Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury written off by Larry Holmes as boxing legend insists his era would ‘beat these guys up’

LARRY HOLMES reckons his generation of heavyweights would have battered today’s stars such as Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.

Holmes, who beat Muhammad Ali in a career that spanned from 1973 to 2002, is adamant his peers would hammer today’s heroes.

Ring legend Holmes reckons today’s heavyweights wouldn’t have a hope of beating his class of legends, which included Ali

BT Sport recently ran a poll asking who would win between Joshua and Holmes in a fantasy fight.

Just over half said current WBO, WBA and IBF champ Joshua would beat Holmes, who was WBC champ from 1978 to 1983.

But Holmes insists that is not the case and that he would have made mincemeat of today’s big hitters.

He said: “We’d beat these guys up, we’d beat them up.

“They don’t have the abilities that we have but they would’ve given us a pretty good fight.

“But, when you got guys like Kenny Norton, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Ron Lyle, we get a lot of good fighters out there when I was fighting.”

Holmes, now 70, went even further, saying today’s pound-for-pound icons like Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford wouldn’t have had a chance.

Fury has Holmes’ WBC belt now but the latter says the former would not have been able to beat him

He added: “They couldn’t stand a chance when I was fighting. When I was fighting, Sugar Ray Leonard was out there, Marvin Hagler was out there, [it’s] no contest.”

Perhaps Holmes has a point, considering he went toe to toe with The Greatest and saw him off.

The Easton Assassin successfully defended his WBC belt for an eighth time against Ali in Las Vegas on October 2, 1980.

And his memorable win – watched by an estimated two billion people around the world – came about after he asked to spar with Ali.

Holmes told proboxing-fans.com: “Yeah, well you want to learn how to fight, you got to start with the best.

“So I asked Ali to give me a job as his sparring partner, and he said to me, ‘Can you take it?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I can take it.’

“So he gave me a job to test me out for a couple of weeks, and then I was OK for him.

“And that was it, and then next thing you know, I had a job and same thing with Joe Frazier. The word was out that I was a good boxer, and I worked with Ali and then Joe Frazier.

“My intention was not to be a good sparring partner. My intention was to make some money, and box with the best fighters, and learn from them as I can. And that’s what I did.”