30 for 30 running thread

Loved Holmes' phone in his car. I had no idea that was possible back then.

 

If you've ever spent a good bit with Larry Holmes he's about as nice and genuine a guy as there is in boxing. He had funny stories about his family and he isn't as bitter as the people around him are for his lack of recognition in the sport.

In his world, he did a job, made a ton of money, did good things with his money, takes care of his family to the best of his abilities and is completely devoted to spending the rest of his life in and around Easton, PA. As a 13-year-old dropout he's come a long way and just talking to him you can sense how he still feels this sense of how lucky he is to have everything.

Ali isn't and wasn't as big of an asshole as this documentary made him seem. He was and still is a mega superstar and he was never a humble guy. But he was also pretty generous...probably to a fault. He just didn't want someone in his camp upstaging him. That's almost every boxer/fighter on earth.

 

Wish TSN here in Canuckistan had picked these up, would really like to have seen this one. Remember going to some theatre in Toironto to watch this one on closed circuit.

Holmes was a tremendous fighter, who will remain criminally underrated because he came after Ali. Dynamite jab, great right hand, tons of heart. He stared down bad-ass guys like Shavers (twice) and Norton (one of the best heavyweight title rumbles ever) and humbled no hopers like Cooney.

 

I remember Holmes as just "the next guy" for most of my life. It wasn't until the end of his career when he was still bringing it against guys 10 years younger that I remember him finally getting his due.

 

I remember sitting at the dinner table one night in 1984 and watching Holmes absolutely destroy Marvis Frazier ... you know, back when boxing was still on broadcast television.

 

Thought this was great -- also didn't think that Ali came off like the a-hole that others here did. Loved hearing Cosell calling the fight, basically imploring someone to stop it, and then lauding Dundee once he wouldn't let Ali off his stool in the corner. And then his post-fight interview: "Why are you crying, Larry?" That almost made me cry.

Speaking of which, I'm already dreading next week's "Without Bias" a little bit. It's hard to overstate Lenny's stature in the state of Maryland by 1986 (when I was 17) and it still shocks and saddens me to think of his death.

 

The best/worst? Cosell boxing call was when Tex Cobb went up against Holmes. Cosell was so disgusted, and said so on the air, he vowed never to call another boxing match.

I really hope one of these 30 for 30s focuses on the end of Howard Cosell. I realize he was an ass to people he worked with, but there hasn't been anyone who comes close to his work at being critical of the sports he covered.

 

I don't think Ali comes off as an asshole, but his hubris in believing he still had it isn't terribly sympathetic. He had people warning him it was dangerous, but he thought he was indestructible.

 

Larry Holmes was one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time.
A much more consistent and distinguished fighter than Ali, although not as brazenly gifted.
That's something you never hear from the Ali-worshipping writers, who loved Ali because he gave them material and inflated his accomplishments because of it.

 

Ali sold his sport and Holmes could not.

But whoa, whoa, whoa...

A 25-year-old Ali would have destroyed a 25-year-old Holmes. Holmes was a great fighter, but Ali was so much faster. It would not have even been a contest.

 

I think the problem was that nobody in the camp would tell him to quit. Isn't that why Pacheco left Ali's camp? Because he insisted that Ali stop and didn't want to sit and watch when he didn't.

Shoot, at the end of the fight, didn't Cosell say it was Bundini Brown screaming at Dundee not to stop it?

 

Just watched the Ali-Holmes episode. I was only 2 when that fight took place, so I'm not as educated on Ali as I'd like to be. Man, that was sad to watch. Just sad. Hard to watch at times, but it was a fantastic documentary.

Looking forward to the Bias one next week. So far, this series has been excellent.