{"id":322754,"date":"2025-08-06T14:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T14:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/322754\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T14:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T14:50:09","slug":"larry-holmes-finally-admits-he-really-lost-against-one-heavyweight-legend-they-gave-me-the-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/322754\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Holmes Finally Admits He Really Lost Against One Heavyweight Legend: “They Gave Me The Belt”"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the height of his career, Larry Holmes<\/a> was a dominant force within the heavyweight division.<\/p>\n

Known by his moniker \u2018The Easton Assassin\u2019, Holmes proved himself to be one of the top heavyweights of that golden era throughout the 1970s.<\/a><\/p>\n

He reigned as the world heavyweight champion for seven years between 1978 and 1985, defeating the likes of Earnie Shavers, Tim Witherspoon and \u2018The Greatest\u2019 \u2013 Muhammad Ali<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Holmes remained unbeaten as a professional through his first 48 bouts before he eventually suffered several consecutive defeats, two of these coming against Michael Spinks and the third coming against Mike Tyson<\/a> in 1988.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Easton Assassin\u2019 challenged for a version of the world heavyweight championship on two occasions in the years before his retirement, but would fall short in these attempts against Evander Holyfield<\/a> and Oliver McCall respectively.<\/p>\n

In a YouTube i<\/a>nterview, Holmes made a shock claim about his 1978 showdown with Ken Norton, as he claims that he believes Norton should have actually had his hand raised that night.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cKenny Norton kicked my a** and I don\u2019t care what anybody says. They gave me the title.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Holmes defeated Norton via split decision at the conclusion of their 15-round battle<\/a> at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas back in the summer of 1978, a victory that would mark the start of his seven-year world title reign.<\/p>\n

Norton fought on just a handful of occasions after he was beaten by Holmes, announcing his retirement in 1981 after he suffered an opening round knockout defeat to two-time heavyweight title challenger Gerry Cooney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the height of his career, Larry Holmes was a dominant force within the heavyweight division. Known by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-322754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114982382713923194","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}