Did Holmes duck Greg Page?

The odds for Holmes - Page were 8-5 and 7-5 depending what mag you read. One prominent mag was openly picking Page and another gave him a great chance. It was thought he might be "in the right place at the right time".

To go deeper in hindsight Witherspoon was considered very inexperienced and not on the level of Page and others. He was low top 10. The thinking for many was if Witherspoon near beat Holmes what's going to happen when he fights the likes of Page and Dokes. Many took the Timmy fight as proof he had slipped considerably.

 

Boxing News felt he had a good change, I think Mike Katz was the most notable who wasn't all that impressed with Page's win over Snipes.

Good point mate. I was probably thinking of what Tim became rather than his ratings around the Holmes fight; a bit like the opposite of Page. :hey

 

I can see JT lived the era and has a good perspective of the facts at the time not like most of the revisionist that post in an era they read about and did not live......Page was not consistent or motivated but he was big, fast had power and right hand power and when he was fit he was dangerous...Holmes avoided him and gave up a title for good reason ....after the fact we can all say what we want

 

The other thing to consider in a lot of this is the wear and tear factor on Holmes. If he's fighting some of these challengers, they are a much tougher fight than guys like Marvis Frazier. David Bey. Scott Frank. and all of those type guys getting title shots instead of the top toughest challengers. What happens is Holmes suffers physical deterioration on a much greater scale fighting Witherspoon 2 or Dokes or Page or Pinklon or Gerrie series of bouts as opposed to the guys he fought. Holmes was far from his 78 form when he was in there against Smith and Williams and was obviously deteriorating. That process is going to be much quicker fighting many more tough rounds and fighting guys tough to stop.


Fighting 3 or 4 tough matches as opposed to those soft defenses really causes a rapid descent in the wear and tear department and he loses a fight because of that factor alone. And it certainly happens before the Spinks bout.

 

Larry did duck Greg, but it didn't help Greg's case by being inconsistent and out of shape over 90% of the time.If he really wanted too, the case could have been pressed and made, but Greg didn't do it, and Larry took advantage of the situation.

 

There was a reason Holmes was going for the paydays Don King was shorting him up to 40% on some of his guaranteed purse money. Holmes has talked about this before. Homes would sign a contract to make say 4 million for a fight then he would only bet 2.5 from King after the fight. Larry knew he couldn't make more money anywhere else so he just took it.

 

:good

All the "Holmes would've won anyway" and "Page was lazy" is hindsight talk. I respect Holmes for his accomplishments, but there's a lot of black pages in his record book, and Page is one on of them.