HOLMES: No, Lennox Lewis doesn’t have no jab! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off, but Lennox Lewis don’t have no jab. He ain’t never had a jab. He got Emanuel Steward and Emanuel Steward was trying to teach him how to jab. He don’t have no jab! Lennox Lewis don’t have no jab, he has no heart, but if he gets started on you he’s got the biggest heart in the world and he’s going to kill you. But I have seen the dog come out of Lennox Lewis a couple of times when he fought, and I don’t think he had it. And he never had the jab! So don’t even put him in there and talk about his jab because he ain’t never had a jab.
CIANI: So how do you think you at your best would have matched up against a prime Lewis?
HOLMES: Listen man, I don’t go that way. If I went the way I would tell you and people would be mad at me because there is nobody in boxing history that would have beaten me if I was in my prime at the same time as them. I don’t feel that anybody could beat me. Then that’s everybody’s opinion. When you say you could beat Joe Louis, or Marciano, or Dempsey or anybody else. Oh no you couldn’t! You could beat Ali. Oh no you couldn’t! So I don’t even get in that. I always say to everybody if you ask me who the greatest fighter of all time is I’m going to say me! Larry Holmes! If you ask to take me out of the picture, yeah I can take me out of the picture and say maybe Muhammad Ali, maybe Joe Louis, maybe Rocky Marciano, maybe Dempsey. I can say that! But when you ask me the question I’m going to say Larry Holmes and that’s the way I’ve always done that.