Prime Evander Holyfield vs Holmes Title Opponents

Ok, foolproof to say Old George Foreman had ATG power even at such an advanced age then.

There's all that shallow throw away reasoning yet again. It's well known Dokes used coke less than 2 days before the fight with Coetzee and came into the ring still affected. He looked woeful and made Gerrie look like a master boxer at tiems which he sure as hell wasn't. He had a blowout (probably stopped a tad early but not so much by todays standards) of peak Weaver and fought him to a standstill in the rematch.

He'd been clean for a decent period coming into the Holyfield fight and put on a damn good showing. At his best he probably had the fastest hands of his era and started hitting harder once he started sitting on his punches.

Without the drug problems he would have done a lot more. How much more? Well the Holyfield fight points to a fair bit more. After all the drug addiction he was never going to find top form at this stage but he sure showed some serious ability.

Weaver hit him with left hooks too in his prime, the same Weaver you said had ATG power. Does Galento have ATG power?

Galento would only be giving up about 6 inches of height and reach. This allied to training on beer, red wine and hot dogs makes me think Dokes has a pretty fair chance.

You need to do some serious work on your delivery.

Regardless you said Leroy Jones was number #1 contender for Holmes and that's wrong.

Last time i looked Bowe beat Tubbs. Tubbs was the craftiest fighter Bowe had faced up until this point, a bit like Tillis vs Tyson. Bowe is another that dropped off fast. I don't know of many people that take the Golota fights as a good Bowe. He has plenty of good results vs top 10 fighters.

Ingo did basically nothing beside Machen and Patterson. Bowe has plenty of wins over top 10 opposition.

Oh, so old Foreman ONLY won the lineal title at 45. Ok.

I could see old Foreman having a great chance ko'ing Cooney yes. Holmes should have finished him much much earlier but went the careful route so as to give Cooney no chance at all. Cooney never beat a top 10 contender, Old George certainly did.

To term Old Foreman beating a younger Cooney as "outlandish" is, well, outlandish!

Ridiculous claims. Frazier the swarmer was never ever going to age as gracefully as Foreman and Holmes. This is boxing 101, extremely simple.

Research would show Foreman was in many ways much fresher than Ali and Frazier as he actually hadn't been in many wars and hadn't copped any grueling ko's. The guy walked away in his prime and didn't fight for a decade. Ali had been in numerous grueling fights but also taken a great many punches many from big hitters.

Ali and Frazier would not have fared very well when Holmes and Foreman were back. Old Holmes and Foreman would have fared quite decently back when Ali and Frazier went again. If you think Floyd Cummings beats either you have serious problems.

 

yes George still had enough pop in his gloves to knockout vulnerable moorer, I can’t knock him for that, but not quite enough pop left to knockout Schulz, Holyfield, grimsby, Stewart, Morrison, severesse who were all knocked out by other guys who were not as heavy as old man George.

This is like saying a drunk driver who kills a child after running a red light would otherwise be a great guy who drove responsibly. It still tarnished his whole life because he chose to be irresponsible. That was his choice.

yes, without the racism and Lack of democracy Hitler did great things to empower the Germans.

yes Dokes looked flashy until Coetzee handled him. He struggled bad with Coetzee. Weaver had already been stopped by Larry and both Bobick brothers. That’s Dokes whole resume apart from Tex Cobb who took him to the wire. Twice. Remember that, Cobb? Dokes never beat anybody classed worlds best. That’s why he was never more than just a contender in the scheme of things.

leroy Jones was WBC #1 and Larrys mandatory.

yes it was a learning fight I agree. But Bowes resume is much thinner than Lewis, Tyson and Holyfields I feel even this learning fight must be included to Bowes greatest wins. His resume lacks top fighters after Holyfield.

but you won’t name these big wins that Bowe had that eclipse Ingo.

when Ingo wiped out Machen and Patterson there was nobody higher placed to beat. To match this Bowe needed to beat Holyfeild AND Lewis both by crushing knockout. Max Baer did something similar. Carnera and Schmeling were as high as you could get. Max knocked both out.

ok I am willing to concede this one point. Frazier and Ali were probably far too shot to make an impression on the top level of any division. I think Holmes and Foreman was wise enough to be more selective on their comebacks picking harmless chumps like they did to build an interest rather than take live opponents from the get go.. Even in Larrys era an old champ could have done that then if he was privlaged enough to be able and pick and chose the belt holder (rather than beat contenders) maybe an old champ like Ingo or Braddock could surprise a lousy belt holder like page who lost total interest in being a boxer once he got his belt? Its not inconceivable. Especially with multi belts. Fury even wound up linear champion.

 

Not much point wasting my time when you can't get the simple facts right.

 

I have just checked. Leroy was in fact WBC #2 challenger to Larry Holmes when they met.

 

Exactly, and number #2 is not mandatory. It goes to show how woeful the ratings were back then and the WBA was even worse. Jones had done nothing remotely worthy of being a #2.

 

Was this all a bad joke or do you believe this crap? You have beating him that would get tooled, it's mindboggling

 

Actually a voluntary defence is usually within the top ten. A mandatory is usually #1 but often the highest ranking challenger will do. Ideally a champion must face a mandatory challenger within 12 months. But some governing bodies have strange practices.

At one time the WBA threatened to strip Mike Weaver if he defended against their #1 contender rather than their lower ranked contender James Tilllis. Unbelievably Tillis had been promised a shot when he was the mandatory but because of some hold up he had slipped in the ratings.

I found this explanation from an old thread on what is required to become #1 contender.

“you can become no.1 challenger (which make you automatically mandatory challenger), if two of the top five boxers fight each others....for most, the number 1 and 2 spots are open, so you have to be ranked from 3rd to 7th...If you are 4th by example, you need to fight the 3rd, 5th, 6th, or 7th, if you want to become the mandatory challenger, if ALL tohse boxers, are unavailable, injured, already in for a fight, you can go to the 8th, then the 9th, etc. but one of the two boxers HAS to be a top five, and the other at least a top 15...in the top of that, hte IBF president has to approve that fight and of cours you must pay the IBF a fee, does it awnser your question ?”

So all in all Jones probably sufficed as a mandatory challenger.

 

Are you sure you know what your talking about? I’m happy to answer you when you are making sense.

 

Williams would get crushed like a grape. He'd look good at first, but eventually get caught and stopped emphatically. That is how it would likely go, not the bs way you're trying to say.

Berbick would be tough? These are the jokes I'm talking about, he'd get beat, and relatively easily at that.

Cooney in no way, shape or form would it be life and death LOL

Snipes is not a 50/50 fight at all. More like a 85/15 fight in favor of Holy, and that's being generous to Snipes

Jones would be tough? LOL right

Nothing about Cobb would be rough for Holy, maybe rough on his hands from pounding the ever loving crap out of Cobb, but that's about it.

Spoon doesn't beat him either. I think he pose problems, but I wouldn't make him the favorite here, which is the point. Holy's pedigree and resume tells me, he's likely to win, not the other way around.

SO basically, these are the jokes I'm referring to.

 

Jones was NOT a mandatory. Do you want to disagree, seriously?

 

I agree

He did beat Weaver, but Weaver was oft-beaten at the time.

I don't know how Chokelab can back up his statement that the entirety of Homes' reign was a strong era.

To me, Holmes was fortunate to peak after Ali, Frazier, Lyle and Foreman were basically out of the picture, and guys like Shavers, Young and Norton were a little past their best.

Aside from Norton and possibly Weaver, Holmes' title fight opposition was pretty weak in 1978-1980.

 

No I don’t want to disagree over the technicalities. Jones was a WBC #2 contender though.

 

That’s your opinion and you are welcome to it. I remember that Holyfield had only beat a few faded heavyweights like Thomas and Dokes. Even when he beat Douglas the jury was out on him until he would convincingly beat a young big heavyweight. Well I Don’t think that Unconditioned buster was tougher than Norton, I don’t think old Foreman or old Holmes or Cooper were any stronger than most of Larrys challengers. Old Larry or old George probably would not beat Berbick. They certainly would not beat Weaver.

I just wonder how Holyfeild had so much trouble with forty odd year olds who could not convincingly beat Axel Schulz and Jesse Ferguson and be expected to ease through Witherspoon, Williams, Norton, Berbick, Weaver? I just don’t see it. I think Evander would need two tries to beat either of them.

And that’s without raising Michael Moorer...

 

JohnThomas, what do you think was the ceiling on Dokes success if he achieved his full potential? What would his optimum career have looked like?

 

Absolutely. Jones was so lowly regarded they didn't give odds at first before throwing out 12-1. This guy is a fine example of a top super heavyweight tho and Holyfield would be in trouble there!!!

You and i both know it was quite a weak era and more so than just 78-80. When it got stronger the better fighters were somewhat inconsistent and many weren't met or avoided with interest late in the peace. Joe Louis' era was stronger i would think and it was considered weak by many.