Early 80's discussion

You can't dismiss the Snipes win so easily.
If I remember rightly, Snipes was coming off an impressive win over Berbick, who was coming off the win over Page himself.

 

The snipes vs Berbick fight was very close. It was as close as the Snipes vs Scott Frank draw. Witherspoon vs Snipes was very close too. Larry was a level above Snipes, Berbick and Scott Frank.

 

Holmes-Witherspoon was close.

Anyway, I thought Snipes deserved the win against Berbick.
And then Page easily outboxed Snipes.
Therefore Page has to be ranked above Snipes, and at that point he goes back above Berbick, in 1983. That's a decent "re build" after his 1982 loss to Berbick.

 

Not as good as actually reversing his loss though is it? What on earth was Larry Frazier doing taking page the full distance?

To be honest, Page did look good against Tillis, he was good enough to challenge Holmes But with perhaps one better win maybe he could draw more than the 3.1 million Larry got fighting Marvis Frazier. As it was the deal to fight Page was under 3 million and a Coetzee unification was supposedly 10 million plus. Why fight Page if the IBF would sanction the unification the WBC would not allow?

 

Yeah, I don't think Holmes needed to fight Page.
I do believe he should have given Witherspoon an immediate rematch though.

 

It's rare that a contender stays unbeaten and dominant for a long while. They look good for a while, then they lose. It's the same most of the time. It was the same during Ali's and Louis's reigns, but neither went two and a half years without facing a top 5 ranked contender. Not even Ali during his weakest time as a champion: after Norton III. And Louis didn't defend that often after WWII, but he still went through the top ranked guys.

We can nitpick and go over the details ad nauseaum, but Holmes went a long time without facing any top contenders and when he picked an opponent that turned out to be better and more difficult than first thought he never rematched him despite only winning narrowly. Those are the cold hard facts. And they don't look too good.

 

Yes, that should have been a big enough fight even for Larry. In any other era I recon that is what would have happened. But in the political world of ABC belts and their mandatory and voluntary defences. With Tim being #3 for the WBC I imagine that was Larrys mandatory so with that out of the way Larry, like most champions of modern times, only had eyes for his voluntary entitlement at that point. Rightly or wrongly if the WBC did not order it I think that's how it is.

But sure, Witherspoon was worthy of a rematch.

 

But Witherspoon was Larrys #3 contender with the WBC. 11 months earlier C00ney was #1 contender going into their fight. Even between Witherspoon and Bey who was #3 it wasn't that long. When was this two and a half years?

 

From the time he beat Cooney in June of 1982 to the time he lost to Spinks in September of 1985, that's actually a 3 year and 2 month period where he didn't face a single mandatory nor attempt to unify a title. And as previously noted he was even stripped at one point. It's possible that he might have fought the occasional guy like spoon or bey who was ranked #3, #4 or #5 by ONE of the sanctioning bodies but none of those guys were universally seen as top flight contenders. Especially Bey who had all but 14 pro fights and who's only claim to fame was beating Page who was starting to lose to everyone and their brother by that point. I'll give Holmes credit for his 1978-1982 reign which is mostly what I rate him on. But I won't make excuses for what he did in his last 8-9 defenses. Hell even at 36-39 years old Wladimir Klitschko was still taking in mandatories and gets Fvck all credit for it... What should Holmes deserve ?

 

The bout was an eliminator to fight Holmes as a mandatory. It really doesn't get much more simple.

 

It's like talking to a brick wall, it cannot be any more straight forward. In a forum where we try to envision dream fights where boxers can be more than half a century apart we really should get the simple things right.

 

Apart from Witherspoon was a WBC mandatory and Bey was #3 with Ring Magazine and the fact that Larry signed not just to meet Coetzee in a doomed unification (that was to take place between the Cooney and Bey fights) but also signed to potentially meet Thomas and Tubbs in the HBO elimination series.

Larry was outspoken and arrogant toward the media but We can't say he did not fight mandatorys and he was unwilling to unify.

 

Well yes Larry should have fought better guys more often rather than every third time he fought and some of his challengers could have been awarded rematches but during that time the promoter and the governing bodies wanted to keep the title split and this reduced sanity more than anything Larry did.

 

Well this was a very nice conversation. I'm going to move on and do something else now. Like gluing Popsicle sticks together.

 

Vow. We can't say he was unwilling to fight mandatories when he in fact dropped a belt because he didn't want to fight a mandatory? That is some hardcore Orwellian new speak.

This is a bit surreal, really. Over and out for me.