{"id":419681,"date":"2026-01-19T17:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T17:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419681\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T17:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T17:47:07","slug":"larry-holmes-names-the-heavyweight-legend-nobody-wanted-to-face-i-never-wanted-that-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419681\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Holmes names the heavyweight legend ‘nobody wanted to face’: “I never wanted that fight”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry Holmes<\/a> has singled out a former opponent, who also fought Muhammad Ali<\/a>, as the man that \u2018nobody wanted to fight\u2019 in the heavyweight division.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Easton Assassin\u2019 claimed his WBC title in 1978, edging a split decision against Ken Norton before making a remarkable 19 defences as world champion.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Holmes picked up the IBF strap and remained unbeaten until 1985, when a points defeat to Michael Spinks ultimately saw his decorated career take a downward turn.<\/p>\n

Before that, though, the American had defeated the likes of Earnie Shavers, Gerry Cooney and Tim Witherspoon, all of them representing credible opponents during his fruitful title reign.<\/p>\n

Shavers, in particular, was considered a truly devastating puncher<\/a>, which is why Holmes suspects that several of his counterparts actively avoided him.<\/p>\n

Holmes and Shavers first squared off in 1978, with the former securing a points victory to emerge from their fight as the WBC mandatory challenger.<\/p>\n

Shavers, having previously lost to Ali, went on to amass a string of five wins \u2013 including a first-round stoppage of Norton<\/a> \u2013 to become the WBC mandatory challenger himself.<\/p>\n

By then, Holmes was reluctant to rematch the formidable knockout artist but nonetheless honoured his mandatory obligation and, after suffering a seventh-round knockdown, was able to claim an 11th-round stoppage victory in 1979.<\/p>\n

In a later interview with Lehigh Valley Sports Scene<\/a>, Holmes admitted that he never looked forward to fighting Shavers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never wanted to fight Earnie, because Earnie had that power. He\u2019s always dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t nobody wanted to fight Earnie. Joe Frazier, George Foreman [and] Muhammad Ali didn\u2019t want to fight him.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of them wanted to fight Earnie. He always had that punch, [so] you always had to watch yourself [with him].<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter he knocked out Ken Norton, I had no choice but to fight Earnie.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his time as a ferocious contender, Shavers repeatedly accused Frazier and Foreman of swerving him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Larry Holmes has singled out a former opponent, who also fought Muhammad Ali, as the man that \u2018nobody…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-419681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}