Mike, I don't think Weaver was the culprit there. The following is an excerpt from a Weaver interview: "DH: Your next title defense was against James ‘Quick’ Tillis in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont. However, there were all kinds of injunctions and threats of lawsuits flying back and forth before this. I understand you actually signed to fight #1 contender Gerry Cooney but the WBA forced #3 ‘Quick’ Tillis on you. What was this about? MW: It was primarily Bob Arum. See, Tillis and I were both being promoted by him and Bob just refused to bend on this. We were going to get $5 million for that fight and we even offered Tillis $1 million to step aside and get the next title shot, but he refused as well. I told him he was being foolish, especially for what they were offering him for the fight. I told him, “On my worst day you couldn’t beat me!” For a finish, my manager wanted to take the Cooney fight and let them strip me of the title, but I told him the title meant more to me and we went through with the Tillis fight. And of course, I won."
Thanks Scartissue. I never saw this interview before. Since Weaver sort of got screwed out of the WBA title anyway, he should've just fought Cooney and let them strip him. Interesting too that the title back then actually meant something to fighters as today boxers are willingly stripped all of the time in order to pursue bigger paydays. Also I wonder what Arum's angle was in preventing this fight? Tillis wasn't even the #1 Contender (I got that wrong) so I don't see why this fight was prevented from happening. Maybe Arum was worried that Weaver could have lost to Cooney and he didn't have options on him?
That is interesting. I knew in the last 10-15 years Arum had been a challenge to allow fights to occur if it wasn't between people that were strictly in house for him, but I didn't know he was always such a road block.
