If Larry Holmes had drawn a color line against Cooney, would you still consider Larry the champion?

Of course I would.

I would criticize him for his stance of course.

 

Scott Ledoux was pretty white.

It is easy to look at the "white" challengers - namely Scott Ledoux, Gerry Cooney, Tex Cobb and Scott Frank -- Holmes faced and come to the conclusion that his resume (without those guys on it) wouldn't have suffered much damage. Three of the four of them arguably didn't deserve a title fight anyway.

However, who knows how Cooney's career shakes out if he doesnt lose to Holmes.

Cooney may well have fought the WBA champion and won. He was already a media star. If Cooney had picked up a WBA belt after Holmes refused to fight him, he probably would've become the biggest star in the sport.

And then Holmes would be viewed as the guy who was afraid to fight Cooney, the biggest name in boxing.

That would've hurt his reputation long term.

But it's not like, on the other side of the aisle, a lot of "white" guys fought for the WBA heavyweight title during Larry's reign. Only one, Coetzee, fought for the WBA belt the entire decade.

In fact, between Richard Dunn in 1976 and Nicolai Valuev in 2005 ... 29 years ... the only "white" guy to fight for the WBA belt was, in fact, Gerrie Coetzee.

(Unless you want to include John Ruiz, who was Puerto Rican, or Evangelista, who was from Uruguay, but I don't think either would call himself a "white" guy.)

And I don't hear a lot of fans proclaiming all the WBA champs from 1976 to 2005 racists.

In other words, it wasn't like there were a lot of dominant white fighters during that period ... and, to his credit, Holmes fought whoever popped up - he even spent a whole year trying to make a fight with Coetzee when Gerrie had the WBA belt. But they couldn't get the financing.

 

Or ,more accurately A Coloured Champion ,and a White Champion.

 

The Holmes Cooney fight, saw an evil from a darker age, emerge once again.

"Who the hell is Gerry Cooney? I've proved over and over again that I'm the baddest heavyweight in the world. I've beaten everyone. He's the Great White Dope. Who's he ever beaten. He ain't never fought anybody. If he wasn't white, he wouldn't be anywhere. If he was black, nobody would know who he is."

Larry Holmes

 

It would just be another name to add to the list of people he avoided, weather it be white or black.

 

I am pretty sure if he ducked every white fella in the 80s he'd have fought all the best guys he missed out on.

My politics are hazy as is my recollection of heavyweight in general but wasn't Page and Dokes ranked very highly for a while?

We might have also seen a few rematches just to spite the white challengers. Larry could have actually proved more in this alternate timeline.

 

That’s true. With the exceptions of Cooney and Coetzee there really weren’t too many top white heavyweight challengers during the eighties and most didn’t feel they were the best anyway.

 

Just an observation.

If Holmes had rematched Mike Weaver, instead of fighting Gerry Cooney, I would actually rate him more highly!

 

What is this based on though? He just looks fair-skinned to you or do you know something that you can share with ethnicelebs that no one has shared yet?

 

Ranked 904th by the WBC Yang "The Dragon" Lee!

 

Scott identifies as Korean. This racist cuck gon need be learned

 

Probably. Kind of a close call.

 

A champion who doesn't meet his best challengers is no champion.

 

This is a serious thinker..... He'd be criticized by genuine boxing lovers, but the black community would cheer him on for sticking it to the establishment. If the best wasn't a white male at that time, sure.