to make it seem as if I researched it and noticed certain things....Just speculation on my part.

Oh okay man,was just curious

[Jim Jeffries]

I've always ranked Holmes ahead of Marciano, as do most, and you'll usually find him cracking the top 5 of most ATG HW lists. Which is why I'm always surprised to hear people say he's one of the most underrated HWs ever.

But it does look to me like Holmes has 16 defenses of his WBC belt and 2 of his IBF belt, so I'm not sure where the 20 figure comes from. Also odd that Holmes never tried to unify. People who held the WBA while Holmes was champ: Leon Spinks, Muhammad Ali (though Holmes did fight him 2 years after he regained it from Spinks,) John Tate, Mike Weaver, Michael Dokes, Gerrie Coetzee, Greg Page and Tony Tubbs. Fighters who held the WBC while Holmes was champ: Pinklon Thomas and Tim Witherspoon.

Leon he couldn't fight because he immediately lost (plus Holmes beat him later anyway,) Ali he could've fought about a year and a half sooner, but the results would've been the same. So that leaves

John Tate
Michael Dokes
Gerrie Coetzee
Greg Page
Tony Tubbs

and Tim Witherspoon, who Holmes won a SD over a rather green version, never re-matched. Plus Mike Weaver, who Holmes already had a win over.

That still leaves 5 or 6 guys who Larry should've fought, as opposed to Marciano, who fought everybody at the top (admittedly over a shorter reign than Larry.) What seals Holmes ranking higher for me is the work he put in past prime, after the loss to Tyson, Mercer, close fights with Holyfield, McCall, etc.

[IRISH LULLABY]

Jim Jeffries, excellent post.

- Holmes is certainly not underrated, if anything he is mildly overrated as you may find him cracking several Top 3 lists.

- As you pointed out, Holmes didn't fight several notable boxers of his time and his title reign is one of the weakest of any ATG.

- Holmes technically did not defend an organisational belt 20 times, he defended his Ring Belt against Marvis Frazier, so technically he defended an organisational belt 19 times. His fight with Marvis Frazier was a non-title bout. Many people seem to forget the switch from WBC to IBF. People may argue that he was the Ring Champ and he was defending that title, well then you just can't pick and choose because do we discount his title defences pre-Ali, when he wasn't the Ring Champ? Will any title do?

- Taking a look at some of Holmes' title defenses'

Scott Ledoux
Muhammad Ali
Ossie Ocasio
Alfredo Evangelista
Lucien Rodriguez
Randall Cobb
Scott Frank
Lorenzo Zanon
David Bey
Leon Spinks

That's a sub-par 10 title defenses out of 19 and even adding Marvis Frazier it's not that spectacular either. Now, here we have the rest of Holmes' defenses;

Earnie Shavers
Gerry Cooney
Leroy Jones
Boncrusher Smith
Mike Weaver
Tim Witherspoon
Trevor Berbick
Carl Williams
Renaldo Snipes

A few solid wins, and even though Holmes did fight 17 ranked opponents during his title reign there is a lot of filler during that reign when he could've fought several other fighters.

- As for the original question, quality of opposition is more important to me than fighting several C-level opposition. Although, a couple of Marciano's most notable wins were against ATG fighters who were years past their best.

[Wild Blue Yonda]

Marciano would get KOed by Holmes just like Cooney did.

Marciano fought bums and the decent black fighters he did fight were LHWs, way past it or both.

Tell the full story, or don't bother telling it at all.

Holmes' level of title reign opposition is as poor as it comes for all-time greats.

[GJC]

.......now this is when the conspiracy thing comes in.....An Italian heavyweight around the time of serious Italian gansters, when they were at basically the height of their strength Boxing was also bigger in those days. I think there could have been some influence to some of those outcomes....but that might be just me.

you may have something there, mind you have to give them credit for covering it well. Walcott and Moore knocking Marciano down, Charles giving him an awful cut. Also the way that La Starza and ****ell didn't just tank but were systematically beaten. Still Marciano was Italian that's enough proof for me