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

Williams, like Witherspoon, needed those last rounds and they fumbled the ball. Tim I think due to both inexperience and falsely estimating the scorecards at the time, Williams because he uh...well, just wasn't that good lol.

Still it was a sign of the times that Larry got outjabbed during the Truth fight. Williams wouldn't have made it 8 in Larry's prime imo.

 

Witherspoon was a good defense. Page was hot for a New York minute, he fought Bey instead who beat him. Thomas? He fought Spinks instead. Alphabet politics. Holmes ( 1983-1985 ) at time was an older fighter fighting younger guys. He can't fight them all just because you want him too. A pretty active champion.

 

I don't have it in front of me because I threw out all my old boxing magazines many years ago, but someone posted an almost identical quote if you will just read though the thread.

 

Greg Page should've lost in 1980 to George Chaplin.
He did lose in 1982.
He lost twice in 1984.
He lost in 1985.
He lost twice in 1986.
He lost in 1987.
He lost in 1989.

Eight losses ... all by age 30.


BUT HOLMES DUCKED HIM?

The biggest gripe most people have is Holmes didn't beat so-and-so twice. Not that he missed people.

 

Makes 0 sense. Champions who reign for 7+ years don't worry about slobs like Greg Page or slappy Dokes. Then come out of retirement to face the most dangerous fighter imaginable when he easily could have stayed in retirement.

 

You've been here forever but haven't learnt a single thing. Such a treasure trove of a forum going to waste.

Witherspoon is only a good defense in hindsight. At the time he was considered easy pickings and that was reflected in the 6-1 odds. His previous fight had been a controversial majority decision over Renaldo Snipes. He had 15 fights under his belt and excepting Snipes they were mostly nobodies.

Page was hot exactly when it mattered. He won an eliminator against Snipes to be Holmes mandatory defense and no matter how many excuses and innuendo's are entered into Holmes gave up his title not to fight Page.

To say he fought Bey instead of Page is an out and out lie that you've been called on many times over many years. Bey was 2 years after Holmes was supposed to fight Page. Holmes actually fought Scott Frank instead of Page! Then Marvis Frazier instead of Page. By not fighting Page he ended up without his title. He never at any point said he was fighting the winner of Bey - Page. That decision was later on.

Holmes said he was 35 fighting young guys as a kneejerk reaction to not tying Marciano's record after losing to Spinks in his press conference. I see it gets parroted around a bit. The young guys he was fighting weren't the best fighters in the division and were mostly very inexperienced. These are the facts.

 

Page was not ready for a title shot at the time of Holmes - Cooney and had actually asked the WBA to drop him in their ratings a bit as he wasn't ready to fight for the title.

Page did exactly what he had to do to secure a fight with Holmes as he "cruised past" Renaldo Snipes in their title eliminator on the undercard of Holmes - Witherspoon and Dokes - Weaver. Who Holmes actually fought instead of Page was Scott Frank and then Marvis Frazier as he asked for extensions before fighting Page and actually signed Don King's contract for the bout. So Holmes sure didn't miss out on anyone good that we would accuse him of ducking if he fought Page instead.

It was extremely convenient timing to leave King as if he didn't he would have had to fight some more highly regarded fighters. Instead he left King and handpicked an assortment of easier fights all the way up to and including Spinks.

 

cry and moan some more.

 

He only lost eight times before 30.

As say in pool rack em’

 

Holmes was in a legal dispute with King (as in he had a lawsuit going) when he gave up the title rather than fight Page. He said he was willing to fight Page and pay whatever King was going to pay but he would not fight for Don King.

King chose to take that in another direction and put Page in for the vacant title.

As for whether he actually signed to fight Page, that would probably be a King claim — he had fighters sign various paperwork including blank contracts or, as alleged by many, back pages of one contract that would suddenly be attached to another contract that they didn’t sign … just swap the signing page from one contract to another. I don’t think anyone can establish that.

Larry got out from under his contract with King and afterward would only work with him on a per-fight basis, no options on future fights. He wasn’t going to fight Page under conditions that would put him back in King’s stable.

It’s funny how you or I could start a Don King thread right now and 100% of people would agree that he was the worst promoter ever for fighters (albeit a good one for fans) and how many fighters he ruined … but in the specific case of Larry Holmes — who got away from him after being cheated out of millions of dollars — he’s criticized for not doing something that would have required him to bend over to get further abused by King.

SMFH.

 

Do you even read what you post?

“Witherspoon wasn’t a worthy defense as the time, all he did was beat Renaldo Snipes.”

But …

“Page got hot at exactly the right time. He beat Renaldo Snipes and thus earned his shot at Holmes.”

L-O-freaking-L.

 

Like Weaver?

 

Page was 2 in 83 and 84, and 5 in 85 by The Ring.

Just the facts.

 

It’s a squirrelly way to use “facts” as those appear to be end-of-year rankings.

Here are the real FACTS:

In 1984 he went 1-2. Beat Coetzee (in the fourth minute of a three-minute round — where’s the clamor for poor Gerrie getting his rematch and the ‘duck’ accusations for Page?) in December and thus was put at No. 2 by The Ring in its end-of-year rankings since at that moment he was the ‘other’ champion (and had been for all of four weeks — up until that point he was 0-2 on the other 48 weeks of the year — was Larry supposed to fight him on Christmas?).

One of those two losses in 1984 was to David Bey, who Larry defended against. The other was to Tim Witherspoon, who Larry had already defended against. Helluva duck to fight two guys who beat Page instead of him.

In 1984, Greg Page had exactly one fight, which he lost, to Tony Tubbs.

In 1883 he beat Snipes and a couple of no-names. The Snipes win was less than a year after he lost to Trevor Berbick … a guy Larry had already beaten.

In the span of time you mention, Page was actually 4-3. Two of those wins were over Larry Frazier and Rick Keller, so 2-3 against people anyone has actually heard of. He also bookended those in 1982 and 1986 with losses.

Let’s also consider that for a good chunk of the timeline you mentioned, Holmes was trying to put together a fight with Gerrie Coetzee (and signed to do so), who was No. 1 in the Ring’s 1983 end-of-year rankings (above Page).

So after which loss is Page such a must-fight guy? He had a terrible stretch during the very time you’re claiming Larry should have fought him.

 

Larry should’ve just fought him when he was hot at some point.