I remember the fights, but was a little young to understand the politics. How did the HW title get so fractured ? I suspect it started at the end of the 70's with Ali ? Holmes was the dominant champ of the era, but i know some feel he ducked a few guys ( Page/Tubbs/Thomas ?) Or were these guys busy fighting for/ defending their own version during what became known as 'the Alphabet era'. Why didn't they meet ? What stoped any potential unifying fights ? Holmes certainly had a few defences against sub standard title opposition, but then again, is that not a legitimate privilege of a long standing and very active champion ? More 'title' fights = more big fight nights, but was it that simple ? Your thoughts on the politics/ the fighters involved/Did anyone miss their shot/ who lost / who gained/ it was a strange era but one with a huge heap of guys who at their best were very talented. Holmes/Coetzee/Witherspoon/Williams/Smith/ Dokes/Tubbs/Gerry C /Page/Berbick/Tate/Weaver/Thomas/Snipes/ and i've probably missed one or 2. Man that's a long list of decent fighters in a five year era, say 80-5 Your views on the era/ the politics behind it , would be fascinating ?
Holmes had a mandatory against Greg Page after Page won an eliminator vs Snipes on the Holmes - Witherspoon card. At one time he said he would, signed, changed his mind, etc. He then fought Marvis Frazier, defying the WBC. He relinguished the title December 1983 and then the newly formed IBF, looking for credibility, said they would recognise him as champ straight away with no fights. So we went from 2 to 3. The WBC and WBA title were splintered before Holmes was champ in the late 70's.
It was no coincidence the hw muddle began when Don King teamed up with WBC Jose Sulaiman to control boxing. And hw is where all the money was back then . The WBA was just as corrupt they sold out their organisation to South Africa as this was apartheid time. The WBA was so greedy for money they sanction Davey Moore to fight SA fighter Charlie Weir and it backfired the same with Coetzee vs Weaver. The WBA hasn't never changed they are even worse now .
Yeah any organization that entertains the idea of calling a fight between Shannon Briggs and Lucas Browne a " title bout " pretty much deserves to be burnt to the ground
Charlie Weir in full cry was absolutely murderous. I was 100% sure that Moore was going to be roadkill at the time. My, my, how different things turned out in reality. Coetzee could have won if he'd bothered to do an extra 2 kilometres of roadwork every day at camp, it was that close.
Absolutely. One mag described his performance vs Snipes as the best effort on the Triple Crown Affair card which included Holmes - Witherspoon and Dokes - Weaver (draw). One noted scribe thought he'd turned the corner. He and Holmes at the time shared a genuine animosity toward each other which would have helped Page as he needed motivation to perform his best. He was quite lazy, uninspired and inconsistent. At his best tho he was the talent of the contenders. Holmes was made about an 8-5 or 9-5 fave in betting when the bout was announced. 8-5 i think it was. Would have been a good bout. If Page was in less than 100% shape he would have lost, at his best he would have been a chance against a Holmes starting to decline.
Ive looked up his record ( Page) after the point in time you mention above he then lost to Witherspoon then David Bey ,before somehow getting a title shot , which is a mystery in itself ? In that shot he beat Coetzee before losing the Title in his first defence to Tony Tubbs, a fight i remember well. He then lost to Douglas and Bugner. Considering he was at the age where this run of fights should've been Page's 'peak' his record ( after a promising start) looks frankly awful. I cant see how Larry Holmes would struggle against this guy ?
What happened was after the Cooney fight Larry was chasing the WBA champ to unify. Page actually blew his fight with Berbick on the Cooney card and Holmes had previously beat Berbick. At that time Weaver and Dokes were sidelined with an automatic rematch so Larry hung on for the WBA rematch winner only for the winner to be told he had to fight Coetzee who was now (again) their mandatory challenger. The WBC would disallow Larry to fight a South African. I never understood what was wrong with making Page wait a bit longer. Beating Snipes was no big deal and #10 Frazier was actually a bigger draw with his "son of the champ" connection. Larry did fight a cobb, a Frenchman, Witherspoon, Scott Frank (who drew with Snipes) and Marvis Frazier whilst Dokes, Weaver and Coetzee were locked into a game of pass the parcel with the WBA Belt. Larry actually signed to fight Coetzee the WBA champ and both were inactive for most of 1984 as the fight kept falling through. I thought it very silly an active champ like Holmes was stripped or forced to dump the WBC belt all because of the order he fought Frazier over Page whilst signing and seeking the bigger fight with the actual WBA champion Coetzee! Once that fight fell through Coetzee took the loser of the Bey V Page fight and lost his belt whilst Larry took the winner of that fight and won by knockout. Page lost to Berbick after he lost to Holmes. page lost to Witherspoon after he lost to Holmes. Page lost to Bey who then got his shot at and was knocked out by Holmes. Yet still for all Larry usually had at least one legitimate defence per year (among lesser stay busy defences) of the WBC belt he is called some kind of coward or cherry picker over the WBA guys who could not win two fights in a row at top level. But then Larry had a big mouth and never could keep quiet or take criticism. That did not help.
Absolutely spot on. You can't go calling a man out and saying he's 'a chicken-livered coward' (it's what Page called Holmes on the front of The Ring in 83 or 84) and then lose to David Bey. If you can give a fighter an attribute that will send him up the ATG rankings (eg a granite chin for Lewis, power for Ali) Holmes may find that humility might help how he is judged. People do get distracted by what an ar5e Larry would be and miss the skills. Then again, it was probably that chip on his shoulder that made him the fighter he was.
He was horribly inconsistent and never fulfilled his potential. He is comparable to Buster Douglas in that regard with Douglas at least having Tyson.
To help complete the answer to the question the OP asked, the belt first became fractured after Leon Spinks upset the declining Ali in February of 1978. Leon's mandatory for the WBC was Ken Norton, who had won a WBC eliminator over Jimmy Young in late '77. Neon Leon chose instead to "do the right thing" and give Ali a rematch. The WBC retroactively named Norton their champ and he lost his first defense to Larry Holmes. The WBA - and at that point lineal - title went from Spinks to Ali, who then retired. The WBA held a tournament, with John Tate beating two South Africans (Kallie Knoetzee and Gerrie Coetzee, who had knocked out Spinks) to win it. This began a series of handoffs of that title, with no one actually holding it long enough to defend it successfully more than once -- until Mike Tyson took it in 1987. Page was one of those no-hit wonders. IIRC, the reason he got a title shot was that he was one of the few contenders willing to go to South African (during the appartheid years) to challenge Coetzee, so it was sort of by default. That and the SA powers that be probably thought he was an easy black American mark to help make their guy look good. Page at his best looked formidable, but he never looked his best for any stretch of time that you could really call a prime. If he had a good performance, you could just about write it in stone that he'd look bad the next time out. Tons of talent, not a lot of discipline or determination. I don't see him beating Holmes, who always rose to challenges and would have taken him seriously.
Just a timeframe when things were bad and the main promoters were King and Arum. The guy trying to challenge them was Smith & he went to prison. But we got DKP vs DKP fights and the talent pool was similar in quality. The only guy capable of a sustained long term set of title defenses was Holmes. The rest of those guys were a rise to the occasion--maybe--but not the types to defend the title very long. That takes a different kind of fighter to pull that off. But it was a miserable time for quality matches and usually the top undercard fight was more competitive/risky going in than the headline fight. Tons of potential good matches, but the risk/reward thing was definately a huge factor and bouts just did not get made. Me, I think if Smith had not got sentenced, it would have forced Arum and King to have done a better job==which they were capable of doing. W/O Smith, path of least resistance ruled.
This could well be the biggest load of shyte i have ever read in here, and that's really saying something. Need to change the thread title to make the greatest bs excuses for Holmes possible using every ounce of bias humanly possible. Enough fantasy in that to provide the guts for a novel.
You don't like Larry? What is not true about The WBC not allowing a unification, Larry not fighting a legit guy once a year, Coetzee fight signed for then falling through and Greg Page Continually losing to guys after Larry beat them like Berbick, Witherspoon and losing to Bey right before Larry knocked him out? When Ali retired as WBA champion The WBA was crazy not to make the winner of Spinks v Coetzee against Larry Holmes for their belt. Instead they chose Tate over Holmes? Larry had beat Norton, Shavers and the guy who took Jimmy Youngs rating so he was unquestionably the most outstanding heavyweight of 1979 but instead the WBA decided john Tate and Coetzee were more qualified to be their champion?