1986 and Tyson doesn't exist

Cocaine.

 

I see Witherspoon revenging Smith, since he got back in shape pretty quickly and had a good unbeaten run for a while.
Bruno may challenge Berbick for his title, as there was originally a fight scheduled between em for '87, but didn't come to fruition.
So, Bruno beats out Berbick, before losing to Foreman in his first title defense (Foreman gets in early likely due to some form of bribery).
Tony Tucker drops a decision to Carl Williams after the latter's beating of Joe Frazier's protege, leading to a similar two year absence of TNT from the Heavyweight charts.
And Damiani gets knocked out by a rising James Douglas, leaving the belts split as we enter the nineties.
I see the champion lineup (Likely until the 90s) being;
Tim Witherspoon - Third reign, as the WBA champion
Trevor Berbick-Frank Bruno-George Foreman - Quick exchange from hand to hand eventually leading to Foreman's second reign, as the WBC champion
Tony Tucker-Carl Williams - First reign, as the IBF champion
Francesco Damiani-James Douglas - First reign, as the WBO champion
I personally see Evander coming up and collecting all the belts in a quick run from 1990-1991 before getting shot down by Riddick Bowe.

 

I think we would have seen a prolonged period of a split title with alpha fragments regularly changing hands. What would have been interesting to me is to see if Michael Spinks chose to retire or hung around to win a few more fights and furthermore what might have become of it

 

I personally see him sticking around, winning one or two more fights against decent opposition, and then retiring and leaving the belt up for grabs.

 

I don’t think Tim gets back into the scene at the top at this point. Not because he was incapable, but becaues he split from Don King, who controlled the belts (Michael Spinks aside) and was going to round-robin his own guys to keep that control.

Unless Tim made up with King, I think he’s on the outside looking in (as he was more or less for the rest of his career).

 

Who knows if Evander would have even moved up if a multi million dollar mega fight with Tyson or someone like him was non existent. I don’t think the Duvas would have wasted much time or resources for a fight against Tony Tucker for no more than a few hundred grand

 

Very likely. I was thinking about it when coming up with little ideas and that's really the only case of what could happen in all reality.
I just figured I'd move the belts around with no proper concern for managers or any corruption like that, except for the Foreman case which would've been at the very least exciting.

 

With Foreman, I don’t think it’s a case of ‘bribery’ as I think you suggested so much as that he offers the biggest non-Tyson payday of that time and at the same time was probably perceived as a lower risk than some guys who would produce marginal paydays.

Tony Tubbs and Tim Witherspoon fought for the WBA title and split less than $200K between them. Evander made $20M to defend vs. George. Now of course Evander was a bigger draw than either Tubbs or Witherspoon, but he literally made 10X their combined purses fighting Foreman.

 

The answer is Don King.

Seriously though, I think Tony Tucker would have been a much bigger factor if Tyson didn't exist. Holyfield comes on the scene in 88 and is a cut above.

 

I think the champion would be one of the two Tucker/Biggs. He would fend off the attack of the returning Holmes and Foreman but Holyfield would win the belt in 1989 but it would not be as easy as in 1990 with James Douglas. If the belts weren't united, Evander would have done it. Single belts could have been won by Ruddock, Douglas, maybe Holmes, but none of them would have lasted long.

 

Tucker and Witherspoon.

 

While definitely a bigger payday, it's no secret that Foreman bribed his way into the Ring rankings.