How good/bad were Holmes's title challengers?

LOL

The thread about Holmes cherry picking has just moved over here

Nobody is going to change anyone's mind.

 

I am...

Holmes beat Ossie Ocasio who beat Jimmy young who beat George Foreman who beat Joe Frazier who beat a prime Ali... CONCLUSION: Holmes' competition was awesome..

 

No way was he beating Dokes or Page, even Coetzee and Weaver had a shot at breaking Gerry in half.

 

Why would you favor those guys over C00ney with such certainty?

 

Coetzee had experience, and a powerful right hand.Page had the high skillset and durability, plus the knowledge which he stated in an interview with SI, of dealing with Gerry. Dokes, while not as skilled as Page, had decent enough skillset and that toughness to deal with Gerry. Of course, Weaver had the experience, and that left hook of his own to deal with ****ey.

 

They all might have beaten him and they all might have lost to him.. I suspect if he faced all four you'd get mixed results.. None of those guys ( including C00ney ) were standouts in terms of talent or ability. Gerry had his limitations but it took a prime Holmes to expose them and even for Larry it wasn't an easy task. C00ney had as much punching power as anyone you can think of, along with great size, decent jab, killer hook to the body, etc... Sure he was beatable but practically every guy you listed was either exposed by lesser men or had glaring flaws that Gerry could have capitalized on.

 

Possibly, but there was no guarantee that ****ey was going to do damage to them, hence Rappaport and Jones not taking on contemporaries.

 

This is incorrect. C00ney was Mike Weaver's #1 contender for the WBA title in 1981. Bob Arum talked the WBA into allowing Weaver to fight #4 ranked Tillis instead.. He went to such great lengths to get his man out of fighting a mandatory and one who would have made him a hell of a lot more money than Quick Tillis would have.. But I'm not surprised either. Weaver for all his strengths was a slow starter who often fell behind early.. That and he would have been 6'1" 200 lbs going in against a 6'7", 225 lb destroyer who did all his best work early.. I think Arum was protecting the best horse in his stable.

 

Maybe, but if Mike caught Gerry, could he take it? A real big if.

 

This is well documented. Unbelievably the WBA told Weaver if he defended against his #1 contender C00ney, rather than #4 Tillis, they would strip him!!

The phoney story was that Tillis, the current #4 WBA contender had been #1 for a short moment in time whilst Weaver was inactive and at that time the WBA decided that weaver must first fight Tillis once able to return to the ring. Once weaver was able to fight again by this time C00ney had totally eclipsed Tillis and was now #1 instead.

They, the WBA, actually forced Weaver away from a mega money fight!!!

 

Indeed.. Though I remember reading that Bob Arum who was promoting and handling Weaver pled a case with WBA to make that exception to fight Tillis... Not sure if this is true or if its been distorted over time... But if that's the case then Arum was protecting Weaver.

 

anytime two big punchers are in there trading leather they're both at high risk for getting knocked out, hurt, etc.. So yes.. Mike Weaver could have KO'd Gerry C00ney.. Is it something I'd personally bet on? Not sure that I would.

 

Weaver-Tillis was an Arum machination. Arum didn't control C**ney but he had Tillis signed to a title fight. The WBA therefore decreed that Weaver had to fight Tillis (ranked #3) ahead of C**ney (ranked #1), using the absurd logic that when Weaver's mandatory was due in March '81 Tillis was the highest ranked available contender (C**ney was not available as he was signed to meet Norton). When Weaver's manager countered that Coetzee was the highest available contender when Weaver faced him in October '80 and therefore that should count as Weaver's mandatory defence, he was told that Coetzee (WBA #2 at the time) was an optional defence and not #1, and thus couldn't be a mandatory!

 

Just read somewhere that if Weaver got stripped, Page and Tillis would've fought for the vacant belt.