Greg Page vs Mark Wills II (Video Link, Brutal one punch knockout)

Probably some money issues, and the deluded belief he could make it all the way back.

 

Here's the first Mark Wills fight. Wills floors Page HARD and Page goes back to his corner and literally begs them to stop it. He just repeats over and over ... "Stop it. Stop it. Stop it."

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I know some will never admit it, but Greg Page REALLY wasn't very good.

Mark Wills scored 9 KOs in 33 pro fights. Two of those KOs came against Greg Page.

Greg Page is 27 years old in this fight. 27 years old!

George Chaplin arguably beat Page twice on his way up. Once Page got ranked, Berbick beat him. Page got a vacant title shot and Witherspoon beat him. He lost to David Bey in an eliminator for another title shot. Then Bey wouldn't go to South Africa, so Page went and scored a KO in a round that went 4 minutes long (the knockout never should've occurred or an immediate rematch should've been mandated). Instead, Page fought Tubbs and lost to him.

For some reason, everyone got excited when Page beat Marty Monroe. But Marty Monroe wasn't anybody either, and was more like a small cruiserweight. But that excitement about Page never died down much ... even though Page kept losing to everyone of note.

The hype around Page never made any sense to me. The first time I saw him was during a Dual Meet as an amateur on ABC, I believe. They hyped Page during most of the earlier amateur bouts, then Page came on - and they were hyping him as the next Ali -- and he lost his fight.

He was NOT the top amateur when he turned pro. He turned pro in an off year because he didn't think he could make the Olympics in 1980 (the U.S. ended up boycotting them anyway).

Most of it stemmed from the fact that he was a flashy heavyweight from Louisville, and Ali's career was coming to an end, so lazy boxing writers at the time seemed to latch on to him like he was going to be the next great heavyweight.

But he was far from it.

I'd argue he wasn't even as good as Jimmy Ellis. Not by a long shot.

 

Interesting comments. I missed most of Page's career but I've always been curious. In college in the 90's I spent sometime going through the library Sports Illustrated collection. Page was mentioned in a few old issues & seemed to have a lot of respect. He was the next "big thing" so to speak. In every fight I've seen him in, he looks like a guy doing a bad Ali impression. He's got speed but no defense. He's supposedly a slick boxer but goes out & brawls with Wills. I haven't seen many of his fights but he hasn't impressed me yet. He & Tillis both seem like bad copies of Ali. Tillis has impressed me more though.

 

Page is fighting here like a 1985 version of Ali.
Remember watching this first time around all them years ago. Seems like yesterday!
I agree that Page was never that good..but it was heart breaking how he ended up.

 

Prime Page would have outboxed Wills easily.

You cannot argue that the Page who fought Wills in 86 was prime.

In the four years before fighting Wills he had fought Trevor Berbick, James Tillis, Renaldo Snipes, Tim Witherspoon, Gerrie Coetzee, Tony Tubbs and James "Buster" Douglas.

His Chronological age can be thrown out. He was used up after a long stretch of fighting most of the top heavyweights.

And the 1980 top amateurs were Marvis Frazier, James Broad, Jimmy Clark and Tony Tubbs. I know he beat Tubbs a bunch of times in the Amateurs.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Page_(boxer)#Amateur_career

From this link it appears he had a fine amateur career and won the 1978 National title .

I would surmise he turned pro early because he was seen as a top flight prospect and the Ali comparisons.

The bottom line is he won a version of the HW title against a solid Gerrie Coetzee under tough conditions in South Africa.

Yes, he was overhyped.

But he was better than you give him credit for.

It's not an all or nothing proposition.

 

I'm just blown away sometimes at the way Page delivers punches. I love Ali so I can handle guys with their hands low but Page sometimes jabs with his right hand almost behind him. He just always looks sloppy. I can see speed & I can see power but he would've benefited from mimicking Holmes rather than Ali. A more conventional style would've helped him I think because he clearly had talent.

 

For those of you saying you remember watching it live. I remember seeing a highlight of it live, it was on the Pernell Whitaker - Azumah Nelson undercard A "regular" HBO card, the fight was not broadcast on US television to my knowledge. I was able to obtain a copy back then shortly after thru one of my trading partners I acquired back in the 80's, back in the days when we all had our names and addresses posted inside of boxing magazines offering fights for sale or trade. I would love to hear how those of you who saw it live in the United States actually saw it???? Maybe you had a satellite dish that had a feed that would broadcast Eurosport. That's also the reason why the HBO commentary team seems so nonchalant, because the fight wasnt actually being aired live over here. They have a similar demeanor during Mercer vs Ferguson 1. Another fight that was not aired live on American television that I had to once again acquired through a trading partner. The old days when those trading partners were worth there weight in GOLD to me..

 

When Greg turned pro in 1978, he was the top ranked heavyweight in the country. Like Dokes, he had issues with the AAU, in part due to the potential matchup with Stevenson. When he fought Berbick, it was around the time he could have had a title shot at Weaver, if he had not left Lewis. Marty Monroe was another up and coming heavy who was making noise, and he did enough to win both Chaplin fights. When he fought Wills, he was done as an elite fighter.

 

Just to supplement here Page had his sights set on the 1980 Moscow Olympics. When they were boycotted he decided to make the jump earlier.

 

He turned pro in 1978, he has stated he had issues with how the AAU did things.

 

I've read numerous reports stating the boycott. I'm not saying you're wrong as I've read conflicting reports - one being from Page's wife. I've read lots that pointed to the boycott as well. The timelines mean he and his camp either correctly anticipated the boycott or it was never a factor.

I might try to track down the old mags and dig deeper in coming days,

 

The U.S. boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow because the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. The U.S. met with Allies, Jimmy Carter pressured the U.S. Olympic Committee, and in April 1980, they announced the U.S. was boycotting the Games.

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Greg Page turned pro in February 1979, 14 months before the U.S. boycott.

Page had already had 10 pro fights, and had already been involved in his first controversial decision win over George Chaplin in their first fight, before the U.S. announced they weren't going to the Olympics.

Greg Page DID NOT turn pro because the U.S. boycotted the Olympics.

He was well into his pro career by that point. If Bert Sugar said that, he was quite wrong.

Either that or, if Greg Page could "sense" the military moves of the Soviet Union and the political moves of the U.S. government a year before they did, he was in the wrong line of work.

 

And he went 3-4 against those seven opponents you named when he was supposedly in his prime years - age 23 to 27.

(You also left out David Bey, who also beat him during that time. Making him 3-5 against top fighters he faced during his "prime.")

When was this magical "PRIME" of Greg Page? Was it before he turned 23? Because that's when he started losing.

People act like he was an old man against Wills. He was 27. That isn't old. And he didn't exactly take on a "murderer's row" of opponents before that. He was fighting the same guys everyone else was fighting.

By comparison, Berbick beat better guys during the same period, and Berbick beat Page and Berbick never lost to anyone in those years as bad as Wills.

I'm not saying Page was terrible. But most people can watch him fight and see what he was. And it wasn't anything special. He was on the level of a guy like Berbick (if that).

Greg Page won a paper belt and held it for five months. That's what he was.

And he won that belt controversially, too (scoring a ko in the closing seconds of a round that ran four minutes long).

I've been watching boxing since the mid 70s. I never understood the Page hype. Still don't.

I know what people "wanted him to be." But he never was "that," at ANY point in his career. The films of him don't lie.

 

If Page wasn't all that, Larry would have fought him. Truth very clear.