agreed, unbelievable decision, but no worse than putting him in with Kid Dynamite at ANY point in Marvis' career!
Yeah, I remember the great hype around Marvis' entrance into the ring. He did seem to have the textbook skills, but could be a good illustration of how much more than that goes into making a great fighter.
He did seem to move all right in the early moments, but Larry started tossing him around and you could sense how overmatched he was. I still can't decide if Larry's boloing was to get Mills Lane to stop it, or just him being Larry Holmes. Maybe a bit of both.
I'm surprised Tyson didn't kill Marvis. Joe just seemed to have a bit too much faith in his son's ability. The look on his face when Larry knocked him down says it all. It's interesting that in the Holmes fight, the announcer claims the 23 year old Frazier is likely out of serious contention for any title because "he's no baby." Nowadays, guys in their late 30s come back and get belts. Jameel McCline will be coming back again at 70 to challenge for a title.
I'm imagining it was an opportunity for his son to get a huge payday, for one. How is Joe a bad guy for being responsible getting his kid two paydays that could be a foundation for the rest of his life? I'd fault Joe more if he protected Marvis and built up his record to some ridiculous undefeated statistic and then fed him to a Tyson or a Holmes. If he didn't have it he was never going to, it seemed like a litmus test to me. Frazier never particularly cared when his fighters lost regardless. Same thing with Bert Cooper. It wasn't a "Marvis, you big ****ing failure", and then end of.
marvis chin i thought was alright it just didnt help that his style was a bunny ears defence to protect himself from...well i'm not sure what it was suppose to do, but the uppercut and straight cross almost always landed. whether it be tyson or holmes he was gettign tagged hard by some lesser fighters. a small technician being told to bully and stand square on to me is what undone him. but that 1-2 holmes landed was so peach.
Marvis was skilled, had already beaten some decent opposition (James Broad, Joe Bugner). Perhaps they felt Marvis could have done to 34 year old Holmes what other inexperienced fighters had already done to him previously (mainly Tim Witherspoon whom Marvis beat in the amateurs), trouble him with his youth. It may have been a silly decision to put him against Holmes with just 10 fight pro experience but I'm not sure if it would've been good management either to decline a world title shot you hadn't even truly deserved.
Maybe he thought Holmes was there for the taking after Holmes having that hard fought SD with Witherspoon earlier in the year. Joe was probably thinking 'I would have done Holmes there so my son will'. In retrospect well off the mark but the fight game is full of dreams and no one really knows what will happen until it happens
Joe wasnt exactly matched easy in his own early career so I doubt he would have seen fit to do things diferently for his son.
Marvis was Ko'd in one round in the amatuer finals to James Broad and was getting dropped a lot in sparring. Marvis had a great amatuer build up but did not have the punching power of his Dad. I think Joe knew this and wanted to get him a title shot and some money quick. Even though the ranks of fighters was poor, Marvis could have been upset by any of the upcoming heavys, so he got his son a payday. From what I heard Joe used to spar with Marvis and handled him ( Joe did not go light with Marvis)
It wasn't that long after they put Leon Spinks in with Ali and looked what happened there.... You would expect better from Joe seeing as though that's he's own son though.... yeah, it's reckless all the same.