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2021 Non-Event General MMA Talk Thread

The Natural

By The Natural
in BOXING & MMA

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twiztor

twiztor

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19 hours ago, The Natural said:

 

thanks for sharing this, @The Natural. i messaged it to my UFC watching buddy that is both a huge Conor fan and a mark for THE MAN. He must've watched it 100 times already because he won't stop texting me about it.

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The Natural

The Natural

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2 hours ago, Jimbo_Tsuruta said:

I hope Dustin drops Conor like a sack o' spuds next week.

Me too. I know @OSJ will be doing the same, he hates Conor McGregor the most. Miss you, man xxx.

5 minutes ago, twiztor said:

thanks for sharing this, @The Natural. i messaged it to my UFC watching buddy that is both a huge Conor fan and a mark for THE MAN. He must've watched it 100 times already because he won't stop texting me about it.

You're welcome, @twiztor. Hope you're well my friend.

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Guest Jimbo_Tsuruta

Guest Jimbo_Tsuruta

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19 minutes ago, supremebve said:

Is 17 years the longest gap between a first and second fight in a series of all time?

Could well be, Jones Jr v Hopkins sprung to mind but that was a shade under 17.

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Elsalvajeloco

Elsalvajeloco

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33 minutes ago, Jimbo_Tsuruta said:

Could well be, Jones Jr v Hopkins sprung to mind but that was a shade under 17.

I figured it had to be some old heavyweights because HW boxers never retired in the 80s to the mid 2010s.

Larry Holmes and Mike Weaver fought in June 1979 for the WBC title. The rematch was in November 2000. That's 21 years.

Larry Holmes also fought Bonecrusher Smith in November 1984 for the linear HW title (also the 1st defense ever of the newly created IBF title). The rematch was June 1999. So just under 15 years.

The late Greg Page fought Tim Witherspoon for the vacant WBC title (the belt which Holmes vacated) in March 1984. They rematched on the same PPV card the Holmes-Bonecrusher Smith rematch was on. So apparently, research shows that was the theme of the PPV.

 

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supremebve

supremebve

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47 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I figured it had to be some old heavyweights because HW boxers never retired in the 80s to the mid 2010s.

Larry Holmes and Mike Weaver fought in June 1979 for the WBC title. The rematch was in November 2000. That's 21 years.

Larry Holmes also fought Bonecrusher Smith in November 1984 for the linear HW title (also the 1st defense ever of the newly created IBF title). The rematch was June 1999. So just under 15 years.

The late Greg Page fought Tim Witherspoon for the vacant WBC title (the belt which Holmes vacated) in March 1984. They rematched on the same PPV card the Holmes-Bonecrusher Smith rematch was on. So apparently, research shows that was the theme of the PPV.

 

Lol, Larry Holmes shouldn't count.  He fought forever but at that point he wasn't going to be fighting Tyson or Lennox Lewis.  I'm kind of surprised they didn't put together a Trevor Berbick rematch, just they could show him jump off the car over and over again.  Larry Holmes fought for damn near 30 years, and lost  times.  He's my vote for least impressive all-time great in any sport.

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Elsalvajeloco

Elsalvajeloco

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3 hours ago, supremebve said:

Lol, Larry Holmes shouldn't count.  He fought forever but at that point he wasn't going to be fighting Tyson or Lennox Lewis.  I'm kind of surprised they didn't put together a Trevor Berbick rematch, just they could show him jump off the car over and over again. 

Dude, I literally just watched that clip like 15 times last week. WHY DID TREVOR JUST LET LARRY DROPKICK HIM LIKE THAT? DUDE JUST MOVE!

I still would count it just because he wasn't the exception to the rule. Oliver McCall had a fight in 2019! HE IS FIFTY SIX YEARS OLD! 

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Larry Holmes fought for damn near 30 years, and lost  times.  He's my vote for least impressive all-time great in any sport.

Holmes' prime was a bit before my time, but just by what I saw after the fact, he is definitely one of the better HWs of all time. He just happen to fight in a very talent depraved era where the money was getting so big that it started making HW boxing super political. Doesn't help that every HW of that era and the ones that eventually followed besides Holmes had some type of personal issue (drug problem, bad management, domestic life, or all of the above).

I will say this...there is a very impressive pre fight hype video for the Holmes vs. (Leon) Spinks fight set to Giorgio Moroder's Night Drive (along with Howard Cosell's narration). I think it perfectly encapsulates the era as well as Larry's run up to that point.

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supremebve

supremebve

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19 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Holmes' prime was a bit before my time, but just by what I saw after the fact, he is definitely one of the better HWs of all time. He just happen to fight in a very talent depraved era where the money was getting so big that it started making HW boxing super political. Doesn't help that every HW of that era and the ones that eventually followed besides Holmes had some type of personal issue (drug problem, bad management, domestic life, or all of the above).

 

Larry Holmes is basically what would have happened if Michael Jordan retired, Tim Duncan became the best player in the league, and Shaq, Kobe, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, Allen Iverson, and all the other entertaining players in the NBA didn't exist until LeBron James came into the league over a decade later.  He was the best Heavyweight after Ali and before Tyson and did it in a way that wasn't very entertaining to watch.  

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Elsalvajeloco

Elsalvajeloco

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On 7/10/2021 at 10:27 AM, supremebve said:

Larry Holmes is basically what would have happened if Michael Jordan retired, Tim Duncan became the best player in the league, and Shaq, Kobe, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, Allen Iverson, and all the other entertaining players in the NBA didn't exist until LeBron James came into the league over a decade later.  He was the best Heavyweight after Ali and before Tyson and did it in a way that wasn't very entertaining to watch.  

I think that's a bit harsh considering that HBO boxing was really birthed during the Holmes era (after dipping their toe in with some marquee one offs). If anything business for boxing went up because sort of the dislike and indifference for Holmes led to people discovering how great boxing was below the heavyweight division (The Battle of the Little Giants and Gomez vs. Pintor basically starting a string of Mexico vs. Puerto Rico classics, obviously the Four Kings, Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor, and in and around the 130-140 divisions Boom Boom Mancini, Edwin Rosario, Livingston Bramble, Camacho, and this undefeated unknown out of this desolate area of Mexico named Julio Cesar Chavez who would somehow become one of the sport's biggest stars). I think that really excited people about boxing and galvanized a real fanbase as it transitioned from close circuit to what we now know as traditional PPV. That itself basically made Holmes by proxy a star, one that no one desired really but at the same time the one we had at the time at HW who was really legitimate. I mean Holmes vs. Cooney is still financially one of the biggest boxing fights in history even when Tyson, Mayweather, and others broke record after record.

I think the reason why the Duncan analogy doesn't work is on top of lacking context, San Antonio had no really big tradition of winning before Robinson and Duncan got there. No one had to watch Tim play until it was undeniable that the Spurs were a dynasty. Same with Belichick's Pats and Tom Brady. You still have all these teams in other media markets (that are likely much larger than San Antonio) with a much richer tradition and stronger fanbase. That alone would produce every basketball star we know today. It wasn't until Duncan won his last title, Kawhi came along as his potential successor, and Duncan eventually retired finally that people gave him his flowers and said he was probably the greatest to ever play his position. Holmes was never going to get that credit even though honestly, he was more entertaining as a fighter than a bunch of guys who held some form of the HW title after him. I talked about this in the boxing thread some months back, but you would be hard press to remember the likes of Tony Tucker, Pinklon Thomas, and Tony Tubbs. They were solid to good, serviceable and durable HWs but not all that memorable. Hell, Tucker's fight with Tyson was even boring. I think that era was kinda marred by the fact the heavyweights getting bigger but their athleticism was somehow lesser. That's why I never been a big believer of the talking point that all the folks who would have dominated boxing and MMA went to the NFL. Unless we're talking freaks of nature like Herschel Walker or maybe even the late Carlton Haselrig, I do not think that's the case. Greg Hardy was a good football player. He's a decent MMA HW especially for his experience, but that's sort of his ceiling. Deontay Wilder and Dominic Breazeale both played football at a decent level and started boxing late (at age 20 and 23 respectively). Wilder is a freakish puncher and Breazeale isn't, which makes it where Wilder can be a champion despite lacking some basic fundamentals and Breazeale is a marginal fighter at best even at 6'7". The genetic luck of the draw makes all the difference in the world. The Seth Mitchells and Derrick Jeffersons of the world had the athleticism but they had 1/5 the talent of a Ken Norton and never had the toughness and dogged determinedness of a Larry Holmes. That's why they couldn't be champions.

I would compare the era of Holmes to the 8-10 years between Marciano's retirement and Ali winning the HW title for the first time. Heavyweight boxing was still very much a thing, but whoever was champion was never going to be on the level of Marciano who was the big star in the post World War II/baby boomer period. Floyd Patterson, being trained by Cus D'Amato, was the youngest world champion and used the same style that another D'Amato pupil in Mike Tyson would use as he himself became the youngest heavyweight champion. Sonny Liston was knocking dudes out cold with jabs, but he never got any effusive praise until well after his death and Tyson acknowledged Liston's take no prisoners style in that infamous Eat His Children promo. In Tyson's own words, he believed he was cut from that cloth. However, Liston got overshadowed by the supernova Muhammad Ali. Once that train took off, it couldn't be stopped. Same way with the Tyson train.

Unfortunately and fortunately, what was in play in the previous era played a factor in what made both Ali and Tyson megastars. Patterson was visiting JFK at the White House and whatnot and kinda used as photo op to show racial progess at a time where that wasn't the case. Even a super progressive president like Kennedy knew that having the HW champion there with that title being a status symbol played well with the black audience. When Ali came along and it was very much obvious he wasn't going to be a prop, guys like Patterson got cast in the light of the Uncle Tom especially when Floyd criticized Ali's viewpoints. Patterson became an after thought in boxing. Liston....I think tried to play the middle and be this apolitical person only focused on boxing. It just made him a bigger villain since Patterson was willing to be the "good Negro". Once he utterly dethroned Patterson in one sided fashion, it made him the giant scary black dude that all the white folks were afraid of and didn't understand. The thing is he didn't have the black support that a Joe Louis had at one point. I mean I'm sure everyone who has seen a Liston doc knows that when he came back to his adopted home of Philadelphia after beating Patterson for the title that there was no one there as he stepped off the plane. It was like it didn't happen. Ironically, Liston himself became a prop only because (unconsciously and consciously racist) white people wanted him to shut up this new black militant named Muhammad Ali.

With Tyson coming onto the scene, Holmes got caught in the politics of boxing as well as his ego. There was so much more money entering the sport (Ali's biggest purses came at the end after he was shot as a fighter and probably why he never stayed retired), and he knew the only way he could be part of it is to keep winning and stay undefeated. What Larry probably should have factored in is that despite HBO being a relatively new player on the scene and already making money on some of the names in the lower weight classes I mentioned above, the big get they wanted was going to be having a heavyweight who could be a cash cow. Holmes had already been around for 10 years. People had already made their minds up on whether they loved or hated him. Tyson was just someone who was winning fights in upstate NY against random palookas with one or two appearances on ABC. He didn't beat some big name contender and put himself in line for the title right away. What HBO saw is an extremely young kid who was told what to say and what to do by Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton and wasn't going to be a rabble rouser like Holmes was. Once Don King started to enter the picture and basically saw "gold in them thar hills", all bets were off. On the Camacho vs. Rosario HBO broadcast, the chief support was Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Refugio Rojas. That's key because you know who was also on that card? Mike Tyson. You know why Mike Tyson (who was in against the hapless Reggie Gross) was not on the HBO broadcast and instead on ABC? It's because the rights for his fights were purchased by ABC only months earlier in the ballpark of $850,000 ($2.1 million in today's money, which is enough to do 3-4 TV cards today main, co-main, and all) for four fights and probably more when King sold the rights for the Gross fight. They couldn't show highlights or even still pictures(!) of the fight on HBO. Shit like that created mystery and intrigue around Tyson. So when HBO was finally able to get the rights to Mike Tyson, he was a huge star. So it wasn't well "Mike Tyson is here to save boxing" as much as HBO found someone who was willing to be part of a marketing machine and blow up their platform. They would be the big kahuna and gold standard in terms of boxing broadcasts for 30 years until their demise a few years ago.

Larry Holmes and his legacy ended up getting swallowed up because once he lost to Spinks in the rematch, there was nothing he could do to vindicate himself. He had very much internalized dealing with the politics of boxing (much like Hagler after fighting SRL), and it made him bitter to the point where he became a meme in the final years as a top heavyweight (see this classic Eddie Murphy bit as a frame of reference). That has very much colored the perception of Holmes after his career. He tried to have this new career comeback like Foreman but Foreman intentionally stayed away from anyone half decent until he was able to get a payday against Holyfield and be a sacrificial lamb for the next great white hope Tommy Morrison. On top of that, Foreman had unreal punching power that Holmes was never blessed with. Foreman was a unmotivated, fat, dozen hamburgers in one sitting person who hated working out. Holmes was too. Difference is again that genetic luck of the draw. Foreman was able to get beat up by Michael Moorer for an entire fight and somehow still get his moment in the sun for his comeback with a memorable, dramatic walkoff KO. If that doesn't happen, Foreman is seen as a big joke and a grill selling pitchman who was never able to make up for the Rumble in the Jungle despite the insane fight against Ron Lyle. That comeback was looking extremely questionable to say the least otherwise. Since Larry never had that moment, we just remember shit like him fighting Butterbean. 

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Execproducer

Execproducer

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Holmes certainly started off with a bang with the Norton fight and even if there were a handful of tomato cans ( Cobb, Cooney) there are still a lot of solid, if unspectacular, heavyweights in his win column. He is indeed an all-timer. IMO prime Holmes handles Tyson pretty easily.

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