Is Larry Holmes

After ****ey he cherry picked his way through the division. You've proved it yourself with the amount if excuses you've had to make on this thread.

Those excuses prove his cherry picking because with out it there would be no need for any excuses at all.

He could have pursued the WBA holder, he could have fought Page and kept the WBC and IBF, he could have done a lot more than he did.

 

Witherspoon and Carl Williams both beat Holmes so Holmes doesn't get to complain about getting "robbed" by Spinks when he lost those fights, CLEAR!

 

I agree he lost the first one.

 

You can only call him a cherry picker if someone was really better than Larry Holmes.

Greg Page was not better than Larry Holmes. Greg Page was not as important as Gerrie Coetzee was in 1984.

Remember the WBA actually threatened to strip Weaver if he took his #1 contender!! The WBC wanted to strip Larry for unifying!!

The Ring Magazine had it right. Larry was the champ from 1979. The belts were just belts and everybody else was just a contender.

 

The actual quote (which you bolded) is this:

the W.B.C. president, Jose Sulaiman , had threatened to strip him of the title if he should fight Coetzee before Page

Nowhere in that does he say they'll strip Holmes for fighting Coetzee. He says they'll strip him if he fights Coetzee first. Since by this time Holmes' last mandatory defence was against C**ney in June 82, well over a year over before, and Holmes was already obligated to fight Page well before Coetzee won the title, and they'd rubber stamped consecutive Holmes title fights against nonentities, it wasn't an unreasonable request.

 

I actually remember scoring the second fight for spinks, even though it was closer. You can make a case for holmes I suppose.

 

The first one Larry lost by some distance. I'm not that biased.

 

Incidentally Larry Holmes is one of my all time favorite heavyweights. His jab, uppercut and recuperative powers were among some of the very best. In fact I have rated around #5 or # 6 all time. But in order to be mentioned in the same discussion as Ali or Louis he needed to take on and beat more of those mandatories. Still a great champion but not top 3 for reasons that have been outlined ad nauseum in this thread.

 

A cherry picker is someone who picks easy fights.

I'm no disputing his championship claim, whether people like it or not he validated that by beating Ali.

But post ****ey he took the was road more often than not, and after the Spinks fights you can see why.

 

I see what you are saying but I think it's kind of pedantic. The fans want unifications. Coetzee was the #1 in the real sense.

 

He's not top three by my reckoning anyway. He was always better than the alternative at the time.

 

If Coetzee was #1 in the real sense, then so were Dokes and Weaver before him. I agree the fans wanted unifications. It makes you wonder why Holmes made no serious effort to unify with the other seven men who held titles during his reign.

 

It's not as simple as saying he should fight so and so. So and so has his own rules to abide by.

At no point was Tate more relevent than Norton or young or Shavers. At no point was Dokes more relevent than C00ney in the grand scheme of things.

Weaver only happened to be relevent after losing to Holmes because he he beat Tate who was irrelevant so far as world domination counted anyway.

Both Coetzee and Thomas acknowledged Holmes as the real champion AFTER beating another kind of champion

1984 Holmes tried to unify.

1985 Larry lost to Spinks after being more active and consistent than any of the rival champions.

 

Other champs in other divisions had rules to abide by too. It didn't stop them making the big fights and meeting their fellow champs. Strange that these rules didn't stop the other top heavies fighting each other. Holmes can't arrange a fight with Coetzee but Weaver, Dokes and Thomas can. Holmes can't fight Dokes but Weaver and Coetzee can. Holmes can't fight Thomas but Coetzee, Spoon and Weaver can. Etc etc.

Norton, Young and Shavers were all out of the picture by the time Tate won the WBA title. Ali considered challenging Tate before deciding on Holmes.

The only thing that placed C**ney above Dokes in the grand scheme of things was his status as the great white hope and the money that came with it. Dokes was certainly more relevant after Holmes beat C**ney. Cobb, Rodriguez, Spoon, Frank and Frazier were not more relevant than Dokes.

Weaver was relevant because he'd already given Holmes a tough fight (as an unknown) and subsequently won the WBA title. What was a bigger fight for Holmes? Berbick? LeDoux? Snipes? Cobb? This is a guy who was a mainstay at the top of the rankings for the next 4-5 years, beat several top contenders, KO'd the guy Holmes later tried to fight, KO'd another guy who gave Holmes hell, and you want to argue he wasn't relevant?

Thomas also said Holmes was "picking hand picked opponents and calling them contenders".

In this sixth year as champion, the one and only time he made any serious attempt to unify (whilst simultaneously fracturing the division even more). What about his other seven co-champions?

Another year of ignoring his fellow champs. Fights the Ring's #3 (his highest ranked opponent in three years!) who was so good he had completely dropped from contention by the end of the year. His final two defences were against an unranked neophyte, and a guy making his heavyweight debut. Squeaked past the first with a very unpopular decision, and lost to the second.

 

I thought you may have had actual fight odds. I have that mag. Holmes was def going to be a solid favorite, but i'd hardly guess what based on a 4 person round table.

What do you yourself think the odds would have been? Extremely keen to know.