Holmes missed out on Page. Not a huge deal.

Maybe we should call him Donald, for more reasons than one.

I'd love a picture of that mallard one more time

 

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Yesssssss, that was the exact picture i remembered

 

Where was this serious talent when he was mugged by Berbick in front of the world on the Holmes/Cooney undercard in his breakout fight ? He did not just lose, he lost almost every round decisively? Where was it against Witherspoon in his big title shot for which he weighted in at 239.5 pounds, almost twenty more than for the Berbick fight? Why are the revisionists choosing to ignore that his performance was panned based on his less then stellar conditioning ?

Page was a good fighter. He had perfect size, reach, had very good speed and skills. He was tough and had heart. The problem was that he was not ever as well conditioned as he should have been and not that physically strong for his size. He was thrown all over the ring by Berbick. He was shoved around by Witherspoon. He had limitations and he was not in Holmes class ..

Could he have trained for the fight of his life and given a 34 year old Holmes a tough fight ? Very possibly. However, he did not get the fight because the dominance of the alphabet manipulation strength was on the wane ... Holmes was doing what he wanted and there was zero public demand because Page kept blowing his shots. If he got into great shape and won consistently and created huge public support Holmes would have had to fight him. He did not and Larry did not. The fault is Page's.

 

JT, no offense but I know the players of this era personally and the whole story. I've asked you time and again to answer two questions which you refuse to answer . They are:

1. Prior to the Cooney fight, who did Holmes duck that you select straight up to beat him . Not maybe give him a fight but beat him?

2. What post 33 year old heavyweight champions defeated superior opposition than Holmes did ?

 

Nice post in theory .... now let's deal with the facts, something most of you are either manipulating or avoiding entirely ... the mandatories meant **** in that era as the alphabet bodies and the promoters were at the height of their manipulative agendas ... in addition, there were three governing bodies, all of which were corrupt and played musical chairs with the rankings as they felt fit .. it was a pathetic joke.

Perhaps you will tell me which fighters you feel would have defeated Holmes pre-Cooney ? Be definitive.

 

Such BS. Holmes wins pretty much every round against Snipes excepting the one he gets sat on his arse in. So Larry, to make himself look better, says he underestimated Snipes yada, yada.

Larry gets taken to the absolute outer limits by Weaver in a bout prior and says he took him lightly and come into the bout with a cold.

He may have even said he took Spoon lightly.

Not much of a pattern there, but hey if Larry said it she's got to be true :rofl

 

How about we put you in a 10 rounder and i break your right thumb in the second? wouldn't phase you would it?

Credit to Berbick, he came to fight and fought the perfect fight.

In Pages eliminator bout vs Snipes to face Larry as his mandatory Page won almost every round and made a hideous sight of Snipes left eye. Of course this fight mattered a bit more than Berbick when talking of forcing a title shot.

Left Coetzee prone at a similar weight. It's well known Page didn't train for the bout due to external circumstances. This is his weakness, inconsistency and able to be put off due to circumstance. Others would have ignored it.

Page earned his shot. Surely you don't have to earn multiple mandatories via eliminators?!?!?!?! What a crock. As far as alphabet the WBC had been the superior body for eons.

Another crock.

Thomas got into shape and won consistently and Holmes told the world he would not fight him. Deserving a shot meant sweet f**k all to Sir Larry.

 

No offense but your bias and love of Larry kills any authority you yourself think you have.

I am consistently amazed at the amount of times Larry's minions go off topic. It's a sure sign of defeat.

Larry was rotten right from the start, ffs even after winning the title vs Norton he said he'd never fight him again!

What's that got to do with Holmes going easy street?

How can you decide to use a biased age cutoff to suit the agenda?

What others told the world they were going to dog it for the rest of their career as they'd earned it?

 

Hagler used to thrive on his mandatories as did others.

As far as the agenda with picking fighters over Holmes, well that has a big fat zero to do with avoiding challengers and feathering ones nest with easy (hopefully, but egg on face per Snipes, Weaver, Williams and Witherspoon among others) beats.

 

This is the bottom line. People can talk around it all they want, but the fact is that Holmes didn't want to take chances as (stripped) champ.

Some of the dangerous matches that Holmes avoided:
-Page (dropped his only belt to do so)
-Norton rematch
-Witherspoon rematch
-Williams rematch
-Thomas (83-85)
-Dokes

He couldn't probably beaten all of them, but we can only rate him on what he did do.

Still, his winning streak is quite impressive even if most opponents were young and green or never-been's. Plus the comeback career was very good. I rate him in my top5.

 

JT, I simply disagree with you almost 100% ... this is getting boring.

 

It's so funny here how few have strong opinions but know little about the period. Norton was knocked out on one round v.s. Shavers in the eliminator to fight Holmes. Holmes fought the winner, Shavers. You sit here and claim he ducked Norton ... another member of the clueless or agenda driven club.

 

JT, you are a classic armchair critic with no meat on the bones. I have asked you time and again to tell me who you pick to defeat Holmes and you refuse because you know that none of them would have.