What exactly happened to Gerrie Coetzee?

He just reached the end of the line. He lasted longer as a top contender than plenty, and not as long as others. He was around the top 5 for half a decade and was in the ten a couple of years prior. That's solid.

He had some tough fights. Tate was a fine fighter before weaver found his chin, he beat Coetzee and resoundingly outboxed Weaver for most of the night before getting pole axed and never fighting remotely close to that level again. Tate didn't last a fraction as long as Coetzee at the top level despite being a more talented fighter. He was unfortunate to fight big punching Mike Weaver at the top of his game and was stopping in a pretty grueling fight. He had a tough fight against Pink right before he beat Dokes too.

The thing about the Dokes victory is that it was well documented Dokes was partying and coking up to 48hrs before the fight. Obviously that's on Dokes but watching the fight you can see Dokes ain't right. So his coming out party had a few asterisks.

The Page fight was grueling, they both landed a heap of right hand bombs in a spiteful affair and as Zad said, Page blew out a lot of candles.

He'd also had his share of injuries off and on. His time was just gone. I'm glad he had a taste of the title, from all accounts he was a great human being. He was a very good heavyweight too for a number of years. He was a very honest competitor.

R.I.P. to him.

 

Rather innocently, I thought Page had lost to David Bey in his last fight so how could he have a chance versus one of the Heavyweight champions of the world?

If you see that fight on You Tube, Page totally dominated. Im not much of a conspiracy theorist except in some cases, but this to me reeks. The fact David Bey said he was not going to South Africa to fight due to Apartheid, three months later got a chance at another one of the world heavyweight champions, Larry Holmes and eventually went to South Africa to fight is also very telling. You dont have to be a conspiracy theorist to see this has the elements of a Hollywood crime thriller.

HOWEVER, of course, as some have pointed already, Coetzee had a very long layoff due to the Larry Holmes fight cancellations and he had surgeries to his hand and a nagging father, I have been around boxing gyms enough to tell you that in boxing, angry managers, trainers and promoters are a dime a dozen. The boxers are usually and by large a group of very nice, class A people but the people behind them not so much. i can tell you that Lou Duva was a good man, Emmanuel Stewart an exceptional human being, and as far as Angelo Dundee i can't say but I think Saint Pat is who told me he was a great guy and I trust that account.

Also, when Bey went to South Africa, Apartheid was already dying down.

So, all in all, who knows.

coetzee may have just suffered depression after seeing that winning the world title did not fix the world around him? That could be too. And depression can affect a boxer's showings.

 

Ahhhhhh. I read a story that Don King asked......i think it was one of his advisers who had the best chance of beating Coetzee out of his stable. The advisor said Page. Whether true or not Don King talked David Bey out of going over due to apartheid then sent Page. Don "claims" he tried to talk Page out of it. That's a wee bit fishy as when Page won King gained control of the WBA title. That certainly benefitted Don.

 

If ever a fight deserved a rematch, it was Coetzee-Page. The round he lost his title in lasted about four minutes. The official WBA timekeeper couldn't even give the actual official time of the KO as 3:58 of the eighth round, because rounds aren't supposed to last more than 3 minutes.

Gerrie protested, but even though a WBA officials screwed up, they turned him down.

They didn't want any more South African heavyweight champs. They couldn't get anyone to fight them.

 

I've stated on here several times that I thought it was a dive. I could swear you see a downed Gerrie open his eyes, look around then close them. I think you said you were there and say definitely it was a ko. Maybe it was someone else.

 

No I wasn't there myself Frank, but I recall some one saying that.
Personally it looks like a genuine KO, I think Frank just caught him at the right time and place, perhaps Gerrie hadn't really trained as well.
I'll have to have another look sometime ar the fight, see if can pick anything up.

 

[QUOTE="Dubblechin, post: 23621352, member: 107480\


They didn't want any more South African heavyweight champs. They couldn't get anyone to fight them.[/QUOTE]
That, among other things.

But as far as it going an extra minute, i believe while this was wrong,, that Gerrie would still have lost had it been the right amount of time, probably in a round or two. To me, either it was fixed, or it was not his night at all in which case, he'd still lose.

 

Plus Frank Bruno had almost Tyson-Shavers-Foreman like power and also Coetzee's body already had all that mileage in it.