![]() Tim Witherspoon: There were a lot of good heavyweights during the late 80’s, a lot of young talent. Robert Brown: How do you think the Klitschkos would have done in your era, up against Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Shannon Briggs and yourself? Do you think they would be successful? I think there’s other heavyweights that are coming up that are gonna be credible heavyweights. As long as you’re on the outside, that’s his game, but nobodies really tested him on his chin yet and that’s yet to be found out. Everybody knows the basics but sometimes you need more than that when a guy is on you every second. Everybody knows basic skills, putting your hands up on the side of your head and protect your body. I notice when you get close to him he lacks defensive skills. As long as you stay at a distance, you’re chances of getting knocked out are high. I realize and I notice that the closer you get to him, the less he knows how to defend himself and the less effective he is. Tim Witherspoon: My thing is, I’ve viewed his fights, he’s a tough guy, he’s got a good right hand. Robert Brown: Deontay Wilder is coming up the ranks, what do you think of Wilder’s talent and how far do you think he can go? He still had more experience, had more amateur fights, had more years in, I was just that guy that was determined to win the fight and that’s what showed. Even though he was boxing longer than me, I was catching up to him and the other guys that were in the boxing world. I boxed him previously, I had sparred with him before but he had more experience than me but I was close behind him. Tim Witherspoon: Greg Page had more experience than me. Were you confident going into that fight because of your experience with Larry Holmes? What did it feel like to get your hands on the heavyweight title? Robert Brown: You won the title against Greg Page. I think I would have probably finished him off because I was a little too fast. ![]() If I would have had the experience, I think that it would have been a different outcome. I was really shocked myself and I lacked experience. I didn’t realize that I was beating up on the greatest heavyweight of that time, ready to knock him out. I hurt him, I was in the stadium with all these people screaming, it was like I was in a dream. ![]() Tim Witherspoon: Inexperience held me back from knocking him out. Robert Brown: In the ninth round, did you feel that when you had him up against the ropes and you were pummeling him that you had him out? Looking back, is there anything else that you could have done to finish Holmes off? That was one of the plans to try to eliminate the great jab that he had. I blocked it, plus going to the body real hard and ripping the right hand to his left side. That was one of the things we took away from Larry Holmes, his jab. I kept whipping that right hand to the left side and I think that did take a little bit away from his jab. Tim Witherspoon: Yeah my trainer told me that Larry Holmes had a good jab and if I kept throwing that right hand to the body, that jab would come down and it would get weaker, and it did. Was that part of the gameplan going in, to go after Holmes’ body? Robert Brown: You concentrated a lot on the body, particularly in the early round. I did doubt, I said, “This is kind of soon,” and he said, “No, you’re gonna whoop him,” and I did. First, I didn’t care who it was, I was gonna fight them anyways, but that added on a little more to my career. Then my trainer told me I’d kick his ass, and that’s what gave me the confidence. Tim Witherspoon: Well at first when they offered me the fight, I doubted myself in a way because that was kind of fast. Did you feel you were adequately prepared to be able to go up against someone like Larry Holmes? Robert Brown: I want to talk about your first shot at a title against Larry Holmes. That’s what really made the difference, the person that was teaching me. I was a good athlete, I loved boxing but my trainer ‘Slim’ Robinson enhanced everything that I was trying to do. Tim Witherspoon: I had the talent and I had the ambition and I loved sports but it took a good trainer to just polish me off and give me the confidence that I could think that I would be champ one day. Robert Brown: When did you first discover that you had talent for the sport? In this interview I spoke to Witherspoon about his memorable fight with Larry Holmes, the fight in which he captured the heavyweight title, the heavyweight boxers of today. Tim has a career that spanned 23 years and during that run he faced the top fighters of the 1980’s and 1990’s. I recently had a chance to speak with former heavyweight champion, ‘Terrible’ Tim Witherspoon.
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