 He defended the title twice before losing the belt to Hassine Cherifi in 1998, a decision loss in which he dropped Cherifi once.In 1999, Holmes landed a rematch with Cherifi and regained the belt via a 7th round TKO.Holmes again defended the title twice before losing the belt to middleweight legend Bernard Hopkins in a clear-cut decision loss as part of the Middleweight World Championship Series unification tournament.