Which group was better in the early to mid 1980's

I think Witherspoon was better than anyone in group B. Smith probably falls short although I might pick him to knock out Coetzee. I read a few years ago that Spinks sparred briefly with Greg Page and got the lesser end of it, but that's here say.

 

Witherspoon definitely a harder man than anyone in group B. Dokes was a huge talent but would probably be a cruiser today. Coetzee was like a few other white South African heavies of the day; a big puncher who reacted badly when tasting his own medicine.

 

Close one, but I would go with Witherspoon/Smith/Spinks over Dokes/Page/Coetzee. Based on performance, Witherspoon from 83-86 was better than anyone not named Larry Holmes. What's amazing, in a sense, is that a couple of years earlier, Tim was a sparring partner of both Gerry ****ey, and Greg Page.Smith run between 84-86 was also a pretty good.Spinks beat the big dog twice, and had that meaningless defense before taking on Tyson, so he has a little credibility.
Dokes beat Weaver, Ball, Cobb, drew and beat Ocasio, Chaplin, and Gardner, but I would put him slightly under Witherspoon for performance, and truthfully honest, don't know if he could have taken Tim in a matchup, despite his talent. I still say Page was the most talented heavyweight in that time period, but his inconsistency and out-of-the-ring issues hurt him.Probably should have beaten Berbick and Witherspoon, but they caught him at the right time.Marty Monroe and Renaldo Snipes are his best wins. Coetzee had an impressive resume, but after losing to Page, just went under. And I don't see Gerrie beating Witherspoon, or Bonecrusher at their bests.

 

Holmes and Dokes were both promoted under the same umbrella of Don King Productions and Dokes was actually being groomed by the king family to be Holmes' successor. That fight was never going to happen. Coetzee and Holmes signed to fight each other at one point but Coetzee's people backed out, so that wasn't Larry's problem.

 

The context is everything. It's about the fights Holmes declined and took instead.

Michael Spinks may be a better opponent than Page, but that's not the point. Thomas was a better opponent than Williams or Spinks, whom Holmes declined.

Holmes declined Page and gave up his title to fight Marvis Frazier. Moves like that are always going to be criticized and rightfully so.

 

put well

 

Blew his ranking? Holmes dropped the WBC title that rated him #1. He would have never got his shot. He held out for a year, eventually losing to Spoon for Holmes' trashed title. Since Holmes didn't want to rematch Spoon.

I can't agree with the implication that he "just couldn't fight them all" There are specific reasons why these fights didn't happen, while Holmes racked up defenses against lesser opposition and novices(some went on to have good careers, ,many did not). The second opportunity to face Coetzee was the only one that was really out of Holmes' hands.

 

Yeah, I don't buy the excuse that Larry Holmes "couldn't" fight Greg Page or Pinklon Thomas because he had his hands full with Lucien Rodriguez, Marvis Frazier, Scott Frank and a 14 fight James Smith.. Something there just never added up. I've heard the arguments about his parting with Don King as being disruptive in the making of some of those matches, or a few of them not paying as much as a lineal champion should have received by the 1980's.. We've heard the rumors of behind the scenes politics and so on and so forth. But at the end of the day I think it mostly boils down to Holmes choosing to take it lightly and make as much money as he could with as little risk as possible. And I'm not saying that the latter part of his reign didn't warrant some degree of merit. Smith, Witherspoon and Williams were still quality challengers, and Larry did manage to come within inches of tying up Marciano's winning streak. But there were better fighters that he should have been taking on.

 

All of this is fair.

I think every Champion has a balance of major defenses and minor defenses.

In the case of Holmes' his "major defenses" were too infrequent and not really "major enough" to make up for all the minor defenses. And many of the tie ups and road blocks that prevented these major defenses were usually of Holmes' own doing because of his ego, attitude, or what have you.

 

Whitherspoon, Smith, and Spinks. not even close....

 

Indeed.Larry should've defened against Page, but Greg partially screwed that up himself.

 

Yeah, Larry and Michael were both under the King banner, and Larry didn't think Michael was on his level, which was true in a lot of ways.