Do you hold it against Larry Holmes for not fighting Greg Page

If Page was such a bum and so easy to beat, sign the contract and fight the guy. No excuse not to. This was no juggernaut of the highest caliber kind of guy. Fight the guy.And Thomas.

And Tubbs.
And Dokes. Coetzee. All those guys were beatable. This isn't asking a guy to climb Mount Kilimanjaro or anything, just good decent fighters. They all seemed to fight each other and it was Larry's name not in the mix.

 

For a champion who defended so often you would have thought Holmes SHOULD have got round to fighting Page and Coetzee, but you also would have thought one of them might have stood out from the other.

I mean who was really better? Snipes v Witherspoon and Berbick v Snipes were very close. Coetzee v Thomas was a draw. Hell! Snipes v Scott Frank was a draw! What does that tell us? It kind of shows Snipes was as good as any of those guys. That's without mentioning Bonecrusher and Witherspoon being both good enough and bad enough to lose big and win big against each other.

However, Berbick Did beat Page and Witherspoon DID beat Page. And Bey did beat Page. All three of them lost to Holmes. He also beat Weaver and Bonecrusher.

 

Holmes never had a consistent dance partner.

Instead he has loads of guys who had a short window of unification.

Can it be held against his legacy that he never unified? Yes. Can he be blamed for it? No.

If a WBA champ was consistent and a rivalry brewed it would have made money and Larry would have took the fight, been a heavy favourite and likely won. More than blame Larry, blame the rest for not being good enough.

 

You're essentially focusing on a six or seven month window for Holmes to decide to fight Page ( off a win over Snipes whom Holmes already beat ) before Page signed to fight Witherspoon .. considering Holmes just fought and defeated Witherspoon ( who would also beat Page ) I don't see the big duck .. again, there was no demand for these sort of fights .. as far as stripping him, surely you know that that was a Don King political move as Holmes was now promoting his own fights cutting King out ..

 

You answered your own point .. all of them kept losing .. Tubbs lost. Witherspoon lost. Page lost. Coetzee lost. Dokes lost. Thomas lost .. they were all inconsistent talents and Holmes beat the men that beat the men often ..

 

We're not even talking about unification though. We're talking about defending the WBC title against largely mediocre guys after ****ey (who himself was overhyped) and then dumping the title before having to face a bunch of younger DK guys who, while not great, were better than the guys Holmes was fighting.

 

All pretty much true .. a few additional things to keep in mind .. Holmes career as a champion was broken down into a set up for some very big fights .. a Norton rematch, Ali and then ****ey ... the Norton rematch was smashed by Shavers who Holmes did then fight. The Ali fight was pushed by Ali. Holmes did not want it but needed the fight for legitimacy and money. Then a huge build up to a ****ey super fight .. These three bouts essentially took up five of the seven years of Holmes reign .. by the time he fought Witherspoon there really was not that much time left and while he took some light fights he still defeated Witherspoon ( a future champ ) , Smith ( anther future champ ) , David Bey ( who beat Greg Page ) and Carl Williams ( who went on to be a top contender .. not bad at all ..

 

Holmes fought Smith with 14 fights, Witherspoon with 15, Weaver with 19-8 record ,Snipes got dropped 2X by Coetzee and got the elimination fight he had 22 fights and Leon Spinks was KO'd in 1 by Coetzee, Thomas was a contender before they went to the alternate belt and Tate was a good fight before he fought Weaver...there was ample time for Holmes to fight these guys and make money, when he fought Michael Spinks most didn't give Mike a chance and he was the lesser of the evil threats never having fought at heavyweight and he beat Holmes.

IMO Holmes would have lost to one of the guys he avoided not because they were better but a matter of styles, experienced but still fresh. King navigated Larry into the easier fights IMO just way to many guys Holmes did not fight,unify or rematch

 

****ey was an absolutely huge fight and was supposed to be the big rival Holmes craved.

When Holmes began winding his career down he put his status as champ at risk. But there still, even then, was not a fighter consistent enough to warrant a huge fight.

The WBC ended up with Berbick who Holmes had beaten. The WBA ended up with Smith, can't remember if Holmes beat him but he had beaten Spoon.

There just wasn't a consistent enough rival for Holmes to square off against.

 

By the way if Holmes had fought half of the 9 guys he avoided and beat them I would rate him top 5 but the 2 best fighters he fought beat him. In his prime he picked guys with 10,12,13,14,15,16,22,24, fights and the 3 European retreads.

stale Shavers and 8-rd Kooney were his best opponents when he was champ until M.Spinks who never fought as a heavyweight

 

Who would he have lost to and when in his career ? What exactly are you specifically saying ?

On a night sick and taking Weaver light he still knocked out Weaver.

He beat Witherspoon .. yes Tim only had 14 fights but he only had 17 when he beat Greg Page ..

Are you saying ..

Tate in 79 beats Holmes ? Be serious.

Coetzee in 79 beats Holmes ? Beats him in 81 ? No way.

Dokes was a coked out bum by 83. Do you think in 82 he beats the Holmes that beat ****ey ? No way.

Thomas had a halfway decent three year run ... his big fights were a draw with Coetzee ( who had lost to Tate and was KO'ed by Weaver ) and a majority win over Witherspoon ( who in far netter condition lost already to Holmes ) .. are you saying this Thomas, with no major KO wins in his whole career and a one handed fighter beats Holmes when Larry is 34 or 35 .. maybe but I doubt it .. Michael squeaked by Holmes with outstanding speed, Thomas even today would not be able to out jab Holmes ..

My point is when you break it down who do you say exactly beats Holmes specifically and when ?

 

They all kept losing....that's because they signed a contract to fight other high level opposition.

Holmes was very fortunate the IBF formed when it did. If they formed when the WBO did, Holmes would be under a lot more scrutiny for being stripped of his heavyweight title. And he was simply awarded the IBF title anyway.


His title defense run is the equal of Valuev or Ruiz. Certain guys only and never against the premeir guys in the sport at the time. Just exactly how many #1 contenders in that 7 year span?

And this garbage didn't start when he got stripped of his title for not fighting Page. It went back to 78 with Zanon. Evangelista. Ledoux. Jones. And those types.

You give the guy lots of get out of jail free cards and lots of go directly to go and collect $200 passes. I don't. Not to him or not to guys like Larry like say a Virgil Hill. Lots of defenses, impressive on paper, in his backyard, and when asked to fight a premeir name, he loses.

And just how long did it take Tyson to come along and clean up and clean out the division? It was no minefield out there.

 

HBO money came just in time to make Tyson shine. It was HBO money that allowed for the logical system of unifications the fans wanted. Without it Tyson would have had a reign just like Holmes.

Before then a promoter could promote more championship fights out of having more champions. It was going to stay that way too. Before there was so many champions there was only two title fights per year and contenders had more fights waiting for shots. That's how come we got such a diluted set of 15 or 20 fight novice contenders. The funny thing was the alternative champions to Holmes were actually losing to those guys! Out of 10 guys to contest for the other belts only Quick Tillis never wound up with a belt.

Had the HBO tournament not come along Tyson might even have had to beat a rated fighter to get a crack at the WBC title too.