How good/bad were Holmes's title challengers?

I think you are incorrect. Spinks was Ring Magazine #3 contender.

Seeing as until about 1984 it was impossible to unify titles because of governing bodies mandatory demands and the belt holders inability to win, belt holders inactivity, rematches etc this indicates Larry did the best he could. Take into account many of the #1, #2 contenders at any particular time were former victims of Holmes.

I found this on another thread posted by sweetscience.


Regarding the ranking of Holmes' title opponents, here's something I posted in 2008:

Here's a look at Larry Holmes' opponents' Ring's Ratings from the "period ending" issue immediately before his defenses:

Evangelista (6)
Ocasio (5)
Weaver (eight)
Shavers (3)
Zanon (7)
Jones (6)

For these six fights Holmes was listed as Number 1 contender, first under Ali, then under "Title Vacant". After Weaver beat Tate, Holmes was given status as Champion as he'd already beaten new WBA champ Weaver.

LeDoux (10)
Ali (5)
Berbick (7)
Spinks (3)
Snipes (10)
****ey (3)
Cobb (9)
Rodriguez (unranked)
Witherspoon (10)
Frank (unranked)
Frazier (10)
Smith (9)
Bey (3)
Williams (12)
Spinks (Lt. Heavy champ)

 

Sometimes you have to be careful of where a guy was rated when they fought the champion. Holmes as an older man fought plenty of young up and comers who obviously were rated higher as their career progressed.

See Witherspoon, Smith, and Weaver.

 

All challengers gave it their "best shot" in their first title fight. Look at Ali, he wasn't that experienced when he fought Liston and even though he improved as he matured, I dont think he could have improved on that result.

A title fight, the first one, when ever it comes, represents a pinnacle. It brings the best out of a fighter. If it's there, it comes out.

As it turned out, was Witherspoon ever better or fitter than he was versus Larry?

 

Then why didn't he fight them when they were more experienced and rated higher? We can't pretend that Holmes knew Spoon or Weaver would go on to win a title and be ranked one of the best in the division. When they got to that position, Holmes showed little interest in meeting them. Too busy fighting another guy ranked #9 or #10...

Michael Spinks.

It wasn't impossible. Holmes' contemporaries in the lower divisions like Duran, Spinks, Leonard, Curry etc unified their divisions. Hagler was a unified champ throughout Holmes' reign. There were heavyweight unifications before and after Holmes.

 

Sometimes you have to be careful of where a guy was rated when they fought the champion. Holmes as an older man fought plenty of young up and comers who obviously were rated higher as their career progressed.

See Witherspoon, Smith, and Weaver.

Or he fought David Bey, then ranked #3, ( by beating Page ) who was not as good or dangerous. There was a lot of politics back then, and Holmes had already beaten Witherspoon and Weaver.

He did give Weaver a 2nd crack by the way.

Like I said give it a few years and he'll have three wins over men who are in the hall of fame, along with several other opponents who were in the top ten when he fought them. His competition is neither great or poor. It's above average I'd say by the standard of Tenured champions....better than Jack Johnson or Jack Dempsey if you want the truth, who were capped by lesser fighters on the way up.

I don't give Holmes full credit for beating Ali, but I do think he 100% owned him. Far much more so than Berbick or Leon Spinks. Ali got into shape for this match. He acted like an @ss in the ring. Holmes didn't want to beat him up badly, but had the justification to do so.

According to Holmes-Ali kicked him out of his camp in the mid 70's because Holmes was too fast for him.

 

Leon Spinks was #3 with Ring Magazine.

The lower divisions had better class of representation within the belt holders, they were able to unify because there was two good champions who could actually win fights at world level. Heavyweights never had that during the Larry Holmes era.

Terrell was defending and so was Ellis. The public were at least aware of a rivalry.

When it did happen in lower classes those guys won their mandatory fights and were able to set up unifications. The public bought that both guys were equals. Money made those fights.

But it was not all of the time. Mostly it was pretty impossible down the weights too. It was not the norm.

Pedroza was a belt holder almost an identical time as Larry Holmes, where was his unification fight?

Did Nelson get McGuigan?

The light heavyweights were split for years too. John conteh was unable to acquire unification fights. The list goes on..

 

I never said otherwise. Michael wasn't ranked as a heavyweight when he fought Holmes.

Because one champ mostly defended against novice heavies and no hopers leaving all the best fighters to fight each other. Hence so few defences against men in the Ring's top 5. He simply wasn't interested in fighting these guys, and was quite open about looking for easy fights.

How many members of the public do you think were aware of Lorenzo Zanon or Scott Frank? Did the public buy that they were Holmes' equals? Do you think the public would have preferred to see Holmes unify the title against highly regarded Mike Weaver/Michael Dokes or defend against Tex Cobb and Lucien Rodriguez?

Pointing to examples of unifications not happening doesn't prove anything. You said they were impossible. Not true. Unifications could and did happen when the money was there and the will was there from both parties to make them.

That last point is key because only once in seven years did Holmes show any interest in meeting one of his co-champs, after five years of ignoring them. When the Coetzee fight fell through, he went back to ignoring them again. Otherwise why not pursue unifications with his co-champs Thomas, Dokes or Tubbs? Was there greater public demand for him to face Bonecrusher, Bey and Williams?

 

Sorry but this is utter rubbish. There are MYRIADS of examples of fighters being a bit green in their initial shot and being FAR better and more effective fighters later.

Totally agree enthusiasm goes a long way but to empirically say it's their pinnicle is crazy. For some it may be, for many it won't be.

I'll grant you Witherspoon was superb against Holmes but he is a case of someone who did not overly improve as a fighter. He stagnated. Laziness, drugs, poor guidance, politics, whatever. Page, Dokes, Witherspoon, all fine examples of wasted talent and fighters who just did not delevop past a certain point. Inconsistent performances abound.

 

Yes, that's true. Sorry. And when we remove him from these errant lists, we see that Larry's record of defenses looks even weaker.

 

which of Holmes's challengers looked far better, more effective fighters later?

 

the best fighter was Larry Holmes. He beat Norton, Shavers, Weaver, Berbick, Snipes, Spinks, Ali, C00ney,Witherspoon, bonecrusher, Bey and Williams. The fighters Larry did not fight (because of political or promotional difficulties) were no better than that bunch at any time.

Here is a typical top ten from Ring magazine during Larry's reign.

World Champion:
Larry Holmes
1. Mike Weaver
2. Michael Dokes
3. Gerry ****ey
4. Greg Page
5. Gerrie Coetzee
6. Trevor Berbick
7. James ‘Quick’ Tillis
8. Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb
9. Tim Witherspoon
10. Renaldo Snipes

As you can see Larry has beat the #1,#3, #6,#8,#9,#10 already. Now. You are going to say "the burning question is why didn't he take the #2 or #4?" Well, Michael Dokes was tied to a Weaver rematch. Gerrie Coetzee was preserved as #1 WBA contender for so much of his time as a contender that he was almost always linked to an up coming fight with that champion. Page? When Greg was losing to Berbick Larry was beating higher rated C00ney. After that point Larry was signed to meet WBA champion Coetzee.

The Zannon fight was made when Tate and Coetzee fought each other right after Larry beat his own #1 Shavers. It was not Larrys fault the WBA ludicrously selected Tate (over Larry) in a meeting for their recognition in a vacant title fight. This meant Tate and Coetzee were occupied when Larry was going to defend. As it was, Zannon was rated. Interestingly right after the Larry v Zannon fight Tate lost to Weaver, the guy Larry beat in a warm up to his fight with Shavers! Is this an excuse? No that's how it was.

Frank? Larry took Frank the same month Coetzee and Dokes fought each other. Larry wanted to fight the winner of that fight and even signed to do so. Is that an excuse? No. That's how it really was.

The public would prefer Larry versus Dokes or a rematch with Weaver of course they would. I agree with you there. But what can Larry do when Weaver was inactive for a year and was forced to take fights with Coetzee and Tillis? When was Larry going to fight Dokes? As soon as he beat Weaver they had an . Automatic rematch with the winner forced to fight Coetzee next!

it proves unifications were not happening. Are you as cross with Pedroza as you are with Larry?

Holmes v Coetzee proved impossible to make. It fell through three times and kept them out of the ring for 11 months.

like I say with the best will in the world the political and promotional situation was horrible.

by the time the Coetzee fight fell through the WBC title changed hands again! Both the new WBC holder Thomas and WBA holder Coetzee accepted they needed to establish themselves and were (quite rightly) both calling Holmes the real champion. with the Holmes v Coetzee fight falling through Coetzee did not select the next best contender (or a unification) and still lost. Larry took a stay busy fight with bonecrusher until he could take on the next best fighter, which he did. Larry took on Bey, Who was actually the outstanding challenger to Coetzee and Page once he beat Coetzee. This left Page and Thomas (no talk of unification between those two) with lesser challengers to face. Page took on #8 Tony Tubbs but that's who he fought and lost to. Thomas took #6 Weaver who had been a knocked out disqualification winner in his last fight. New champion Tubbs was only a 20-0 kid who had been unable to stop bonecrusher like Larry had been.

 

Choklab, about two week ago you spend 20 pages saying this same stuff, are you really prepared to do the exact same convo again?

 

Well it's not quite the same. This time, in defence of unifications, I'm reminded of the "Pedroza factor".:good

 

I think ****ey is a very underrated win. I look at this fight the same way I look at the Hagler-Mugabi fight: ****ey was broken by Holmes and was never the same after he found out that he could lose. Gerry was a monster before that and would probably have beaten any other fighter at that time.

 

Hardly any of them were considered the best in the division when Holmes fought them. Bringing up Ali in particular is ridiculous. I doubt the 1980 version of Ali could have beaten anyone in the top 20.

He beat #1 when #1 was ranked #8 and the fight was considered such a mismatch the three major networks refused to buy it. Why not fight #1 when he was actually #1? That leaves three of the top 5 that he never faced. You'll argue that there were insurmountable obstacles that somehow prevented Holmes fighting almost anyone in the top 5, yet it didn't stop them facing each other.

You argued that there had to be public demand for the fight and a belief that the fighters were evenly matched before Holmes could face Page, Dokes etc. Zanon and co are proof that most of Holmes' challengers didn't have to pass that particular test.

It's just a long list of excuses when it comes to Holmes. He couldn't fight X because of this and couldn't unify with Y because of that. One or two might be plausible, but not seven years' worth. So while Dokes the Ring's #1 fought Coetzee the Ring's #3, Holmes fought a guy who didn't make their top ten. Sorry but that hardly reflects well on Holmes. If Dokes and Coetzee were not available, why not rematch with Spoon or fight the WBC's #1 Page? But of course those fights were out of the question too...

Why not get in before Weaver and tackle the highly rated Dokes instead of the limited Tex Cobb? After C**ney, Dokes was Holmes' #1 too. Did Dokes only have eyes for Weaver? Was it not possible to nip in and challenge Dokes before he faced Coetzee? You're arguing that these guys weren't available to face Holmes because they were fighting each other, but of course they were going to look for other fights if a Holmes fight wasn't on the table.

Unifications did happen. The light-heavy, middleweight and welterweight divisions were all unified while Holmes around. Like I said there had to be interest from both sides, and from Holmes' side there was little to no interest in unifying with anyone besides Coetzee. As it happens, shortly before he died Sanchez said he had no interest in meeting Pedroza because he didn't rate the WBA, so that was one possible unification off the table.

Not because of the ABCs though. The fight didn't happen because the money fell through at the eleventh hour.

If Witherspoon had defended against Scott Frank instead of Pinklon Thomas, do you think the belt would have changed hands?

After being inactive the whole of 84, Coetzee had to make a mandatory defence before the end of the year. Page, as it happened, was the highest ranked available challenger. Was Bonecrusher the highest ranked available contender? Since he didn't even make the IBF's top ten, I suspect not.

Let's not forget Larry's other intended stay busy fight against John Tate. You've argued continually that Tate wasn't much good in 79-80, so what the heck was Holmes doing trying to fight him in 84? Actually Bey wasn't the outstanding challenger to Holmes or Coetzee. He wasn't ranked higher than third by the Ring, WBA or IBF.

Thomas took on a highly ranked former champ who had given Holmes hell. A month earlier Holmes fought the unranked novice Carl Williams.

You must be the only person on the planet who thinks being punched from behind well after the bell has sounded is a legitimate knockout.

Bonecrusher vs Tubbs was a ten rounder. Bonecrusher went ten rounds with Holmes too.