Via Ken Hissner: When heavyweight champion Larry “Easton Assassin” Holmes lost 48-0 to light heavyweight champion Michael “Jinx” Spinks, he knocked out legendary former heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano, ending his career. with a score of 49-0.
“If you want to get technical about it, Marciano can’t bring my jockstrap!” You wonder why Muhammad Ali called Holmes “peanut head?” Knowing Holmes and feeling the bitterness he felt for me from an incident he misunderstood when I attended a boxing gig in Easton, PA, does not surprise me.
“All these years later, people can’t forget that,” Holmes told Reuters in a phone interview. “It still haunts you. After all these years, people won’t let it pass.”
“I don’t mean to offend it. I mean he can’t walk on the sidewalk I’m on. And that’s probably how I should say it. ”
Having served in the Army in 1965 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, I could see the comment that Holmes would walk in the gutter growing up in Augusta, Georgia.
“People always bring it up,” he said. “Cost me.“Sounds not like an apology, but a financial regret. I told him his restaurant wasn’t a success, and he had to pay for his statue out of his own pocket,” said Holmes.
The loss to Spinks was in September 1985, with a rematch in April 1986 in Las Vegas. This writer agrees with judges Harold Lederman and Dave Moretti in the first round 143-142, not with Lawrence Wallace for Holmes 145-142 with Spinks in the final round. Little is known that Holmes had previously stopped Spinks’ brother Leon for three innings in June 1981.
Holmes went on to beat a pair of white opponents in “Gentleman” Gerry Cooney in June 1982, stopping him in the thirteenth round. He next beat Randall “Tex” Cobb harder in fifteen rounds, losing only one round on a judge’s scorecard. The best part of it is that commentator Howard Cosell retired after the ill effects of that war.
In May 1983, Holmes won the split decision against Tim Witherspoon “Terrible”. Why was there never a rematch? That is obvious. Holmes has a gift decision.
Two matches later against Holmes in November 1983, Holmes broke the rules that a heavyweight must not fight a non-title match and beat Marvis Frazier, 10-0, while Holmes was 44-0. . Young Frazier was thrown to the wolves by his father, former “Smokin” champion Joe Frazier. After the fight, Holmes expressed his bitterness, saying, “It was because of the whips Dad gave me in the gym.”
Holmes in defense before the first Spinks match beat Carl “The Truth” Williams, a match I think he was lucky to win despite the score in his favor.
Back in the Spinks rematch, Holmes lost in a split decision. I had it as judge Joe Cortez 144-141, for Holmes, while judges Frank Brunette and Jerry Roth favored Spinks. I recall no angry comments.
Next up for Holmes was his destruction by “Iron” Mike Tyson in January 1988 in four innings. One thing I remember before introducing the boxers is the one for former champion Muhammad Ali. He sat next to the future President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. As he entered the ring, Ali touched his glove with Holmes then went to Tyson, who admired Ali, and whispered something in his ear. “Kick his ass?” Who knows?
Ali, back in October 1980, was stopped by Holmes for the only time in his career after the tenth round, never winning a round. It was bad advice for Ali, to whom Ferdie Pacheco had said he would not work on any angle and that Ali should retire.
I was at Deer Lake, PA training camp, and asked Ali, “why are you in this fight? Look at the shape you’re in”. He patted his fat belly and replied, “I love my ice cream!” Holmes signaled to referee Richard Steele to stop the fight because he was flying, but not the head, in the final round.
Holmes traveled to Denmark and was beaten by a split decision to Denmark’s Brian “Super” Brian Nielsen, 31-0, who later in his career lost 49-0 to Dickie Ryan.
In the final bout of his career, Holmes fought white boxer Eric “Butterbean” Esch “round four”, demanding a 10th round. He had to think he could hit him and stop him. Not only did he fail to stop him, but he was dubiously knocked out by Esch in the tenth and final round. Holmes won with scores of 98-91, 97-92 and 96-93.
Now let’s take a look at two-category world champion Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins, known in his home city as “Be Hop.” His remarks before the game against Joe “Pride of Wales” Calzaghe, 44-0, never included an apology that “No white boy will defeat me otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get back under the hood”.
Hopkins beat Calzaghe in the first round to go on to lose one
division decision by the scores of 114-113, 111-116, and 112-115 in April 2008 in Las Vegas. It was Calzaghe’s US debut. Hopkins went on to win the WBC lightweight belt from Jean Pascal after a draw in their previous match.
Thus, one cannot say that Hopkins is a shell of himself when he loses to Calzaghe in the ten-year battle. In the next match of the final, he lost his WBA, IBF and WBO titles to Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev of Russia, defeating twice by 106-120 and 107-120. That was in November 2014.
In Hopkins’ next and final match in December 2016, he was knocked out of the ring 22-1 by Joe Smith, Jr., in eight rounds. Although his foot never left the ring hanging from the ring’s apron, he claims he injured his ankle and was unable to continue. Continue? He has been counted out!
Both of these comments were made by both Holmes and Hopkins.
