If Larry Holmes Hadn't Been Around..?

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by Fergy, Oct 14, 2025 at 4:49 AM.


  1. Fergy

    Fergy Walking Dead Full Member

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    Pat , that was great.
    Love the thought of Shavers becoming an alphabet champ.
    Larry beat a few past and future champ s, With out him around anything could happen.
    Brilliant post mate.
     
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  2. HistoryZero26

    HistoryZero26 Boxing Addict Full Member

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    Through the 70s the NABF a subsidary of the WBC had served as the "secondary belt of HW". And with the champ out of the picture that'd be the most serious lineage. Young got stripped of it right away but thats why the WBC gave Norton the belt for beating Young.

    Anyway after Norton/Holmes became WBC champ the previous NABF lineage ended and they had Leroy Jones and Weaver fight for the vacant title. Jones won. The WBA decides to split the world title with Tate and Coetzee and also decided to make their own version of the NABF, USBA(baby IBF). Weaver became the first holder of this belt and got his title shot at Holmes before Jones. Weaver did well against Holmes and in your timeline you have him beating Shavers here. Jones gets his shot at Holmes and suffered a career ending eye injury the same day Weaver beats Tate for the WBA. In our timeline Jones is removed from the picture. But with no Holmes now everything goes different because

    A)Jones doesn't get hurt and he has a more clear win over Weaver then Holmes did. In our timeline Weaver almost beating Holmes was not enough to force a rematch and/or unifier the WBC/WBA belts. That win was enough.
    B)Holmes v Weaver I is removed from the timeline and Weaver doesn't get the credibility from almost beating Holmes. You think he fights Shavers and wins he also might not get a title shot there at all much less win. If he doesn't there is now no reason for the WBA to give him a shot.
    C)If Weaver beats Shavers for the WBC belt now the NABF champ has a win over the organizations senior champ. Jones has the superior claim and there would be a rematch next or Jones fights for the WBA belt and that becomes the senior lineage. Either way Weaver would be unable to fight Tate next.
     
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  3. Boxed Ears

    Boxed Ears this my daddy's account (RIP daddy) Full Member

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    Sacrilegious thought experiments and blasphemous bollockry!
     
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  4. Fergy

    Fergy Walking Dead Full Member

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    Well the next thread s going to be

    "What If Rocky Marciano lost all his fights"?
    How's that for blasphemous bollock s???
     
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  5. Journeyman92

    Journeyman92 Mauling Mormon’s Full Member

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    10/10 loved this post lol.
     
  6. Journeyman92

    Journeyman92 Mauling Mormon’s Full Member

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    Sounds like a @cross_trainer thread lol.
     
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  7. Boxed Ears

    Boxed Ears this my daddy's account (RIP daddy) Full Member

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    :lol: He'd be in made-for-TV movie territory.

    0-49: The Rocky Marciano Story (1995)
    Starring Max Casella, as Rock, Linda Fiorentino, as Barbara, Eamonn Walker and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, as Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott, Paul Giamatti, as Al Weill and Arthur Shawcross as Charley Goldman.

    Watch as an Italian-American boy with a heart of gold and muscles of Brussels sprouts punches his way to the bottom of the worst slums in Brockton, Massachusetts until eventually being beaten to death by Larry Holmes for literally nothing to do with sports but a pizza that extended beyond 30 minutes agreed-upon delivery time. It's got action, it's got romance, it ends with being buried by his own murderer's jockstrap in a basement. It's an alternate world where Marciano is a well-intentioned weakling and Larry Holmes is a homicidal maniac who doesn't even box. He just lifts weights and beats strangers to death for no monetary gain, whenever they come to his house, while working afternoons in a local petting zoo, painting miniature goats with watercolors.
     
  8. Rico Spadafora

    Rico Spadafora Master of Chins Full Member

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    This. The early to mid 80’s Heavyweights were too inconsistent and would still play musical belts with each other even without Holmes being around. There was little consistency and most were more concerned with booze, coke, and partying than fighting.
     
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  9. Fergy

    Fergy Walking Dead Full Member

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    I had a dream like this once.
    I woke up in a cold sweat, calling out Rocky s name.

    That story could be made in to a film , Netflix easily..
     
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  10. Saintpat

    Saintpat Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    You’re right about Leroy being due a mandatory in 1980 because of holding the NABF. But he won the NABF in 1978, so it wasn’t an immediate turnaround as there was the whole logjam at the top with bigger-name, bigger-money fights to be made.

    I don’t dismiss Leroy entirely, but I don’t take him as seriously either.

    I figure that could work one of a few ways:

    1) Leroy gets that shot and gets splattered by Earnie Shavers (who is WBC champ in my timeline).

    2) He gets his shot after Weaver upsets Earnie, Leroy’s win over Hercules for the NABF giving it a bit of pizzazz that you can sell at the box office. I’d have Mike winning the rematch, just as he did win his rematch with Stan Ward, who beat him for the California title the bout before Leroy beat Weaver.

    Mike clearly turns a corner somewhere around here. He was only 14-7 when he lost to Jones for that NABF but then he got on a roll starting with the Ward rematch win (which earned him the Holmes shot in reality, and the Shavers shot in my scenario).

    Jones had some skill — he won the NYGG as an amateur after relocating in NYC from Mississippi in his youth, so he could fight. But he also had discipline problems, with his weight fluctuating wildly from 240 (and even then a blubbery 240) to 270-plus. So I don’t think ‘beat Weaver once’ means ‘he’d always beat Weaver.’ As we saw, when Mike got serious about boxing (which was right around this time) he became a different man.

    3) King and Arun drop a bag on the WBC’s back doorstep to allow a unification between Weaver and Tate to take place. Leroy gets paid a little step-aside and gets an eliminator on the undercard of Weaver-Tate unification, probably against Coetzee (Bob Arum was determined to get the heavy-hitting South African a title, or at least keep him in the title picture) or possibly Spinks (who is still viable due to name recognition having beaten Ali. I’d see Leroy losing to Gerrie but beating Spinks. Either way, he loses to Weaver in a rematch is my thinking.

    Leroy’s resume was a bit thin. He had the win over 14-7 Weaver, a draw against Pedro Lovell, an 8-round decision over John ‘Dino’ Dennis (good record, heavily protected and never a real contender) and a win over Jody Ballard, who at the time was something of a prospect but was on his way to a career as a journeyman and sparring partner to the stars.

    Weaver had a win over Lovell, a win over 15-0 Bill Sharkey (who was considered a prospect at the time) and also had beaten Ballard. His career began to turn after earlier losses to Duane and Rodney Bobick, resulting in his getting to the point that he could fight for USBA and NABF titles but was still considered a fringe guy who would lose to top fighters at best.

    But after the losses to Jones and Ward, he knocked out one-loss Bernardo Mercado (who was being angled into title shot territory at that point) and beat Ward when they fought for the second time. Then he showed vs Larry Holmes that he wasn’t the same fighter who lost to Leroy anymore.

    The detached retina vs. Holmes is unfortunate so we’ll never know what might have happened if not for that. But we do know Leroy did fight again (probably shouldn’t have been allowed) and beat useful journeyman Jeff Shellburg before retiring for good.

    Glad to see you give Leroy his due for his place at the time. Where we differ is that you think he’d have kept rolling had he never faced Holmes and I don’t see enough ‘there’ there to believe it.
     
  11. MaccaveliMacc

    MaccaveliMacc Boxing Addict Full Member

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    Damn, Leroy Jones is often considered one of two worst title defences by Holmes along Lorenzo Zanon. Was he better that advertized?
     
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  12. HistoryZero26

    HistoryZero26 Boxing Addict Full Member

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    He didn't prove much of anything Weavers the only contender he beat. But he was 25-1 over 250 pounds with an 80 inch reach. Jones is an imposing matchup on paper and in this period thats all he needs to be. The early Holmes years were a void before Cooney and Witherspoon hit the scene.

    With no Holmes he might have to fight Cooney sooner but hes got around 2 years.
     
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  13. Dubblechin

    Dubblechin Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Well, top of the list, everyone who even brought up Mike Weaver should revise their posts.

    Mike Weaver was an absolute nobody with a 19-8 record who never would've fought for any major anything if not for a literal "gift" defense by Larry Holmes, when Don King had no money, and they picked Weaver out of a hat because he accepted a couple thousand dollars and people thought Larry would stop him in a couple rounds. Weaver had LOST to literally everyone. On paper, he was worse than Jean Pierre Coopman.

    So, without Holmes giving him a title shot, Weaver wouldn't have been in the picture at all. He'd have never gotten an opportunity at anyone, let alone multiple title shots.

    So IGNORE Weaver. Without Holmes, Weaver's career never happens.

    On the WBC front, Norton is the WBC champ after Leon Spinks is stripped.

    In 1978, Norton was ranked #1 by the WBC. Young was ranked #2. I believe Earnie Shavers was ranked #3. Ron Lyle was ranked #4. Larry Holmes was ranked #5.

    Ron Lyle was supposed to fight Holmes in February 1978, but Lyle got arrested for killing a guy in his home on New Year's Eve and Lyle was replaced with Shavers (and that win over Earnie in March 1978 made Larry).

    Remove Holmes and Lyle, and move Norton up from #1 to WBC Champ, and the WBC eliminator likely becomes a rubber match in 1978 between #2 Jimmy Young (coming off the Norton loss) and #3 Earnie Shavers (coming off the Ali loss (who move up to #1 and #2 contenders respectively).

    If the Jimmy Young who showed up against Ocasio is in the ring, Shavers wins. If Young is in better shape, who knows.

    Norton takes on the winner of Young-Shavers III in his first title defense. Ron Lyle, who had the charges dismissed, likely takes on the winner in late 1978 or early 1979.

    But all those guys would be viewed as "yesterday's news" ... every last one of them being former title challenge losers against Ali.

    Remember, Ali held the WBA belt into 1979 before vacating.

    When Ali retires in 1979, John Tate still beats Coetzee and wins the WBA belt in 1979.

    And Tate likely fights Muhammad Ali in 1980, which he was supposed to do in Brazil before he was upset in real life.

    With the win over Ali, Tate becomes "the man" at heavyweight in 1980 ... and the WBA belt is considered the legit title (which is the opposite of what actually happened). The WBC belt is just the belt for guys who weren't good enough to beat Ali.

    So, without Holmes, the guys who won the WBA belt would be considered the "lineal" champs.

    If Norton makes it through 1978, without losing to Shavers, or losing to Young in a return, or losing to Lyle, we saw how Norton fell apart in 1979 against guys as lowly as Ledoux. Bernardo Mercado became the WBC #1 contender in early 1980, after flattening Shavers. Maybe Mercado wins a WBC belt (against Norton, Shavers, Young, or Lyle, depending on who the WBC is at that point).

    How the division goes really depends on how long John Tate is able to retain the title after beating Ali in 1980. And who eventually knocks him off. Arum and Top Rank had Tate. Coetzee might get a rematch. Cooney, who hadn't signed any deals with King at that point, actually became the WBA's top contender in late 1980 after he wiped out Lyle.

    Cooney-Tate could've been a showdown in 1981. But those young guys would've been viewed as the future.

    The WBC belt would've been seen as the belt for old guys who'd seen better days.
     
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  14. Dubblechin

    Dubblechin Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    All good until #2. Ron Lyle killed a guy on New Year's Eve. So Shavers and Lyle aren't fighting an eliminator early that year. It would likely be Shavers vs. Young in the eliminator, as both Holmes and Lyle are out of the picture on the WBC side and Young and Shavers would've been the #1 and #2 contenders once #1 Norton got bumped up to champ.

    Also, Mike Weaver isn't a factor. He was plucked out of nowhere to fight Holmes at MSG in 1979. He wouldn't have been in the picture at all. It was dumb luck he was there at all (even though he made the most of it). Weaver had already lost to everyone by that point.

    Holmes giving Weaver the opportunity changed everything for Weaver. He wasn't in the picture AT ALL. Without that opportunity against Holmes, nobody is considering Weaver for anything.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2025 at 9:21 AM
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  15. Rico Spadafora

    Rico Spadafora Master of Chins Full Member

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    Two fights we should have got but didn't:

    Cooney vs Weaver in Oct 1981. Contract was agreed to for outdoor arena in Las Vegas Cooney was to make almost 5 million and Weaver 3 million. Fight was derailed by Arum's shenanigans who somehow was able to insert his fighter Tillis who was ranked #3 instead of Cooney who was #1 WBA contender.

    Cooney post Holmes vs John Tate in I think January of 1983. Wacko Twins had signed contract from Tate's team but Cooney wouldn't sign it and fight never happened. Tate was completely done by this point having been KOed twice in a row first by Weaver and then Berbick.
     
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