{"id":632150,"date":"2026-06-11T00:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/632150\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T00:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:39:10","slug":"larry-holmes-names-the-hardest-punching-heavyweight-he-faced-no-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/632150\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Holmes Names The Hardest Punching Heavyweight He Faced: &#8220;No Doubt&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having faced many heavy-hitters during his 75-fight professional career, Larry Holmes had no doubt who caught him the hardest.<\/p>\n<p>Known as \u2018The Easton Assassin\u2019, Holmes is credited with being one of the greatest heavyweights of all time due to an impressive reign as the world champion for seven years.<\/p>\n<p>He captured world honours when he produced a fine display against Ken Norton in June of 1978, defeating his countryman by split decision at the conclusion of their bruising 15-round battle.<\/p>\n<p>Holmes would go on to make no less than 20 successful defences of his crown, defeating the likes of Trevor Berbick, Tim Witherspoon <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/on-this-day-larry-holmes-thrashes-the-remnants-of-muhammad-ali\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">and the legendary Muhammad Ali along the way. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2018The Easton Assassin\u2019 remained unbeaten until September 1985 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.secondsout.com\/news\/michael-spinks-on-tyson-vs-holmes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">when he suffered a shock points defeat to Michael Spinks, bringing an end to his dominant 7-year reign as world heavyweight champion. <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/exclusive-larry-holmes-earnie-shavers-hit-harder-than-mike-tyson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">In an interview with Boxing News<\/a>, Holmes spoke fondly of former rival Earnie Shavers who he claims was the hardest hitter he faced throughout the course of his storied career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEarnie Shavers, no doubt about it. He could knock the hell out of you!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shavers, who was known as \u2018The Black Destroyer\u2019, is widely considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights to have never captured a version of the world heavyweight championship, falling short in his title showdowns with both Holmes and Muhammad Ali.<\/p>\n<p>He produced 70 stoppages in 76 victories as a professional, earning himself an impressive win-to-knockout ratio of over 76% until his final retirement in November of 1995.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having faced many heavy-hitters during his 75-fight professional career, Larry Holmes had no doubt who caught him the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-632150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}