WHEN Larry Holmes first retired after successive and unexpected defeats by Michael Spinks that stopped him equalling and surpassing Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record, he had already permanently established himself among the finest heavyweights to have lived.
When he was then offered the chance to fight Mike Tyson – 21 months after retiring following the second of those defeats he found so difficult to accept – he was presented with a chance to not only earn $3.1million, but to secure a victory that would have enhanced his reputation even more than had he beaten Spinks and another opponent and retired undefeated with 50 wins.
With Tyson – 21 that night in January 1988 – in his near-unrivalled but short-lived prime and yet to start unravelling, it is not an exaggeration to say Holmes, at 38 and after a period of inactivity, was fighting an opponent greater even than Ken Norton and Gerry Cooney were on his two defining nights.
“As I neared the ring, I had this weird thought,” Holmes once said of his recognition that he was under-prepared for ‘Iron Mike’ at the Convention Centre in Atlantic City. “Why not be the
