Larry Holmes...did he miss out on Greg Page and Pinklon Thomas?

Another guy he could have faced was Tony Tubbs.

 

The problem is that Holmes was not in his peak or even prime anymore.i think that since 1983 onwards he was going to lose against a few guys(that he avoided) yes or yes,these guys were going up and holmes was going down.simply law of life

 

Agreed. Page would not rate among Holmes best five wins. Witherspoon > Page

 

Yes, he milked it big time after the Witherspoon scare.

But even before '83 he had a lot of defenses against no hopers.

1978: Alfredo Evlangelista
1979: Ossie Ocasio
His whole 1980 schedule: Scott LeDoux, Leroy Jones, Lorenzo Zanon and a shot Muhamdad Ali

1981: a green Renaldo Snipes
1982: A vastly overhyped Gerry Cooney and Randall "Tex" Cobb.

1983: Lucien Rodriguez.

After the Witherspoon scare, he fought inexperienced and smallish Marvis Frazier and Scott Frank, rather than face #1 Greg Page.

Then, he missed Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tubbs and an improved Witherspoon.

The newly created IBF title was just the vehicle Holmes needed. He could claim he was the "real" champion based on never losing the WBC title, while not doing business with Don King's stable of HWs, who burnt themselves out fighting each other in competitive contests.

 

Ideally Larry should have been the undisputed champion in 1979 when Ali retired With the WBA belt. By then Larry had beat Norton, Shavers, Weaver and Ocasio (who beat Yong twice). There was no higher regarded Heavyweight than Larry Holmes in 1979. It was unnecessary to recognise anyone else once Ali retired.

I don’t understand how the WBA was given any credit at all when they created a bogus champion. And had they recognised Larry, or at least allowed him to fight for their vacant strap, and he had won it, we would really know who Larry was ducking or not. As it turned out none of them could dominate apart from Larry.

Not only would Larry have been forced to fight the best but the contenders themselves would have been forced to fight eliminations too. It would have meant his contenders would be tied up with him instead of each other..

Half those guys who wound up alternative champions to Larry (if they hadn’t already failed challenging him) had but one good win going for them. Tubbs, Dokes, Tate, Thomas...Coetzee just kept getting chances until he could beat one bad enough. Page too. Take the belt away and they were fighting for the #1 contender spot. Number one contenders frequently lose fights before challenging a champion or at least had to beat contenders in eliminations.

A lot of top contenders are only good enough to become #contender. They cannot defend that position more than once. And so it turned out with most of those guys when they got a belt for that position.

 

I agree he was going down. I just didn't c anyone out there that could take him yet. Thomas and Dokes couldn't out jab him. Page I just never had a high opinion of.

 

The WBC started the mess by stripping the linear Champ Spinks. Then Ali retired as WBA Champion after beating Spinks in the rematch. Where the WBA dropped the ball was in setting up a bogus tournament to name the successor to Ali as WBA champ. Yes, Holmes was the best HW, but he had won a bogus WBC title taken from the linear champ. Then, Tate won a vacant WBA title. You could say both titlists had won their "titles" in a bogus way.

 

Irrelevant

Holmes was supposed to fight Page in '83 and skipped out. Page lost to Witherspoon in the interim before he fought Bey.

Page didn't have to beat Bey to legitimately earn a fight against Holmes. He had already earned that right when he defeated Snipes in May '83 on the Holmes/Witherspoon undercard.

It doesn't matter that Holmes beat Bey after Bey beat Page.

Holmes fought novice Marvis Frazier and clubfighter Scott Frank instead of fighting the #1 mandatory contender Greg Page.

Holmes was stripped in late '83 so Holmes/Page would have not occurred as late as March '84. It would have happened at the end of '83.

But, say Holmes keeps the WBC title and agrees to fight a Page, who has not yet lost to Witherspoon and Bey.

Page would have been highly motivated.

If he comes in the same shape as he did for Snipes - 227 lbs it's a pickem fight with Holmes. If he comes in at 239 lbs like he did against Witherspoon, Holmes wins by UD.

Thomas would have decisioned Holmes in late '84. Thomas was peaking.

You can't use the '86 Thomas who lost to Berbick as a barometer. That Thomas looked suddenly faded from the '84 version that beat Witherspoon.

 

It's just clear as day that Holmes was cherry picking from 83 onwards. Don't see why that is so hard for some here to admit.

 

Funny thing is when he fought Michael Spink in Spinks 1st ever heavyweight fight he lost & Spinks was thought to be the weaker challenge and unproven as a heavyweight. Whether it was King or Holmes, Holmes took on the weaker challenges & never rematched a disputed or tough fight.

When Coetzee got robbed dropping the 22 fight Snipes 2X Holmes fought Snipes not Coetzee & almost got KO'd by a right hand bomb. Page, Thomas,Weaver rematch, Dokes, or a one dimentional right hand bomber Coetzee would have been interesting fights for the fans who wanted to see Holmes unify.

Big John Tate was even thought of a the better fighter at the time before he was Ko'd in the 15th round by an improving confidenced Weaver (who needed a KO to win)

Holmes started out being my favorite of the group but I got fustrated with the avoidences and ovious navagation around anyone who may be a threat. Bottom line Holmes did not "Be all you can Be"

 

Yes. I have scored it twice. Holmes won it 115-113 in my opinion. Witherpsoon did not do enough. though he did make a nice showing.

• Judge: [url]Chuck Minker[/url] 115-113

• Judge: [url]Chuck Hassett[/url] 118-111

• Judge: [url]Herb Santos[/url] 114-115

• Unofficial AP scorecard: 115-113 Holmes
• Unofficial KO Magazine scorecard: 114-114

I think what you're not fully understanding is the politics of the time. You had to live through the times watching boxing. Witherspoon had major promotional issues with Don King, who froze him out. King also shortchanged Holmes making a title match with any of King's fighters problematic.

Holmes though not educated past middle school was not a financial fool and learned how King operated over time. To paraphrase Holmes, King has all that hair to hide the horns.

Not all the matches fans wanted to see could be made.

 

Spinks was a novice champion and an ex champion by the time Coetzee beat him. I don’t get why the WBA decided Coetzee and Tate were more worthy than what Larry Holmes had done by 1979?

Outside Muhammad in 1978 the next most important heavyweights were Norton, Young and Shavers in that order. Larry beat Shavers then Norton then Ocasio who had twice beat young. When Shavers blasted Norton in one round Larry even fought Shavers again. By 1979 Holmes cleaned out what was there. All of them but Ali. So Ali retired.

The WBA had stood by Spinks when the WBC stripped him for rematchibg Ali. Did they actually think after Ali beat Spinks for the WBA title (and retired without defending it) the next guy to beat Leon was ahead of what Larry was doing?

And once they decided on Coetzee for a vacant title, where did they get Tate from? Who had he beaten in the top Four or five? It wasn’t Ocasio, it wasn’t Shavers, it wasn’t Norton. So why select him?

At the end of the day what the WBA created was a belt that represented nothing to do with the Worlds best. Off the back of a KO loss to Holmes a guy became their new champion when he beat Tate. That was Weaver. In fact apart from other guys Larry beat (Witherspoon, Smith) their next few champions were just contenders with barely one name opponent in their win column. They could not beat two live guys in a row. Coetzee kept getting shots at them until he could beat one of them.

Larry was the only world class guy who could beat live opponents.

The WBC threatened to strip Larry if he fought Coetzee in a unification so he left them. And then the fight fell through anyway.

Perhaps the big money from the Ali and Cooney fight gave Holmes ideas of grandeur. He decided what fights were worth the risk but the governing bodies were what caused that situation. If they worked together Larry as an undisputed champ would have had no other choice but to always fight the best contenders. But with each champion having mandatory fights and both governing bodies happy to earn from separate sanctioning fees it could never happen. They did not want that.

Apart from selecting Micheal Spinks over Pinklon Thomas I can’t really think Larry did much wrong. He did take lesser fights in order to stay busy when bigger fights either fell through or were impossible to make because the other champion lost his next fight.

 

The WBC and WBA situation when Ali lost to Spinks was, more than anything else, a battle between Don King and Bob Arum for promotional control of the title.

When Ali was champ, Herbert Muhammad made sure to not sign Ali to any promoter. So King would promote a couple of Ali fights, then Arum would promote some, and neither promoter could lock down the champ when that heavyweight title was considered the biggest prize.

King had a foothold in the WBC and their ratings. Arum had done the same with the WBA.

The WBC ratings at the start of 1978 were:
1. Norton
2. Young
3. Lyle
4. Shavers
5. Foreman (after the loss to Young)
6. Holmes (I believe, he may have been ranked seventh)

And King promoted all of them.

At the end of 1977, Norton and Young had fought to a 15-round split decision. Shavers had lost to Ali. (Shavers had also previously been KOed by Lyle.) And Lyle was coming off a win over Joe Bugner ... which Joe said was the worst beating he ever took in the ring. Foreman had lost to Young and said he was retired, but nobody knew for sure.

Holmes was basically unknown. He'd lost to Duane Bobick in the 1972 Olympic Trials. He was more known as a top sparring partner for guys like Ali, Shavers and Frazier. Holmes really wasn't on anyone's radar.

At the end of 1977, Don King announced Ron Lyle would fight Larry Holmes in March 1978 on ABC. It was supposed to be a showcase for Lyle. But then Lyle murdered a guy on New Year's Eve and was arrested on Jan. 1 1978. So the Lyle-Holmes fight was called off and King said Shavers would replace Lyle. Holmes was supposed to be a relatively easy win for Shavers coming off the Ali fight. (Shavers used to pay Holmes to spar with him.)

Then Leon upset Ali in a great fight in February 1978. Arum's Top Rank promoted Leon. With Ali out of the power seat, King pushed the WBC to force Leon to fight Norton. Arum wanted Leon to fight Ali again, because they'd make more money (and Arum would be the promoter). Leon chose Ali, and the WBC awarded the title to Norton.

Meanwhile, Larry won an upset shutout decision over Shavers, and King decided to stage a card featuring Norton-Holmes and Young against the totally unknown novice Ocasio ... two easy wins for Norton and Young ... to set up a return bout between Norton and Young.

Then Ocasio upset Young and Holmes upset Norton.

So you basically had a situation where the year started with Ali as champ and there were a handful of household name challengers - Norton, Young, Lyle, Shavers and Foreman ... and in a matter of a couple months ... the champ and the entire WBC top five had either lost or were out of the picture (Lyle).

Then Holmes finished 1978 defeating Evangelista in a title defense.

So the main reason Holmes wasn't WILDLY EMBRACED was he was basically nobody when the year started, and people still weren't sure yet if Shavers and Norton just weren't that good anymore (and Holmes just had been at the right place at the right time) or if Holmes was actually good. Holmes had never lit the world on fire before 1978, that's for sure.

It didn't help that Ali (the most well-known human on the planet) had regained the WBA title before the year closed out.

Getting back to Leon, Leon was considered better than Holmes after Leon beat Ali. It was a brilliant fight (Spinks-Ali I). It was the Fight of the Year. I think the 15th round was the Round of the Year. Leon was considered the "WORLD" champ.

When Leon lost the return to Ali, his image took a hit. But when Arum announced there would be a WBA tournament in 1979 to crown Ali's successor, Arum stocked it with guys he promoted because King had control of the WBC title.

Holmes was the WBC champ and promoted by King, so he wasn't included. Shavers was rated highly in the WBA, but he was promoted by King, so he wasn't included. Shavers wanted to avenge his loss to Holmes anyway, so it didn't matter to him.

Instead, Leon was included (being he was the last unified champ). Kallie Knoetze (who Arum had signed) was rated #1 by the WBA for stopping the once-beaten Duane Bobick (still rated highly by everyone at the time). Gerrie Coetzee (who Arum also signed) was included because he had a win over Knoetze and he had recently beaten Randy Stephens (who was a top prospect when he turned pro - Stephens had wins over Holmes in the amateurs and, like Holmes, had also lost to Bobick in the Trials).

Tate qualified because Bobick had gotten back in contention after losing to Norton and Knoetze, and Tate beat Bobick in the first round in early 1979. (Had Bobick beaten Tate, Bobick would've gotten in the tournament).

Top Rank promoted Spinks, Coetzee, Knoetze, Bobick and Tate ... so that's where the pool of fighters came from.

And when Coetzee destroyed Spinks in a round, you could make an argument that Coetzee's win was more impressive than anything Holmes had done to date. Leon Spinks was still very highly regarded for beating Ali. Holmes had gone 15 hard rounds with Norton. Coetzee finished Leon inside three minutes.

In fact, you sort of had a Deontay Wilder-Anthony Joshua situation going on where fights like Holmes-Ocasio and Holmes-Shavers were being held in Vegas ballrooms and drawing like 3,000 people and Coetzee-Tate was drawing 80,000 fans in South Africa.

So Holmes wasn't some hugely popular or highly respected guy. He was pretty much disrespected and overlooked for the first four years or so of his reign. (Like Wilder - but that's another story. LOL)

Long story short, had Ali fought John Tate in 1980 like he was supposed to and lost to Tate, Larry Holmes would probably be viewed in the same regard as Jimmy Ellis (a former Ali sparring partner who won a paper title).

And John Tate and the WBA title would've been the heavyweight lineage people followed.

Mike Weaver's left hook with 45 seconds left against Tate did more to SAVE Holmes than anything. Because I doubt Ali would've beaten Tate had they fought as scheduled.

And Tate would've had a clear win over the dangerous Coetzee, and a lopsided win over Weaver, who had given Holmes a hell, and then Tate would've beaten Ali. And Arum would've had no interest in letting King back in the picture by offering Holmes a unification.

 

Awesome post. I learned a few things - all the highlighted parts.

The WBC should have never stripped Spinks.

The title would be splintered for over NINE years.