Most Lineal Heavyweight Champions down through the years never unified the belts, for various reasons, and, when they did, often another belt would pop up and un-unify things again.
That’s one way to look at it. But it is an over simplification. These governing bodies loved having separate champions because they didn’t have to share the percentage they got from a heavyweight title fight with the other alphabet schemers. A contender rated #1 in one body could be #17 with another. A champion for one body not rated at all by the others. That’s how they wanted it. And most of it was based on a stable of fighters affiliated with a particular promoter the governing body liked or disliked. much of the contenders were getting shots without climbing the ranks. Having so few fights against known opposition. sure Larry said some stuff. Maybe he was just seeing it for what it was. Boxing politics was a joke. Most of the belt holders were no better than Marvis Frazier. And that can probably be proven. Larry did try to unify. It’s very well documented on this thread.
Holmes had a mouth larger than his ego. He so desperately wanted to be like Ali that he sucked up to Howard Cosell and Howie pretty much blew him off. It was pitiful to see. All respect for him was lost after he made denigrating remarks about Marciano. When Spinks beat him it was a joyous occassion watching the mouth cry in his spilled milk, falling short of Rockys record- the boxing gods hath smiled upon the sport.
I don't know what you're referring to with the "boxing gods" and all that. You seem to be acting like Holmes said what he said BEFORE the fight when he actually said it in response to Marciano's brother celebrating Holmes' loss when Holmes is the guy who brought him to the fight. Larry Holmes didn't make derogatory comments about Rocky Marciano before Holmes lost to Spinks. Holmes even invited Rocky's brother to the fight to show respect to the Marciano family. Holmes got angry after the fight when Marciano's brother was running around celebrating Larry's loss and joyously giving interviews after the bout. So Holmes went to the microphone after the loss with Marciano's smiling, ecstatic brother looking at him and Holmes said Rocky couldn't carry his jockstrap to Rocky's brother. Holmes was angry that a guy he flew in as a show of respect to the Marciano family was throwing it in Larry's face when he lost. Basically, bad form from both parties.
I never mentioned "before" so don't be putting your impressions on my take. Holmes desperately wanted to be the next Ali and that was fact and Cosell always stopped well short in praising Holmes as such. He chose Spinks to get to #49 to emulate Marciano beating Moore, to be followed by fighting a B level opponent in Hawaii which he named "Hawaii Five-0" to be cute. Of course the whole plan backfired. Regarding Marcianos brother why should he have been somber that Larry lost? That's an assinine statement. Larrys dream went down the toilet and his true feelings emerged.
I literally posted three thread pages worth of NY Times articles showing Holmes trying to unify with the WBA heavyweight champ for a full year. LOL
You are looking at Holmes' legacy through the lense of today's boxing politics. At the time, he was generally recognized as the lineal champion. The legitimacy of all the other titles weren't so entrenched in the mind of the boxing public as it is now. The idea that it was okay to have more than one "world champion" at a time came on gradually. Holmes was generally understood to be the real champion, and he didn't feel the need to stoop so low as to give legitimacy to the bogus "belts." It wasn't his duty to track down all the bogus titleholders. They needed to come to him to gain recognition. That's the way I remember it. Now it's to the point now where it's impossible for the average fan to know who is champion. In fact, the concept of "a champion" has been watered down almost to the point that there are no true world champions at all, just "beltholders." I view each beltholder not as a champion but as a contender for the vacant lineal title. We need to have elimination tournaments pitting all the beltholders in each division against one another until there is only one champion left. Of course, this would result in thinning out the self-appointed "sanctioning bodies," so it's a given that such tournaments will never happen.
Correct. There were only two orgs in 1980. The WBC Champ was Holmes. The WBA Champ was Weaver. And Ali had retired as World Champ in 1979. Holmes stopped Weaver in a WBC title defense in 1979. And when Holmes beat Ali months after Weaver became WBA champ, nobody talked about unifying anything. Holmes was the heavyweight champion. There were only two other options to choose from (Weaver or Ali) and Holmes beat them both in title fights. So the WBA belt changing hands over and over didn't really mean anything to anyone other than the guys fighting for that belt. And when the WBC stopped recognizing Holmes - they crowned a guy as champ who Holmes had already beaten in a WBC title defense. So there was never a point when all this was going on when Holmes wasn't viewed AS THE MAN until he lost to Spinks.
The fights were offered to him. If he wanted to unify, he could have. Or maybe he couldn't, which is why he didn't try.
Yes he was terribly afraid of the Dokes, Coetzee, Page, Thomas and Witherspoon gang that couldn't string together enough consecutive wins to create any public demand for money .. here's the truth on Holmes, if the money was there he'd fight anyone .. he'd go into training tomorrow to fight Anthony Joshua if he was offered five million right now. At the small window of time , 83 - 85, Holmes was done being jerked by King and there alphabets after five years as champ and said screw it , he'd do what he wanted and he did .. still, for every fighter they say he didn't fight either they kept losing or he fought the man that beat them ... Smith KO'ed Bruno and Witherspoon, Bey and Berbick beat Page, Holmes beat Witherspoon. The whole argument has a bit of merit but is mostly overrated.
You’re like Thor in the Avengers movie: “Well he’s never fought me twice,” lol. When did it become a thing that you had to beat someone twice for it to count? If Page really wanted a piece, maybe he could have actually successfully defended his trinket of a belt (I won’t call it a championship). Larry was scheduled to fight the winner of Norton-Shavers. Not Larry’s fault that Ken got himself bombed out in one. Page, he took another fight for more money. If Greg had belt onto his championship for a while and built a case so it was a fight people had wanted to see, it probably would have happened. But Greg lost 4 out of 5 (with the only win being over Coetzee for the title, then immediately after sleepwalking through a loss to Tony Tubbs and then losing to Buster Douglas in his next fight after that. Page lost to David Bey so Larry fought Bey instead. If he fought Page and beat him (like others were at the time) you’d probably be screaming that Holmes ducked the better fighter in not facing Bey lol. Tell me where the mean man from Easton hurt you.
When vast segments of the viewers think you lost it is traditional to have a rematch. Larry was scheduled to fight the winner of Norton-Shavers. Not Larry’s fault that Ken got himself bombed out in one. This is just stupid. Why not have given the man a rematch on a close, controversial fight earlier? Where the Evangelista, Weaver, and Occasio fights really that important? He took a smaller, lesser opponent that was not a mandatory, and bragged about it. "I like fighting little guys for big money." It was not the only time her bragged about ducking fighters. "If they wan't be back, they got to give me somoene I can beat." He was the mandatory. Uh, this was Page already lost to Witherspoon. It is all a moot point. He wasn't that good.
