Bonecrusher won a title eliminator did he not ? No different to Page. Except Page was far more known than Bonecrusher, and didn't lose every single round to a green Bruno before scoring a miracle KO in last round. So why is it Holmes had no trouble fighting Bonecrusher and not Page ? When their circumstances are pretty much identical ? yet Page was seen as much of a threat at that time. Williams, Bey, Bonecrusher, were certainly not more deserving than Thomas. Williams had been decked twice by Tillis in his previous fight, Bonecrusher lost every single round to Bruno, Bey did beat Page yes I guess you can make an argument for him. But in reality you know Thomas was a far more deserving/dangerous opponent, who Holmes avoided and he stated himself he wouldn't fight him. Again Thomas lost when Holmes was no longer champion. Again your arguments for Page not deseving a shot are always "hindsight". Page losing later in his career has nothing to do with Holmes avoiding Page in 83, the fact is Holmes fought two very weak challengers instead of his number 1 contender "Page". One of them Frazier being so bad the WBC wouldn't sanction it because Frazier was not in their top 10. So yes Page was "hot" at that time with 2 good wins over Tillis, Snipes, and only having 1 loss on his record. Frank & Frazier were certainly not deserving challengers. Overall no one is saying that Holmes should've fought everyone, but some criticism is warranted for not unifying and avoiding dangerous opposition in the latter part of his reign. Again as I said Tyson did it fairly easily unifying and cleaning out the division in a few short years after Holmes.
The 80's HWs had a tough act to follow behind the 70s HW division. Larry Holmes headed the division as champion, and he lacked the charisma and showmanship of Ali. There were some good fighters at HW during the 80s.
I just watched Holmes vs Weaver I. Put up my scoring and review in scoring thread. Good fight but I think Holmes won pretty conclusively in the end and had a big money fight against Shavers in the pipeline so I can see why he didn't give Mike an immediate rematch. But I think everyone would have preferred a rematch instead of fights vs Zanon and Jones!
Weaver when he fought Holmes was a trial horse pretty much, wasn't his record 19-8 ? Or something like that. I know everyone at the time considered the fight a joke, so it was certainly surprising when Weaver pushed Holmes as hard as he did. Overall Weaver did turn out to be pretty solid, and went on a nice run beating Tate, Coetzee, Tillis, etc. But considering Weaver did pick up a belt, and had a run of solid victories, aswell as giving Holmes a life a death struggle when they did fight. At some point there should've been a unification between the two. Theres a few criticism's I have with Holmes's reign I've stated them above, but another issue I have is not giving rematches either.
Yes for sure. Weaver is a better fighter than the record suggests type of guy. The commentators are saying Holmes saw this fight as some kind of showcase for the public, I think he expected a quick KO to hype the Shavers fight. Not sure exactly what Weaver did to deserve his shot against Holmes, but he did a great job!
Weaver's only weakness is that he could be caught cold early in a fight, but if he was allowed to get into a fight he could be very dangerous. It's a pity a possible fight between Weaver/Cooney didn't happen that's a true 50/50 fight, it's either Weaver late or Cooney early.
According to many PED's conspiracy theorists on this forum, cocaine and heroine would have qualified as a performance enhancing drug.
Tyson was able to get those fights made because HBO put up the bucks that were necessary to get those belt holders to take unification fights because the network was banking on Tyson and thus bankrolling Tyson to become their big star, under their banner with a contract to fight for them. That wasn’t happening when the non-Holmes ‘champs’ were a flavor-of-the-month, win-a-belt-and-lose-your-next-fight nobodies. Fighters expect to make more money for unifications. And nobody was putting up big money with those guys because none of them established themselves as being attractions enough that anyone was clamoring for unification. Among the entirety of the non-Holmes belt holders starting with John Tate and going until HBO created the unification series (and put up the $$$), you’re looking at basically nearly a decade where the entire lot of them defended successfully with a victory like a couple of times total between them. I’ll never get the ‘guy wins by KO but he was behind on the cards’ thing. That’s not how boxing works. People say Holmes should have fought Weaver again but how is that different from Bonecrusher — Weaver lost basically every round to John Tate but won by KO in the last round. So what makes that different. As for Page, Holmes split with Don King and was offered huge money (was it $5M for each fight?) for defenses vs. Marvis and Scott Frank. Page was offered step-aside money to let Holmes fight Marvis (for way more money than he would have gotten to fight Page) first and turned it down. So the ‘motivated’ Page instead fought Witherspoon for a vacant title for champ change and his ‘motivated’ ass came in at 239 pounds (not dissimilar to Buster Douglas’ shape for Holyfield) and waddled his way to a boring decision loss. His very next fight he lost to Bey and Holmes fought Bey.
There was a lot of talent and ability there but that was not fully realised. A number of reasons. Opinions will obviously vary to the causes. Should have been a much better era than it was and the result was a lot of human wreckage. https://www.boxingnewsonline.net/long-read-the-lost-generation-of-heavyweight-boxers/
@Saintpat i had to quote you this way as there was too many characters. Clearly if Holmes wanted to unify he could of he chose not to, he flat out said he didn't want to fight Thomas so what's the excuse for that ? Tyson unified/cleaned up the division Holmes didn't which is why Tyson's reign is far more impressive in the 80s. Flavour of the month ? Thomas was undefeated for 7 years and Holmes stated he didn't want to fight him. Weaver beat John Tate, Gerrie Coetzee, James Tillis, 2 of them being major rivals of Holmes who Weaver cleaned up why was there no unification there ? Weaver was ranked 1,1, 2, 2, 6 in 81 82 83 84 Dokes was ranked 4, 3, 1, 3 in 80 81 82 83 Coetzee was ranked 5, 5, 3, 1, 5, in 80 81 82 83 84 Page was ranked 4, 6, 2, 2 in 81 82 83 84 Thomas was ranked 4, 1, 1, in 83 84 85 So clearly there was a number of years when this fights easily could've of take place, hardly flavour of the month is it ? when they were all rated highly for a few years. And i think most people would agree these were far more tougher fights, than pretty much most of Holmes's opposition during 80s. And i don't see how these fights wouldn't of made money over some of Holmes's other title defences vs novices and weak opposition. I don't get your argument your saying about making money, but Holmes fought plenty of weak challengers like LeDoux, Zanon, Rodriguez, Frank, etc who wern't big attractions. I'm pretty sure fights vs the likes of Dokes, Weaver rematch, Thomas, etc would've had plenty of hype and made plenty of money. To me your whole argument for Holmes avoiding tougher opposition, is because it wouldn't of made money that don't really make sense to me. I'll tell you the difference Weaver didn't just beat Tate did he ? as i stated above he beat Tate, Coetzee, Tillis. Weaver was a belt holder who was ranked number 1 for a few years. Bonecrusher was a relative unknown who had lost every round to a green Bruno, who also never had any experience fighting world class opposition at that time. Both Bonecrusher and Page won title eliminators did they not ? so again why did Holmes have no trouble fighting Bonecrusher and not Page ? tell me what is the difference regarding that scenario? is it maybe the fact that Page would've been stylistically a tougher match up than Bonecrusher ? and that Page was far more well known than Bonecrusher ? The fact is your whole argument you state that Holmes would've fought Page or etc, if they would've stayed consistent. Yet Holmes himself stated he didn't want to fight certain fighters, so basically that renders your statement as false. Because Holmes never had any intentions of fighting the likes of Thomas in the latter part of his career, who never lost when Holmes was champion. The fact is Page earnt his shot and deserved his title shot at that time certainly more than Frank & Frazier. Finally Holmes would've of got 2.55 million for fighting Greg Page, and then stated he wouldn't fight him because "it wasn't enough money" complete bogus and you know it. I believe he got slightly more for fighting Frazier like 3 million or something like that, my question is if Holmes was so confident in beating Page. Why not just beat the highly rated Page at that time keep the belt ? and then fight the likes of Frazier ? instead of ducking Page outright. You can't keep making excuses for Holmes avoiding tough opposition, Holmes should rightly get some criticism for not fighting some of the marquee names of the 80s. I'm not saying he needed to fight every single worthwhile opponent, but he should've atleast unified and fought either Page, Dokes, Thomas. The fact that Holmes never fought a number 1 ranked opponent in the 80s is alarming to me.
Your knowledge of the 80's heavyweight scene is mind boggling even more so given your age. Zero bias or malice either.
If judged on just pure ability and size, The 80's match-up well and better than most decades. But the biggest issue with most of the top fighters of the 80's was lack of discipline. Also cocaine hit like a nuclear bomb , not just in boxing, but all sports, and that also shortening the career of many fighters and reduced their effectiveness.
