Do you hold it against Larry Holmes for not fighting Greg Page

I wasn't confusing arguments. I was responding to Chocolab's comment that Tyson had done as much Bey and less than bruno to earn his first title shot. A comment that I think I addressed pretty effectively. Its fair to say that he was carefully matched and I agree with you. He was 18 years old after all when he debuted and comparatively a smaller heavyweight than most of the top men at the time.. But my argument is that he really didn't do anything less to earn a single shot at ONE alphabet title than most of the guys were around at the time. His opposition was equal to most and for the few who had perhaps ONE signature win over him, he made up for in activity and decisiveness along with the claim to never having lost.

 

Did Witherspoon even beat Snipes? That was a draw in my eyes.

Witherspoon did better versus a younger Quick Tillis than Tyson did. And I still don't think Witherspoon did enough to warrant a shot against Holmes. In another era it would not have counted.

Everyone was better than Tillis, even by then. Page was the first guy to get an impressive win over him. It's sloppy seconds after that point. Coetzee drew with Thomas and was robbed against Snipes. But Snipes was not robbed when he drew with Scott Frank. It's proberbly not that mischievous to say Thomas proved he was Scott Frank level drawing with Coetzee. This whole era was a huge stale mate. A lot of guys on the same level.

Tyson was bank rolled to look spectacular though. I'm not saying he was a hype job because he did make the grade when he flattened Berbick. I am saying that you could have lined up as many guys every two weeks like that for a lot of contenders and they might have looked almost as spectacular. In fact most contenders would love that opportunity and so many easy paydays over such a short time.

 

i know a lot of people want to love Holmes on here but the facts remain, he simply avoided the better more dangerous fighters of his era, never unified, never rematched tough opponents and Michael Spinks was the weakest of all the contending evils never having fought at heavyweight but he beat Holmes. There was an outside manipulation of the split titles and Larry hid behind them....He was my favorite fighter of the group that were struggling with each other but you just have to be real about 9 avoidance fights and 3 non rematches, never unifying. One thing that Tyson did was show us the true value of the era by the way and form he dispatched them. weak era and Larry stood out because he avoided the right hand punchers and let them fight one another , he almost got shocked by some of his picks and sparked but they were still the weaker of the Heep.

Those on here can only speculate that Larry would have beaten-Coetzee,Dokes,Page,renewed Weaver,Tate (before Weaver)Thomas, because he did not fight them and there was ample time and money to be made and legacy issues such as unifying the title. Marciano and Louis and Ali always fought rematches,disputed decisions, and there was Norton,Witherspoon,Williams and Weaver I think before you can rate Larry top 5 by speculation you must take those issues into account. Again I am not saying Larry could have or should have fought them all but at least 5 of the 10 - 6 unification's and 4-rematches and he would have either cleared up some of the mess or lost

IMO he would have picked up a loss or 2 over a less talented but a stylistic problem puncher

 

I like you... But a lot of the above is one-sided biased propaganda and I've told you why several times before.

 

I added a paragraph to try and better explain magoo and I do not suggest Larry should have fought them all but when I see so many talking about the Big Splinter in Dempsey's eye (Wills and Greb) and are blind to the Board in Larry eye it annoys me. I usually forgive and move on but this era, King and the alphabets groups almost took me out of the game I loved since I was 6 years old

Larry loses points IMO for not fighting the better guys

 

Yes Holmes certainly did not seek to help his own cause. But how much is the champion responsible for? He should not have handed back his belt and a champion should never be so brazen as to publicly suggest he had paid his dues and would no longer seek hard fights. But he stayed busy against a bunch of guys who could not string wins together against each other.

Was Tyson himself responsible for rounding up all these over rated contenders/former belt holders or was it the HBO series? What makes Tyson look so magnificent is the fact that many of his challengers were inactive and had not defeated rated fighters themselves for many years. Thomas, Tubbs, Homes, Spinks and Bruno were rusty part timers treading water when they fought Tyson. Tyson was the only guy staying active within his own level. Smith, Tucker, Williams and Douglas get less credit for beating other contenders before facing Tyson.

 

Granted.. And I agree.

But you often put forth a very long and arbitrary list of men whom you believe he should have fought or given rematches to, when in fact some of those fights were unattainable or made no sense to go through with.. John Tate lost his title and his ranking almost as fast as he earned it.. Holmes signed to fight Coetzee but Coetzee's people backed out of the deal.. Dokes was managed under the same promoter and was being groomed as Holmes' future replacement.. Carl Williams rematch never came off because Holmes was already committed to fighting Spinks before the first Williams fight even happened.. He lost to spinks and then retired, making a rematch with Carl moot... Granted there are other names you've listed in the past which are valid points of criticism.. But your efforts at tearing down the man's legacy are extreme, repetitive and in some cases lacking in validity.

 

there were a few opportunities to fight Coetzee and Weaver was a natural after beating Tate. Tate won a title from Knoetzee then beat Coetzee, Coetzee beat Spinks by 1st rd KO and Larry wound up fighting Spinks Later .Then there was young Witherspoon. Like I said Larry was not to be blamed for all King was also but collectively it adds up and some were major navigation's. I dropped Dempsey because of Wills but there were articles posted showing it was not all JD's fault and when Jack returned after 3 years off he fought Wills conqueror Sharkey and Greb beater Tunney so some of that tarnish rubbed off.

Like I said out of the 10 guys i felt Larry did not fight, 4-5 of them would have been sufficient

 

I'm not sure where you get that there were TEN challengers who had rightful ownership to a title shot at Holmes.. I think 3-4 is probably a far more accurate number. And politics played a pretty big part in some of those fights not being made. But go with whatever take on the matter you feel is most palatable.

 

Pinklon Thomas was Scott Frank level? :yep:yep:yep:yep:yep:yep:yep:yep

 

Who cares? Tyson easily beat Smith a few months after winning his title and Smith got a title shot against Witherspoon at the same time Tyson got a shot at Berbick. Smith caught Weaver and Witherspoon cold, and outlasted a fatigued, inexperienced Bruno. Other than that he was exposed as a slow of hand and foot plodder and was easily outboxed by Tubbs, Witherspoon, a fading Holmes, and even lost to Frazier, who Tyson kod in 30 seconds. Basically, Smith got lucky against Witherspoon in the second fight or he never would have come close to any World Title.

 

Spoon had his jaw broken in that fight and barely escaped with a disputed decision win.. He was then off for much of the next year.. So no, I don't think his title fight with Holmes was deserved and certainly not as much as Tyson's was for Berbick.

Witherspoon's victory over Tillis came after his shot against Holmes so that's irrelevant to weather it gave him any points in the earning of that shot.. And yes his win over Quick was much quicker and more impressive than Tyson who was all but 19 years old when they fought.

Agreed for the most part. But for many of the same reasons, I don't feel that Tyson's title fight with Berbick was any less earned.

Nah... No way you'd get that lazy 80's bunch to fight 27 opponents in 18 months the way that Tyson did in his first year and half as a pro, let alone getting them to look half as impressive at absolutely mopping the floor with them in that fashion. Point in case, Smith and Tyson fought common opponents in Jose Ribalta, Jessie Ferguson and Marvis Frazier all within a close time frame.. Tyson dominated all three of those guys while smith struggled to beat two of them and losing to the third.. And that was with the advantage of having time to recover in between fights unlike Mike who was appearing every few weeks..

 

Hey, watch Coetzee v Snipes then Snipes vs Scott Frank and then get back to me.

The 1980s was strange. So many guys the same level.

 

Have you seen Frank v Snipes?