David Bey vs. Greg Page Aug 31, 1984

No reason Page should have lost, other than being lazy and under-rating Bey. He probably just figured, "Okay look, here's a guy that's even fatter than me and only has 13 fights. I got this."

Then later he thought "Okay look.......I just lost to a guy that was even fatter than me and had only 13 fights. Time to focus."

And we do have examples of Page looking pretty good when focused and at least somewhat trained up. He took Coetzee more seriously and was aided by the South Afrcian being slower and a stand-up, one-two kind of guy. Right place, right time, right style.

 

David Bey was a top American amateur heavyweight. You can find videos of him on Youtube fighting in USA-USSR dual meets. He wasn't a slouch. Page knew who he was. And Bey was fatter as an amateur then he was as a pro.

Page just got outhustled. It happened to him on occasion whether he was in shape or not. It happened to Page in the amateurs, too. He'd beat a big name and then get outhustled by someone who wasn't supposed to beat him. Hell, George Chaplin nearly beat him (twice).

Holmes and Coetzee spent close to a year trying to unify their titles, and kept signing to meet at different locations, but the guy putting up the money couldn't ever come up with the funds to put it on. And Don King was frantically working behind the scenes to try to block it.

Once the Holmes-Coetzee fight was officially off, Bey was offered the fight with Coetzee in South Africa but he turned it down. Then Page was offered the fight and he accepted (because another offer wasn't coming).

And there probably should've been a rematch between Page and Coetzee, given that Page scored a knockout in a round that lasted FOUR minutes. But that's another thread, I guess.

 

Right timekeeper. Right four-minute round.

 

Page was outhustled. It was a very close fight. Bey showed industriousness to simply outwork a somewhat lethargic Page.

 

He would have won anyway. He was easily handling Coetzee.

 

He was actually lighter against Bey (233) than against Coetzee (236). Bey weighed in less than Page. He wasn't "fatter than Page" when they fought. Bey weighed considerably more later on when he lost to the likes of Berbick and Tyrell Biggs, than he did against Page. He fought the best fight of his whole career the night he beat Page.

 

It's been years since I've watched it but I remember Bey shaking Holmes up pretty good in I believe the 2nd round. Bey fought well early but gassed and Holmes took it to him late, but he fought well considering his pro inexperience vs the very experienced Holmes.


I also remember Bey almost pulling off the upset of then unbeaten Olympic gold medalist Tyrell Biggs on the Tyson - Bonecrusher undercard. Biggs had a nasty gash but pulled it out and stopped Bey after looking to be in serious trouble.. Man watching boxing was fun in the good old 80's!!

 

Are you suggesting he wasn't winning to that point?

 

I'm suggesting Gerrie Coetzee was still the WBA heavyweight champion and may have even won the eighth round had the round ended after three minutes ... but when the round was allowed to go another 59 seconds longer ... and he got caught ... suddenly he wasn't.

Notice the round begins at the 4:01 mark and ends at the 8:00 mark. A three minute and 59 second round.

There were certainly grounds for a rematch.

This content is protected

 

Exactly, and that was what the WBA stated when ruling out a rematch.

As you said, the fight was close. Reg Gutteridge i believe scored it for Page. Be interesting to get McGrain and Luf and co to score it. His loss to Witherspoon in their snoozefest was pretty close too. From memory Bey showed he wanted it more in the last two rounds against a Page who thought he was ahead. That ended up the difference on the cards.

Also to add to your earlier comments not many realise this was Pages first fight under the brilliant Janks Morton. Morton believed they were making progress and we would see it in the future. Page tho a touch chubby was actually in top shape for the Coetzee bout and had trained extremely hard. He was straight back into the gym after the Bey fight and Coetzee's mob were completely unaware of this.

 

David Bey was a good fighter. There's no mystery.
Bey was a hungry fighter (no pun intended). Page wasn't quite good enough to defeat him but the fight was quite close.

 

Yes Bey nearly blew the Tyson-Biggs fight. It was schedule for May,but they replaced Biggs with Pinklon Thomas and Biggs /Tyson Happened later in October. Bey looked like a guy that could be a real handful in the early rounds. I never thought he was 'fat' he just had that kind of stocky build .He took the Holmes fight very early in his career and took a heavy defeat in the end. He never really got back on track after that. Ironically he shares alot of similarities with Biggs in that regard.

 

The lack of mystery is in the fluctuations of Page. When he was fit and on he was beating pretty much all of them, off key he was getting beaten by guys cashing in on his inconsistency. It almost always hinged on what Page turned up around this time. If he had Holmes like dedication he would have went quite well, but he didn't and is chequered.

 

No, I get that, I've seen the fight and even owned a copy of the issue of the magazine you showed in the link. I'm all over it, I promise. I just don't see any reason for any call of controversy here. Page was easily winning and while the timekeeper might have had an extended bathroom break or something in the 8th round, Coetzee had as much opportunity to land a bomb in that stanza as Page.

A rematch? No fan in the history of the world ever requested a rematch between those two. There wasn't even much controversy at the time.