Why Didn't Larry Holmes Ever Unify The Title?

I think to a degree it was just, he's the man and he didn't have to go to anybody else because everybody knew he was the real champion. Titles be damned.

 

And when Weaver upset Tate in Knoxville, Mike openly conceded that Larry was the number one heavyweight. Tate was the WBA's only alternative that ever had a real chance to challenge Holmes in the public mind, and the press fully accepted Larry as THE champion for the duration of his reign. Holmes was undefeated, consistent, and the division's Hagler, regardless of alphabet recognition.

 

:good

 

There has been quite a bit of debate on this forum over the past few years about him not facing some of the other alpha champs/contenders of the period.... Growing up, I don't recall a great deal of fuss being made of it, therefore I don't know if it was considered as a genuine issue in the public's eye or if it's just another ESB revision thing.... Frankly, I think the first part of his reign from 1978 - 1982 was pretty solid.... He defeated Ken Norton, Mike Weaver, Earnie Shavers, Trevor Berbick, Gerry Cooney, Renaldo Snipes and Leroy Jones - all respectable opponents....

From 1983 forward, things got a bit dicey though... He was stripped of his WBC title for not meeting Greg Page... I don't know if this was all Larry's doing or if it had something to do with his parting ways with Don King that mucked up its making... I suspect that the real answer lies somewhere in between.. Pinklon Thomas was the other major question mark circa 1984.. outside of the Ring magazine's extravagant rating of Pinklon, I don't know if he was a mandatory for Holmes' newly found IBF title....In either case, Thomas's run was short lived and lacked depth in my opinion... Michael Dokes could have been another interesting opponent, but his stay at the top was brief, tainted and largely protected by the King's who eventually wanted him to be Holmes' successor...

All in all I think Holmes' reign was pretty solid.... 19 title defenses in 8 calendar years is better than a lot of greats can claim, even if not all of them were against the #1 guy every single time out... There were a lot of young undefeated fighters coming off of big wins on that record, and many of them possessed the size and athleticism that is associated with the period.. He certainly has my nod over Dempsey who sat on the title for 3 years without a single defense and never met Harry Wills who was a top seed guy for a hell of a lot longer than Greg Page or Pinklon Thomas ever were.

 

Holmes was slated to fight Coetzee in a unification fight, and then Coetzee pulled something (I forgot what it was) and the entire fight was scrapped.

 

I'm speculating a bit here, but I think Holmes' quest for greatness eventually morphed into a hunger for making money and doing in a less hazardous way than facing every single man with even so much as a blurp to being a worthy challenge.. After reigning for nearly 5 years, by 1983 he came to the realization that the public was never going to view him as a worthy successor to the great Muhammad Ali, and his disdain for the press and critics had reached monumental proportions.. Once he had beaten Gerry Cooney, I think his perception of needing to prove more had faded... I still don't think that all of his future opponents were cherry picked the way that some often like to claim though... For a man who had a problem with getting decked by right hands, Tim Witherspoon and James Boncrusher weren't exactly a soft touch, regardless of their low number of fights to that point.. Both were big men, a fair bit younger than Holmes and had proven their abilities against respectable opponents... The Marvis Frazier fight was a non-title bout and in all likely hood, a novelty match for having the family name of "Frazier" attached to it.... Hind site certainly tells us that David Bey would never amount to ****, but he was a hard hitting left hooker who had just beaten Page, and had yet to lose... Thomas, Page and depending on who you talk to, Dokes were his only chance at sealing the deal on true dominance, but again I don't know the whole story on why those fights were never made... After being a boxing fan for well over 20 years and knowing the patterns of human nature, I can say one thing though... Had he fought those guys and beaten them, people would be looking at their eventual declines, label them as second rate nobodies and aim all of their criticisms at Holmes for padding his record with them.... Is it right or wrong? I don't know, but it seems to be the general course of things...

 

It wasn't an issue at all. Until he lost, Larry was the champ in everyone's mind. He was clearly the dominant heavyweight, and the proliferation of alphabet titles meant nothing. After he lost, however, the numerous titles became a issue because none of the title-holders was widely regarded as the "true" champ. Thus, Tyson's crusade to unify the title was welcomed as attempt to restore order to the division.

 

That's the 64,000 dollar question isn't it?

 

Holmes didn't really need to unify to make the point he was the true champ so there wasn't any real demand for it.

I also think the battle between Arum and King for control of the HW division played a big part.

King had the best contenders and kept them away from Larry; what he wanted to do was get either Page or Dokes the WBA then he had the lot.

Shame in a way, Page and Dokes were really the only two guys that Larry didn't defend against and the only two with a chance. Having said that I still think that Black Cloud would've had too much for them.

 

"Quack, quack"

 

I remember seeing this question years ago and it spiraled into an accusation of who ducked who when really it's a question of who had the money and time to meet Holmes. Also, King did have a lot to do with Holmes not getting the other title. He wanted to unify the titles only when "the perfect situation" would come along. He was looking for a unification fight that would also be a megafight. Proposed fights between Cooney to fight Weaver to then fight Holmes were hinted at, a unification with Coetzee almost happened, and Larry claims that he would have faced Page, Dokes, or Thomas if they had the ability to keep a title (in addititon to your standard boxing politics).