Undefeated and Underappreciated

By Tom Callahan

With cunning and a left jab, the saw and hammer of a boxer, Larry Holmes held David Bey off last week when the latest heavyweight stranger looked strong enough to rip right through Holmes' oaken arms. For four rounds, the only undefeated-and-recognizable champion in the world seemed in awful danger. But when Bey began to fall back in the fifth and sixth, Holmes introduced his right hand, a savage tool, and started to make forceful points, how "this is a very, very hard game," and what "a hell of a job" they had. Later, Bey was able to remember only one of two knockdowns in the eighth round. "Oh man, ain't that terrible? That's terrible." But Holmes could recall everything, even how it felt when he "fought for $63" about half of his 35 years ago.

Just two seconds short of ten full rounds, a Las Vegas referee ended Bey's dream and Holmes' career. "It's been an exciting career for me," he said. "Let the history books record me, but I think I am a great fighter." So, as boxing understands the term, Holmes is forevermore retired, pending an offer to fight again. "If they pay me right, I'll be back one more time," he agrees, but there seems no one left to fight. After Bey, Bonecrusher Smith and Tim Witherspoon, it is hard to go back to ordinary opponents. Just two more victories and Holmes would pull even with Rocky Marciano; a third match and his lasting record could be 50-0, the roundest figure in boxing since Buster Mathis. But Holmes appears to be impervious to such things, and it is just as well.

As Ezzard Charles' misfortune was to succeed Joe Louis, Holmes' sorest miscalculation came in following Muhammad Ali, who claimed to be bigger than boxing and was correct. Often graceless in public, Holmes has a gentler streak that comes out in private, for instance, when discussing Ali, whom he served as a sparring partner and studied as a man until Holmes' embarrassing skills & necessitated his firing. "I always sat myself in the back," he says, "and just watched. Today's fighters don't discipline, they don't dedicate. But worst of all, they don't sit themselves in the back." His awe for Ali was such that the first time Muhammad blackened his eye in the gym, Holmes declined treatment until he could get to a photographer. "I was so happy with that black eye," he recalls. If it has occurred to Holmes that in outshining him and saying so, Ali issued a figurative black eye that lasted, he holds no grudge.

With only Gerry Cooney for a hyphenated rival, Holmes is undefined in an Ali- Frazier, Leonard-Duran sense, though the Ken Norton fight was memorable to everyone who saw it. That started Holmes' term of office almost seven years ago, when Easton, Pa., threw the only parade. "I was so happy, I thought I was going to cry," he says. "But I kept things in, and I just waved. It wouldn't be right for the world heavyweight champion to be crying." Having seen Ali wander from Louisville to Chicago to Los Angeles, Holmes knew enough never to leave Easton, his home since childhood. "Back there, I can keep up with the Holmeses and leave those Joneses alone," he says. Financially, Holmes is secure, though he admits, "If I had got the $10 million I was supposed to have got with Cooney, I'd probably be long done." Like every boxer, he came to learn, "I had all these people taking money out."

Should Cooney pick up the pace of his curious career and decide he would like to improve on the 13 rounds they fought in 1982, Holmes would be pleased. "But I don't think he's coming back, do you? Deep down inside, Cooney really don't impress himself." By this standard, Holmes is fulfilled. "As a boxer, you got to put me up there with all of the top three," he figures, "Marciano, Louis and Muhammad Ali. I just didn't have the charisma. If Ali came in here now (Holmes is speaking in a restaurant), right away he would start shadowboxing with you. But I can't be that way. I'd be afraid of sticking a thumb in your eye." Meanwhile, no one is shy about poking a finger in his.

People say he never fought anybody, but he never declined to fight anybody. He fought with broken hands, throbbing ligaments and twisted ankles. Against Ali in 1980, that sad and empty passage, Holmes actually started the fight with stitches in one eyelid expertly hidden. If several foes have slammed him down, he always got up to win. In this sense, he is fit company for Marciano, whose wounds sometimes imposed deadlines that he always met. Of late, not surprisingly, Holmes has been reviewing all his fights on tape cassettes; but more than on Earnie Shavers, Mike Weaver or Renaldo Snipes, his focus has gone to the machine itself. "When I started out, I didn't have any money for a machine to watch my fights. I tried to borrow from my promoter, but he said I didn't need a machine. By myself I ended up getting a secondhand one."

The machine transports him back not just to the fight nights but beyond. "Champions aren't made. God born me champion," he says. "He gave me the strength, the power, not just to defeat people but to beat what they say: 'You don't have it, boy. Go back to your job. Get back on that truck.' Now I own it." This was Holmes' 20th fight for his varied heavyweight titles, having switched alphabetical organizations in midstream, demonstrating that champions are really sanctioned by the public. "Just a little advice," he said, "to David Bey," who was leaning into an icepack nearby, looking younger than 28 and greener than 15 fights. "Try to be a champion outside the ring. I'm going out of this game. Someone has to take the weight."

He thanked all of his opponents ("Without anybody I fought, I couldn't have made any money") and tried to feint the skeptics. "If I retired and came back, I think I would have one of my biggest fights ever. That would be with my wife." Considering 47 bouts, Holmes seems relatively uninjured. He lisps, but he always did. "Physically," he says, "I'm fine." What about mentally? "Mentally, I'm retired."