To The Finish "Someone eventually gets us"

By Tom Callahan

Boxing finally finished with Larry Holmes last week. Just as he always did while he was heavyweight champion, Holmes kept getting up when Mike Tyson kept knocking him down in the fourth round of their title fight in Atlantic City, N.J., though the third time down the referee made him stay. The final punch Holmes threw at 38, 28 months since he lost the title he had held for seven years, was a roundhouse right that got caught in the ring ropes, straightening him up perfectly for the right fist from Tyson that knocked him into oblivion.

In the end, only the ring seemed to reach out for Holmes, though Tyson tried. "At his best, he was the greatest of our time," said the undefeated young barbarian, 21, who meant it kindly. "I always used to want Holmes to win, except when he fought Ali." So even afterward, Tyson was landing one- twos. In the prefight keynote, one last time, the vague old champ Muhammad Ali was paraded in front of the unfortunate man whom history had designated to follow him. Later, as Holmes spun drunkenly about the ring, Ali's former corner physician Ferdie Pacheco murmured, "Those are the knockdowns that make you walk funny when you're 40." Once he could think again, Holmes said, "As we all go along, someone eventually gets us, and they got me tonight." Already the thriftiest fighter in memory, at least he made $3 million.

"He had his time; his reign is over now completely," pronounced Tyson, declaring that his next opponent would be Tony Tubbs. Michael Spinks' promoter seemed more incensed by this than Michael Spinks. After 33 victories and 29 knockouts, Tyson restated his feelings about this and every fight. "If anyone's ever going to beat me," he pledged, "no way am I going to get out of that ring walking. I'm going to have to be carried out of that ring." Don't they all go out that way?