Gerry Cooney vs Wilders opponents.

I think had Cooney and Weaver fought in Oct of 1981 there is a very good chance Cooney could have won by an early stoppage simply because Weaver was such a slow starter. The longer that fight goes it tilts the other way though. John Tate was done by 1982 he had suffered back to back KO losses to Weaver and Berbick in 1980 and didn't really fight or beat anyone of note after those losses. Cooney at that point should have jumped on the chance to fight Tate in what would have been a very winnable fight to get him back on track.

 

It's a massive stretch to call Holmes "the best fighter in the world" considering:
1. He largely ignored the highest ranked heavyweights of his day (some of the men he faced weren't even in the top 10 at the time and only two were #1).
2. He never rematched after close or disputed wins.
3. He never fought the other champions.

 

Let's see here, at all the guys who became champions AFTER Holmes beat them...hmmm, Berbick, Weaver, Smith, Witherspoon, Ocasio...

What rematch for what disputed wins? He lost the title after winning against Williams, Norton was blitzed out badly by both Shavers and Cooney. Witherspoon was beat by Smith and Thomas, Coetzee was beat by Weaver (who he beat), Page was beat by both Bey and Berbick (both of whom he beat), Thomas was beat by Berbick (who, did I neglect to mention? he beat)...

Accept the schooling gracefully. Holmes was the best heavyweight right up to around the Williams fight. And that means even a couple years plus after his prime, he was still the best.

Edit: I just realized I mostly just reaffirmed what @choklab already well-wrote. It amazes me anyone disputes Holmes' domination of the division in the late 70s and half of the 80s. The proof is all over this thread, and in history itself. There was no more dominant champion in the 80s in the division besides Holmes, not even Iron Mike (who won the title in 87 and held it not even three years in that decade).

It's interesting to note that not even Larry would be surprised by some of the ignorance and naysayers on this subject, he had to suffer it throughout his career as champ.

 

None of them were considered big fights or major threats when Holmes fought them. Spoon was 15-0, Smith was 14-1, Weaver was a complete nobody at the time. Why should Holmes get retrospective credit because of what they did AFTER he fought them (sometimes years later)? We can't pretend Larry had a crystal ball and knew these guys would go on to become title threats. Holmes showed little interest in facing those men when they were actually experienced and held a world title.

Norton, Witherspoon, Weaver, Williams. All close, hard fights and certainly the Spoon and Williams verdicts were very controversial. Arguing that Holmes didn't have to fight them because at some point they lost to someone else, sometimes years later, is absurd logic.

Like I said, Holmes fought two #1 contenders in seven years, never rematched his close or controversial wins, and completely ignored the WBA champions. Can't be the best if you don't meet the best. Most of his defences were a joke... Lorenzo Zanon, Tex Cobb, Alfredo Evangelista, Scott Frank, Marvis Frazier, Scott LeDoux, Lucien Rodriguez, Leroy Jones... have I missed any? Wilder wouldn't even break sweat swatting aside 90% of them. Even many of the better known ones like Weaver, Spoon and Bonecrusher are only because of their accomplishments in the years AFTER Holmes fought them.

 

Whatever world you wish to live in @Berlenbach my friend.

The reality is, I don't have to stick up for Holmes' accomplishments. Google him, Wiki him...look all over boxing pages reading up on him. Only Louis and Ali compare as far as praise and honour goes.

 

I don't need to Google or Wiki him when I was following his career at the time. Good fighter sure, but he was no Ali or Louis.

 

Fact filled post but be prepared to face an avalanche of circular logic, contempt and denial.

 

At the time, I found each and every one of these points you make entirely justifiable, since then, however, given the perspective of previous and future championship scenarios I have changed my mind.

How much was Larry directly responsible? The governing bodies did get in the way of making unifications possible at that time as the collapse of the Holmes v Coetzee fight showed. Only when the HBO got involved was this ever possible.

And these contemporaries largely only became “highest ranked“ out of being labelled with a meaningless belt.

In another era their title losing effort would have been their challenge to the real champion.

Tate lost to Weaver then he lost to Berbick.

you could say Tate beating Coetzee earned Tate the right to challenge Holmes. Instead He takes the Weaver fight to strengthen his status as logical challenger but loses.

This is no different to say Lou Nova beating Tommy Farr then taking on Tony Galento to strengthen his status as a logical challenger then losing that bout.

There are Likely hundreds of examples where the contender didn’t have a belt and nobody cares.

with one champion the contenders must fight each other. The contenders were given a belt but it only ever represented the #2 spot at best. Historically the #2 spot always was interchangeable.

can you imagine Harry kid Mathews being awarded a belt after beating Rex Layne on points? or Roy Harris being awarded a belt for beating Willie Pastrano?

why was Larry going to fight Weaver again over a mega fight with Ali or Cooney?

And not fighting Witherspoon again was not a big deal. Tim was never expected to win in the first place since he had not really beaten Snipes to get that shot.

Page? In another era he might have been asked to fight Witherspoon to determine the logical challenger. A fight he lost anyway.

sure these sound like appalling excuses. But in other eras this kind of thing went on and nobody cried about it. Giving the gate keepers plastic straps to wear just confuses it.

champions often took smaller fights to keep busy while the bigger fights could be made. Louis did this. Between bigger fights with Tommy Farr, Schmeling, Billy Conn and Lou Nova he took a lot more guys like Johnny Paycheck Than melio Betina, Jimmy Bivins and Joe Baksi.

between bigger fights with Terrell and Patterson Ali fought more guys like Brian London didn’t he?

In the 1970s reign Ali fought Richard Dunn, Evangelista, Coopman, Wepner without ever rematching George Foreman or getting round to other guys he would have beat or contenders who eliminated each other before getting a shot at the title.

When it was Larrys turn as champion all the guys who eliminated each other in the ratings were given bogus titles. They were simply contenders like any other era.

 

Fury makes him look idiot and then he picks when he stops cooney.

 

Joe Louis is not really comparable because in a similar timeframe to Holmes (discounting the war years) he fought at least eight or nine #1 contenders, plus a bunch of others who were #2, #3 etc. Going by the WBC/IBF ratings, Holmes faced his #1 contender twice in seven years. If you go by the Ring's ratings, it's zero.

Before and after Holmes' title reign, there was a unified heavyweight champion. For the entirety of Holmes' reign, Carlos Monzon and Marvin Hagler were undisputed middleweight champion, and there were also unification bouts at other weights like Spinks-Qawi, Hearns-Leonard, Duran-DeJesus and so on. Which kind of blows apart the idea that the ABCs were the reason Holmes didn't unify.

He didn't unify the title because apart from a brief period when Coetzee was WBA champion, he had no interest in doing so.

The WBA belt was no more "meaningless" than Holmes' WBC belt, a paper title which they just handed to Ken Norton without him even winning it in the ring. And it was no more meaningless than the new IBF belt Holmes later took up when the WBC refused to sanction his mismatch against 10-0 Marvis Frazier.

Sure you can pick holes in the records of Page, Dokes, Spoon, Weaver, Thomas and Coetzee, but it's a matter of record that these men were much more highly regarded than the men Holmes was facing. They were world champions and had long spells near the top of the rankings. All had the styles and talent to cause him problems. The only two from that group he actually faced gave him hell, and he didn't go near Spoon or Weaver again. So they would typically face each other (spotting up their own records) while Holmes was content to defend against journeyman and novice heavies ranked #9 or #10, and sometimes lower than that.

Using the circular logic that Holmes didn't need to fight X because at some point X lost to Y and Y lost to Holmes doesn't work because it doesn't take account of context, and implies that only someone who is unbeaten should get a title shot. Moreover, try applying the same logic to Zanon, Evangelista, LeDoux, Cobb and Rodriguez, all of whom lost or drew with all kinds of fighters.

Holmes himself was quite open about only looking for easy fights. Comments like (I'm paraphrasing but he said similar): "No more Tim Witherspoons or Mike Weavers. Get me some little guys I can beat on without getting hurt." When the heavyweight champion of the world is seriously talking about defending against an ancient used up Jimmy Young or Kip Kane (that's not a joke), and chooses to chase Rocky's 49-0 against a career 175lber, you know he's picking as many cherries as he can.

 

I fully accept Larry had a mouth on him. It didn’t help his cause at all saying things like this.

Clearly some of these fights were hand picked and were merely non title fare. The Williams fight backfired. He was supposed to be as unqualified as some of the easier guys but turned out to have been as good as any of the rival champions.

But outside of Marciano, what champion fought only #1 or #2 rated contenders? was there ever a long standing champion who did do similar things to this?

Larry did have big fights with Cooney and Ali. He beat Shavers right after Shavers had scored the most outstanding result among any of the fights made between contenders that year. In comparison to Wilder? When did Wilder take on the contender who had scored the most outstanding result that year?

Larry beat Berbick after he beat Tate. Larry beat Bey after he beat Page. Larry beat Smith after he beat Bruno. Larry beat Snipes after he beat Coetzee. Larry beat Leon Spinks after Spinks beat Bernardo Mercado. It’s not like they were all Scott Frank. A lot of these guys had done as much to challenge Larry as the other guys had done to challenging for the paper crowns.

Tate took Weaver in the strength of Weaver losing to Larry and lost! Coetzee took on Page on the strength of his loss to Bey and lost!

Page took on Tubbs on the strength of his points win over Smith, right after Smith had been stopped by Larry! Witherspoon took on Thomas on the strength of his draw with Coetzee and lost!

This is apples and oranges.

But yes. Larry had a bad mouth. And yes, it was frustrating at the time.

yes but regardless of where the governing bodies put these fighters or recognised them Larry was really the only guy who could beat more than two decent fighters without losing. The credentials of John Tate was poorer than Larry Holmes. Larry beating Norton then Shavers twice. That’s 3-0 against elite men. Tate was 1-0 against elite fighters going into the fight with Weaver right after Larry stopped him. After that fight Larry is 3-0, Tate is 1-1 and Weaver 1-1. This makes Larry clearly the premier heavyweight.

again, why would Larry fight Weaver another time just to miss out on fighting Ali? Muhammad is the retired champion.

both belts are meaningless in themselves. Yes. But in determining who the real champion is, regardless of these paper titles it is Larry Holmes isn’t it?

yes again, the IBF supported recognition of Larry probably for the sanctioning fees they could make from Larrys fights. They recognised Larry as the big earner in the division because since beating Ali he was the man who beat the man. That’s where the value was. The value had never been with any belt.

yes Larry did defend his title to some guys that were not as good as Page, Dokes, Spoon, Weaver, Thomas and Coetzee like say Evangelista, Zannon, Rodriguez and Frank Scott. But Weaver was not better than Leroy Jones since Jones had beat him before Weaver challenged Larry. Was Page better than Berbick after losing to him? Was Dokes better than David Bey? Was Coetzee really any better after losing to Mike Weaver than Williams or Witherspoon? Was Tony Tubbs really any better than Marvis Frazier? I don’t think so. It’s negligible.

I don’t think circular logic works when it is circular logic fir circular logics sake. But it isn’t circular logic to say Larry beat Norton, SPinks and Ali when they were notable fighters of that era. I don’t think it is circular logic to say larry defeated Gerry Cooney when he was a big draw and rated #1 by all the governing bodies. I don’t think it is circular logic to say guys Larry beat went on to better things.

As I have said before, this logic also works with Coetzee defending against Page after he had been exposed by Berbick, Witherspoon and most recently David Bey. Or when Page himself defended against Tubbs who had done nothing but outpoint Bonecrusher Smith right after being stopped by Larry Holmes. Or Tate taking on Weaver right after Weaver had been stopped by Larry Holmes.

 

Nobody expected him to have every fight against #1 or #2. The point is, he fought hardly any. More often than not Larry would be fighting some journeyman ranked #8 or #9 while his WBA counterpart was tackling the #1 or #2.

That's two fights in a seven year, 20+ fight title reign, against an untested and unproven "white hope" and a slurring 38 year old Ali. Let's face it, both Cooney and Ali got those fights for reasons other than boxing merit. Would that version of Ali have beaten anyone in the top 10 or 20?

They really hadn't. At the time they fought Holmes, the Ring ratings of the ones you mentioned were Berbick (#7), Bey (#3), Smith (#9) and Snipes (#10). Another three defences against the bottom half of the top ten.

Holmes fought Berbick, yet Berbick had already been KO'd by Mercado, who in turn was KO'd by Weaver. At the same time, Weaver had beaten Tate, Coetzee, Tillis and was getting ready to fight #1 rated Dokes. Berbick had KO'd Tate, yet Tate had already been KO'd by Weaver in a title fight. Why was Holmes fighting Berbick again?

Holmes fought Spinks because Spinks KO'd Mercado, yet Weaver already KO'd Mercado and KO'd Coetzee, who KO'd Spinks. Weaver was clearly the outstanding challenger for Holmes in 80-81.

Let's not pretend that Larry had it all his own way either. Prior to Spinks he got all the breaks with officials. He could easily have dropped a split decision to Norton or a neophyte Witherspoon or been waved off against Snipes (some refs would have). Some of his cherrypicks like Weaver and Williams almost backfired spectacularly. Another of his cherrypicks, Spinks, actually did.

When did Larry ever fight two decent fighters in a row?

Your argument would only work if Norton and Shavers were the best two heavyweights in the world. They weren't. At best, Norton was the 4th best heavyweight of the 70s and never beat a top contender after Holmes. Shavers has maybe one win against a top contender, Norton. Shavers was losing to the likes of Ron Stander and Bob Stallings years before Holmes and nobody ever called them elite for beating him. At the close of 1979, the highest ranked heavies were Holmes, Tate, Coetzee and Weaver. Holmes only fought one of them, struggled like hell, and never faced the other two. I'd pick Coetzee and Weaver to beat the 79/80 versions of Norton and Shavers as well.

Sure, why fight a guy who just gave you a very tough fight and now also holds the other version of the heavyweight title.

Eh? It was nothing to do with sanctioning fees. The IBF had just been founded and they were desperate to establish themselves as a third ABC. Holmes at the time was having issues with the WBC, who wanted him to face his mandatory Page. Holmes wanted to fight Frank and Frazier instead. The IBF were so grateful for Holmes' defection they were happy to sanction fights against whoever he wanted.

According to the rankings, they were better. By record they were better. Also, Weaver lost to Jones in 1978. That's what I mean by context. He was clearly a much better fighter by 1980 when he held a world title and was beating top contenders. You might also ask why Holmes was defending against someone who had recently lost to Leroy Jones.

Coetzee defended against Page, Page defended against Tubbs, Tubbs defended against Spoon, Spoon defended against Thomas, Thomas defended against Weaver, Weaver defended against Dokes, Dokes defended against Coetzee. Fighters near the top of the division all fighting each other, so of course results will be up and down.

Imagine how much longer they could have reigned if they'd defended against Zanon, Frank, LeDoux, Cobb, Spinks, Frazier, Evangelista, Ocasio and Rodriguez instead.

It's a lot easier to look good and stay unbeaten when you're ignoring the best competition and leaving them to face each other.

 

And most important of all, Holmes was promoted by DKP who had the ability to put any fights together. No cross promotions needed to make the fights.

And if guys like Dokes/Page/Thomas and so on are all beatable, why not fight them? And nobody was clamouring for the likes of Neon Leon or Scott Frank or tons of those softie defenses.

The Holmes opponent selection of title defenses rivals Floyd Patterson.

 

Fury is a pick em. He beats the rest

 

Bloody hell, Morlocks. Five hours!! What did you have for lunch? Gerry Cooney?