Holmes, Back From Over the Hill, Wins

In his youth, Larry Holmes gave us 12 rounds of fast feet, fast hands and stiff jabs. It held off a generation of mediocre heavyweights.

Friday night, he couldn’t do it for 12 rounds. But for stretches, the 42-year-old former heavyweight champion looked 30 again in a 12-round unanimous decision victory over Ray Mercer.

Sometimes moving, sometimes throwing hard jabs while resting flat-footed, Holmes made a telling commentary on the state of the heavyweight division in the ‘90s.

Two judges gave the decision to him easily, 117-112 and 117-111, the third judge scoring it 115-113.

“Everybody says you gotta lay down and die when you’re over 40,” Holmes said. “I didn’t buy that. . . . Some fans love me, some fans hate me, but now they all respect me.”

Holmes convinced Mercer, who lost for the first time after 18 victories. “The better man won,” said Mercer, whose age is said to be 30 or 31. “It was a great learning experience. Now, I’ve got to learn to fight better.”

It’s unlikely he’ll ever learn as much as Holmes has known for years, and he gave Mercer an education, particularly in the later rounds, when it became clear that the older man was in better condition.

Mercer landed some hard shots to the head early, and Holmes appeared in trouble. But midway through the 12 rounds, it was clear who was in charge.

When Holmes did take a breather, fighting most of the third and fifth rounds backed into a corner, he fended off Mercer with volleys of counterpunches. “I’m old and I can’t move too well, so that was part of the plan,” Holmes said.

At one point in the fight, he was so confident that he started talking into the TVKO camera at ringside. “I said I was gonna knock him out . . . but I lied about that,” Holmes said.

He stuck the jab in Mercer’s face, rocked him with some punches that most observers didn’t think he could still throw and avoided Mercer’s awkward attempts to land a knockout blow.

Holmes says he wants to fight both 43-year-old George Foreman and champion Evander Holyfield, in either order.

Heady plans for a man that most people were laughing at during his comeback path for the last 10 months. Anyone who saw him Friday night isn’t laughing anymore.

For Holmes, who weighed 233 pounds, it was his sixth victory in a comeback that started last April 7. He is 54-3 with 37 knockouts. Holmes earned $1.1 million.

Mercer, 228 3/4, a 1988 Olympic gold medalist, is 18-1. His guarantee was $1.2 million.

On the undercard, former International Boxing Federation lightweight champion Jimmy Paul (30-5) knocked Todd Foster (22-1) down twice before stopping him 27 seconds into the seventh round.