Big John Tate

Minor point,
I distinctly recall Ray Leonard talking about his 76 Olympic teammate Big John scarfing down Oreo cookies up in Montreal laughing at his teammates who were trying to maintain weight.

 

That's a great point.Howard Davis Jr also mentioned something about John not being able to read, which was somewhat bad, but he said John was a good guy.

 

Tate fought Berbick less than 90 days after getting KO'ed by Weaver, which was an incredibly stupid move by Ace Miller, considering the type of KO that occurred. Couple that with the tremendous pace Tate set in the Weaver fight, Tate's body, much less his psyche had not recovered.

Miller should have known better than to throw Tate back in the mix so fast.

Who knows if Tate would have recovered from the Weaver KO to return to form, history says no, as most fighters do not. But with coming back so fast from the Weaver KO, Miller not gambled with Tate's career but also his life, as it was completely ruined.

 

And they took the fight up in Canada, not in a more neutral setting. But that's the sport when a guy has to continually take the hard road.

Look at Tate's early career fights. I thought it was crazy to put him in there with Animal Lopez. The guy was like 10-0 and known as a tough sparring partner guy. And Tate had what, 4 fights? And then they take the bout in Lopez' backyard. About the only guy that wore those shoes recently was Oleg Maskaev. Just every thing they had to do seemed to always be the toughest path to take.

Tate was out cold for about 10 to 12 minutes added up in those brutal losses to Chapman/Weaver/Stevenson. Just who is resilient enough to deal with that--especially considering what is known about brain trauma and concussions.

Tate after that Berbick loss really looked bad on those ESPN fights and such. A shell of himself earlier and zero reflexes and washed up that bad after 5 years in the sport. His deterioration was as quick and as steep as anyone's and definately one of the tragic stories the sport has seen.

 

I'm just now watching his fights. I'd never seen any. Big guy! Seems to have decent power. A solid boxer. Just watched his fight against Kallie Knotzee & am starting his fight against Gerrie Coetzee. I remember reading about him fighting in the 80's when I first started getting Ring Magazine. Shame he never put it together.

As an aside, what's with all the fights in South Africa at the time? I thought that was a no no back then. South Africa seems like a major player in boxing in the late 70's.

 

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Don King continued to do business in SA. After Dokes lost to Coetzee, King promoted Coetzee's first defense in SA. Several top contenders refused to fight there, but Greg Page agreed to go there as challenger. So, Greg Page, on a two fight losing streak ko'd Coetzee for the WBA title. Jessie Jackson tried to talk Page out of going there and Page said,"Jessie Jackson doesn't pay my bills."

 

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Wow! I feel like I should send money through thr computer or something. Great post & incredibly informative! When I got into boxing in the 80's, I went to the library & read everything I coukd find. I could list every heavyweight champion from Sullivan to Ali. Then it gets messy. I'm only now going back & watching some of the boxers of the late 70's to mid 80's.

Amazing facts about Knoetze. Can't even contemplate circumstances like that existing. Thanks so much for the history! Both he & Coetzee seem to have been solid in the ring.

Just to confuse things, I do remember 90's heavyweight Pierre COETZER.

 

Page was the one guy Gerrie wasn't going to beat style-wise.And with John Tate's boxing ability, he wasn't beating Tate either.

 

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He was hurt badly by Page earlier in the fight. The last round was just the culmination. Academic. But Coetzee was not beating Greg Page that night.

That was the real good version of Page in there and that's the version nobody wanted to face. They wanted the Greg Page with his B game in there.

 

He would be the best fighter ever today, or the best today ever.

 

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