Big John Tate

He was so shot by 83/84/85 timeframe, the ****ey folks were considering him. There's your guage.

And the Tate camp wanted Lyle, not Weaver. By 1979, everyone wanted Lyle for his name recognition. He hadn't ko'd anyone recently and was pretty much ruined by that foreman fight. That was a tough split decision against Ward and a tough fight. Ledoux fight was another tough one. If Ron had anything left, a guy that stood in front of him like Ledoux with his hands at his waist was made to order for him.

the Ball fight-- that was a big shocker at the time because Lynn Ball was not even a blip on the radar screen. Or, a hitter. Let alone a quickie ko over Lyle.

Again, your gauge is the ****ey corner--they got Ron next. But there were other similar type beatable guys around to match Tate with if Arum wanted to have his guy milk the title.Arum had Neon Leon and he promoted a lot of those late Ali fights as well. Their was minimal talk of an Ali--Tate fight back then and I sure don't think it would have been a match Angie Dundee would have wanted.

Or a stronger trainer/manager to say no to the Arum requests. They just had zero pull. The polar opposite of Holmes, who had the best of everyone of the late 70's guys and it wasn't close.

 

So was it Arum who pushed for Tate to fight Weaver?

I recall quite a lot of talk in early 1980 of Tate - Ali, with hopes of putting it on during the summer.

 

Arum was the promoter.

He sent him to South Africa to fight their 2 best heavies in their backyard before Weaver. At a time when american heavies flat out did not fight the other guy in the other guy's backyard. 140,00 attendence for the 2 bouts and it'd be generous to say 5000 pulled for Tate.

What a profit Arum made on those 2 bouts alone. Herbert Muhammad was throwing out all sorts of names for his guy to fight. I can recall him saying they'd fight the Tate/Weaver winner, not Larry.

But Angie didn't really have final say so anyway. That decision was always with Herbert and he went with the money and King and Holmes. Next, they took the money from Harold Smith for the Berbick fight.

It was such a strange time for the sport back then. Things that were supposed to happen didn't. You even had Rappaport/Jones trying to promote their guy away from the big 2. You had Stallone trying to become a power broker of sorts. Harold Smith. The beginning of the cable networks like HBO and Showtime and ESPN.

It was a time when strong mangement was a requirement to navigate the waters. I think the Tate mangement was on par with the Leon Spinks management----who in their right mind would send Leon to the bright lights of Monaco to fight unknown hitter Coetzee? Does anyone really think Leon trained diligently in that city and under those conditions?

Just lots of cashing out fighters back then and I didn't like it then anymore than other times when we've seen say the Duva's cash out Tyrell. I never liked that cashing out thing but then again, it isn't my $$$ at risk either & that changes things.

 

How did Harold Smith manage to stay out of jail to promote the Berbick Fight or how was MAPS, his promotional company still afloat after the big scandal in early 1981 where the MAPS supercard at Madison Square Garden got cancelled because it was discovered money MAPS was using to pay the fighters had been embezzeled from Wells Fargo Bank.