Larry Holmes suffered only one stoppage defeat during his illustrious career, succumbing to the astounding power of Mike Tyson in 1988. Yet, ‘The Easton Assassin’ maintains that Tyson was not the fighter who provided him with his toughest fight.
Holmes’ legendary seven-year run as the heavyweight ruler remains as one of the most prestigious reigns in boxing history, reaching 48-0 as a professional and registering 20 successful title defences during that time.
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However, consecutive losses to Michael Spinks cost Holmes his title, leading to his retirement in 1986, before a comeback against Mike Tyson two years later resulted in a fabled beatdown; where ‘Iron Mike’ famously avenged the defeat of his idol, Muhammad Ali, by halting Holmes.
Although, whilst that bout is still considered as one of the hardest to watch for fans of the heavyweight division, Holmes told TMZ that he believes his split decision victory over Ken Norton, when he first got his hands on the WBC title in 1978, was the toughest fight of his career.
“Norton [was the best I faced]. My toughest fight was Kenny Norton.
I fought Tyson when I was kind of over the hill a little bit. I had retired then come back and fought Mike Tyson, and I wasn’t really in shape for it, but you know what, I did what I did at that time. But, if I had to do it all over again, I would have taken more time and done it right.”
Holmes continued to fight for a further 14 years following his damning defeat to Tyson, twice challenging for the heavyweight crown before hanging up the gloves with a record of 69-6 in 2002.
Who: Nashville Predators (5-9-4, 14 points, 8th place Central Division) vs Pittsburgh Penguins (9-5-3, 21 points, 3rd place Metropolitan Division)
Where: Avicii Arena, Stockholm Sweden (NHL Global Series)
When: 2:00 p.m. eastern (8:00pm local time start)
How to Watch: Broadcast locally Sportsnet Pittsburgh and Fanduel Sports Network South, nationally on NHL Network
Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens and Preds will reset for another game in the same place on Sunday (9:00am Pittsburgh time start) and then the Pens get a few days off to come home. Eventually they’ll start a three-game homestand that opens with the Minnesota Wild coming to the ‘Burgh a week from today in their first game back.
Opponent Track: Nashville can’t be sweating a change of scenery with the way things have been going; they’re just 2-6-2 in the last 10 (one win over lowly Calgary, the other in a shootout). Overall the Preds are 0-3-2 in their last five games and 1-6-2 in the last nine if you really wanted to frame it poorly.
Season Series: These two games will be the only NSH/PIT ones of the season. The Pens went 2-0-0 last season against the Preds (0-1-1 from the Nashville perspective).
Hidden Stat:
Nashville is just 2-1-2 when leading after two periods for a .400 points% that ranks last in the NHL
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Filip Forsberg – Ryan O’Reilly – Luke Evangelista
Steven Stamkos – Erik Haula – Jonathan Marchessault
Michael Bunting – Fedor Svechkov – Matthew Wood
Tyson Jost – Michael McCarron – Ozzy Wiesblatt
DEFENSEMEN
Brady Skjei / Nick Perbix
Nicolas Hague / Nick Blankenburg
Spencer Stastney / Adam Wilsby
Goalies: Juuse Saros and Justus Annunen
Potential scratches: Joakim Kemell, Justin Barron
Injured Reserve: Roman Josi, Cole Smith, Zachary L’Heureux
Season stats
via hockeydb
Dreadful stuff outside of the penalty kill. The Predators are a stale team and a bad one. They don’t hit expectations on goals for or against, their goaltending isn’t great, their finishing stinks as does the power play. There’s certainly more problems up a level from the coaching but this chart alone points to a prime team for a mid-season coaching change to clear the air and try a new voice, especially since the charts on rate for expected and actual goals are virtually in-line with last season’s poor performance.
If that happens and the Preds can even get back to a mid-tier level offense (which based on the expected goals looks possible) and some added defensive emphasis ends up helping the goaltending start anew, that could be a situation where people rave that a coaching change spurred some positive movement up the standings. However, even at this point the playoffs look unlikely.
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Bryan Rust – Sidney Crosby – Ben Kindel
Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin – Anthony Mantha
Ville Koivunen – Kevin Hayes – Philip Tomasino
Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Joona Koppanen
DEFENSEMEN
Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson
Ryan Shea / Kris Letang
Ryan Graves / Matt Dumba
Goalies: Sergei Murashov and Arturs Silovs
Potential Scratches: Danton Heinen, Connor Clifton, Harrison Brunicke, Filip Larsson
IR: Filip Hallander, Tristan Jarry, Justin Brazeau, Jack St. Ivany (lower body), Rutger McGroarty (upper body), Joel Blomqvist (lower body), Rickard Rakell (hand), Caleb Jones (lower body), Noel Acciari
Missing the K of HBK, reuniting two out of the three ain’t bad. Hagelin works these days for the Wild as a scout.
Just two youngsters living the dream, what a league the NHL is.