Former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes (69-6, 44 KOs) is still bothered by his comment he made about former boxing great Rocky Marciano, when Holmes remarked “If you want to get technical about it, Rocky Marciano couldn’t carry my jockstrap,” after losing to challenger Michael Spinks in September 1985. The loss was even more disappointing because Holmes was 48-0 at the time of the fight and poised to tie Marciano’s long held record of 49-0.
Even worse, however, was the fact that it appeared to many, this writer included, that Holmes had in fact done more than enough to win the fight against Spinks. It almost appeared, at least to me, that the roles were opposite, and that Spinks was the champion, and wuld be given the benefit of the doubt if the fight was close. Whatever, the case, it left a bad taste in Holmes’s mouth, and he, in the heat of the moment, made the casual remark to a reporter about Marciano.
According to Holmes, the comment came back to haunt him, as he lost a lot of his endorsements following the comment. However, it remains unclear whether he lose the endorsements because he was no longer an undefeated champion, thus wouldn’t be an interesting spokes person for a product. In most cases, advertisers want winners to sell their products, and as soon as they lose, the advertisers often discontinue their relations with the athlete, moving on to the next temporary winner.
Holmes, now 58, feels that his comment led to his reputation being sullied, perhaps because people would associate his comment with him as a person. Following the loss to Spinks, Holmes would never recapture his title, losing another close, questionable decision to Spinks in 1886.
After two years away from the ring, Holmes would challenge then champion Mike Tyson for the WBC/WBA/IBF heavyweight titles in 1988, only to lose by 4th round KO. Despite being stopped, Holmes looked good up to the point of the knockout, snapping hard jabs and dominating Tyson with relative ease. Holmes would say later that if he had more time to train for the bout, he could have defeated Tyson. I wouldn’t doubt it, because Holmes looked superb for a fighter whom hadn’t fought in two years and was basically taking the fight without any warm-up bouts.