What boxers did Larry Holmes consciously and deliberately avoid, if any?

Everybody knows he avoided Dokes and Page. Did he avoid Thomas?

 

Pretty sure he avoided Coetzee. I used to think Gerrie would have beaten him, am now of the opposite opinion. Still Coetzee was a big dude with a nasty right hand, he'd have had a better chance than a lot of Holmes' victims.

 

Unfortunately the Coetzee fight almost happened.

 

That's what pisses me off about Holmes. He ducked so many guys you know he could have beaten.

 

As much as I like Larry Holmes, his opposition after Gerry Cooney was definitely questionable.

Apart from Tim Witherspoon, but at that time Witherspoon was green. And no one knew how good Witherspoon was at that time. He was coming off a questionable decision over Renaldo Snipes.

I would of liked to have seen Holmes fight Tubbs, Page, Coetzee, Weaver rematch, Thomas, Dokes.

But also the problem was in fairness to Larry Holmes, most of the opposition above were very inconsistent.

If they would of stayed consistent, they would of forced their way into a title shot eventually. But they kept losing to eachother or former Holmes opponents.

But I do agree Holmes should of fought atleast one of the above. Instead of the likes of Scott Frank and Marvis Frazier.

 

Weather it was an intentional effort to avoid fighting the best or circumstances surrounding the politics of the times, Larry was fighting lesser challengers from 1983 onward. The fact that Tim Witherspoon turned out to be a good fighter who had some later success was unanticipated. He wasn’t selected for his status or ability at the time. In fact he was a 15 fight prospect who had been out of the ring for a year and barely defeated Renaldo Snipes as his sole notable opponent. For the remainder of 1983 going all the way up to Holmes losing the title in 1985, Larry fought Marvis Frazier, Lucien Rodriguez, Scott Frank, James Smith, David Bey and Carl Williams. To be clear, these men weren’t “ bad “ fighters by any means. But their credentials paled next to their piers in Michael Dokes, Gerrie Coetzee, Greg Page and Pinklon Thomas - none of whom found their way into the ring with Holmes

 

He signed to fight Coetzee in a unification but the financing fell apart.

No money, no fight.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/16/sports/holmes-coetzee-fight-is-off.html

 

George Foreman. Around the time Foreman fought Scott LeDoux George was calling out Larry Holmes. Foreman and his people stated if they couldn't get Ali in the ring then they would beat up Ali's sparring partner Larry Holmes. Larry Holmes people stated there was no way they were going to let their man Larry Holmes get in the ring with that "Animal" Foreman. Larry Holmes said nothing. But years later he claims his hand was broke. If that was the case then why not say it why not state "My hand is broke and I will fight Foreman when it heals".

 

As noted in my post above, he signed to fight Coetzee and the money fell through.

As for the rest you mentioned — Dokes, Page and Pinklon — the problems there are (a) those guys would win one/lose one so there’s very small windows where those fights are meaningful; (b) they were all controlled by Don King, who either didn’t want to unify (having two champions on your payroll is better than one if you’re a promoter) or, after Larry left King, either Don didn’t want to risk them losing to Larry or Larry wasn’t willing to give future options that again enslaved him to King; and (c) kind of goes back to Point A, but they traded titles around like hot potatoes and if you’re trying to make a unification there needs to be a larger pile of money — which wasn’t forthcoming for a guy who wins his title and hasn’t even defended it yet, much less staked a claim to be ‘the other guy’ by holding onto it long enough to create demand.

 

Can you provide a link?

Why would Foreman want to fight a guy known primarily as a sparring partner?

Larry was 21-0 after fighting Roy Tiger Williams but hardly a known quantity nor a top contender yet. He did take nine months off after the Williams win before fighting in the ill-fated US Championship Tournament on ABC before that unraveled.

That takes us to January 1977. By then George was fighting Pedro Agosto and then two months later Jimmy Young derailed him. Perhaps if George had beaten Young, Larry would have been next?

 

Holmes fought Witherspoon, Smith, Williams and Spinks in that time line and Bey ( fresh off his win over Page ). Politics prevented many matches, but this is still decent for an aging champ.

 

He avoided no one. He fought everyone.

 

Page, Thomas and a Witherspoon rematch notably. He took the easy road after the Witherspoon scare and told all and sundry that was what he was going to do before making good with it. Weaver would have been a solid defense after losing a fight most thought he won against Dokes as well.

 

Williams and Norton rematches too.