How many title defenses can we truly credit Larry Holmes with?

Whether the opponents were iffy or not, they were still title defenses. They count. While Louis' and Ali's opponents were a bit better on average, they fought plenty of mediocre opponents too. It happens.


An interesting thing is that Mike Weaver was originally put in the Leroy Jones, Scott Frank etc folder: with a 19-8 record he was nothing more than a journeyman on paper. Sometimes records can be deceiving, see Walcott for that.

I don't think Witherspoon was expected to put up such a great and close fight either. It would be great if JohnThomas, Dinner or anyone else could come up with some (ring) articles leading up to either of these fights.


Ironic is that what was Holmes' biggest fight in terms of money, anticipation and hype (Cooney) was one of his easier fights, compared to relatively unknown ones like Witherspoon and Weaver.

 

Even if the bout with marvis frazier was non title, the ring belt was still on the line. So yeah he made 20 defences.

 

So should we discount Larry's pre-Ali defences since he wasn't the Ring champ? Or is this kind of a have-your-cake-and-eat it scenario where any title will do?

20 was always the number I heard. But when you look into the whole switch from the WBC to the IBF, by an accurate definition Larry should be credited with 19. Bit of a grey area.

 

Yeah but from late 78-late 79, there was no wba champ. He was the only titlist defending a heavyweight belt.

 

Fripo was crude but he came into the ring with a 26-2 record, hardly that of a journeyman. And Miske had a carrier record of like 73 wins and 16 losses, again hardly that of a journeyman

 

I have to say i would put Berbick above Shavers and Cooney. Berbick beat Thomas, Tate, Page and Bey, as well as giving Holmes a reasonable 15 rounds when others couldn't. Totally agree with your general jist tho.

 

Actually, Ali was WBA champion well into 1979.

 

Yup; it wasn't until Ali declared his (original) retirement in Sept 1979 that the WBA title became vacant.

Just a month later, John Tate beat Gerrie Coetzee for the vacant title. Not a gap worth speaking of.

 

How does this affect things tho? If anything Berbick improved post Holmes. Simply said i rate Berbick above both, but yes i am talking overall and with hindsight. I see what you are saying, and that is Berbick was quite an ordinary challenger coming in. I'll say he did at least beat John Tate after Weaver which gave him a little leeway as a challenger.

Yeah, we're on the same Page.

 

There's some phony 'ruling' that states a heavyweight champion cannot have non-title fights. So the Frazier one is 'legit'. Even though it was part of Larry's 'I'm ****ing Don King off..no, really' program, so he couldn't fight Super Gregory. Then, basically asked King to try and save the Coetzee fight and defended his title in King promotions vs Smith and Bey. Good old Larry, always a man of his word. :good

 

Maybe we should stop at Witherspoon (pre after Frank, after Frazier, comes Super Gregory!)