Did Holmes duck Greg Page?

Page would have come in at about 241 lbs & gotten UD'd by Holmes. Page wasn't the best competition out there at this time. Think Thomas & Coetzee(a fight that was cancelled in summer of 84)

 

I don't think he ducked him, no. He took the fight with Marvis Frazier over Page because as ridiculous as it sounds, he was offered a considerable more to fight Frazier than he was to fight Page.

Had he been offered more to fight Page he'd have been in the ring with Page instead of Frazier.

 

:good

 

NO! Holmes balked at King's mere $2.5 million dollar offer in 1983........... Holmes whined that he got $10 million dollars for # 1 pretender Gerry Cooney in 1982............ Holmes simply forgot that Page was black and lacked financial backing................. "Holmes-Page" of 1983 was NOT gonna sell anywhere near the tix the "Holmes-Cooney" fight sold in 1982...... Therefore, a serious reduction in pay...... BUT! Greg Page was dangerous in 1983, regardless of losing to Trevor Berbick on a decision in 1982..... WORD!!

MR.BILL

NOTE:

Too bad that Page showed up as a 239 pound slob for the lean 220+ Spoon on HBO in March 1984 in losing....... Spoon was hungry there; Page was NOT!!

 

Berbick defeated Page via ten round UD after Holmes shut Trevor out over the championship distance. Bey upset Page to get his shot at Holmes. Of course Witherspoon succeeded Larry to the WBC Title by taking an MD from Greg for the vacated belt.

No, I simply think Holmes was and is a sound business man who opted for lucrative or safe challenges. Page was too high a risk for too little reward.

Larry defeated eight either defending, past or future world champions during his title run (Norton, Ocasio, Weaver, Ali, Berbick, Leon Spinks, Witherspoon and Smith.) He risked it against ten different undefeated challengers (the last of course being Michael Spinks). He boxed 23 rounds against the hardest puncher in boxing history, winning 21 of the 22 completed rounds. If Greg had offered Cooney type money to challenge Holmes, Larry would have taken it.

 

Which roughly translates as ducking.

 

I pretty much agree with this. For maybe a 1.5-2 year window Page was in position for a title shot, but the money wasn't high enough. Like you said Page due to his inconstant career had too many losses at key moments. Two men who beat him received title shots.

 

Yes, and he ducked Thomas, Coetzee, Witherspoon rematch, and Dokes. Great champion no doubt, but he avoided so many of his biggest fights. For some reason Holmes always gets a pass for fighting Marvis Fraziers and Lorenzo Zanon's.

 

He signed to fight Coetzee in June, 1984, but the fight was called off about a month before fight night. This is why Holmes did not have many fights in 1984.

Please explain how he ducked Dokes, ocasionally people bring this up and I'm at a loss for how he did it. Dokes was just as inconsitent as the rest of the other 80s fringe title holders.

King was purposely low balling Larry with his offers for Larry to fight the others who held some alphabet titles and giving him higher offers to fight guys who were lesser names.

It should also be noted that many of the people would've gotten title shots had they not been so lazy. Ocasio, for example, got his title shot at Larry because he beat Jimmy Young twice. Young is obviously the better fighter, but he blew his chance. Norton would've gotten a rematch had he beaten Shavers, but Shavers blew him out in 1 round and Larry beat Earnie up again in the rematch. Things like that kept happening and ruining the fights that people say they wanted to happen.

 

Holmes was past his best by this time,and Page would have been CAPABLE of beating him. I doubt whether he would have though,as he did n't possess the motivation. Coetzee was just about the best opponent that Greg could beat.

 

i had always thought that he had or at least seemed to be. I never could figure out what people including the media saw in Page though. If you ask me I thought he was kind of mediocre

 

I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't picked up on that. But the low reward risk would only have been a high reward risk if Greg had been seen as a genuine threat to take Larry's title going in, hence a major financial profit. (Again, the money was there for Marvis Frazier.)

For my money, the most viable contender Holmes did not defend against was not Page, but Pinklon Thomas, who failed to jab his way to a win over the average jabbing Coetzee in a chess match which should have easily favored Pinko. Tubbs beat Bonecrusher on the Holmes-Bey undercard, then dethroned Page for the WBA Title just before Michael Spinks-Holmes I. Whether or not Tubbs could have decisioned Holmes in 1985 is another matter, but he was ready to challenge Larry by then, and wouldn't sustain a decisive loss until Tyson, three years later.

As far as who the best heavyweight (as opposed to most viable) Holmes did not take on, Larry himself has indicated it was Dokes, a friend of his also in Don King's stable, who again failed to match the consistency of Holmes with gift draws in Ocasio I (where allegations surfaced of a dive by Jaws in the rematch), Weaver II, then the disastrous hometown title losing knockout to Coetzee.

 

I think Larry did duck Greg, but he could get away with it because of Greg's lack of interest in being a real fighter.He was much too up-and-down in his career.If he was focused. he would've been WBA champ at the end of 1982.If Greg was smoking jokers left and right, that fight would've been made:good.

 

Odd and sad on how folks back in 1982 and 1983 felt Lawrence Holmes was ducking and dodging "Dokes & Page." Everybody pretty much expected Dokes and Page to become the linear fighters / champs of the mid to late 1980s..... Both ended up floping...

Now look back here and see where Dokes and Page are... One is deceased and the other is demented and fighting liver cancer....... GEEZ!!

Larry Holmes is a whopping 300 pounds in 2011 at age 62, but he still seems to have his marbles in tune.....

MR.BILL:bbbhat