When it all comes down to it, Mike Weaver was the better career fighter when sized up to the rest of the field, as proven by who he fought and when he fought them.. But head to head, a man like Gerry C could be a problem. Gerry was a fast starter, where as Mike took several rounds to warm up.. In addition, the man had tremendous power and a noticeable size advantage over Hercules..The controversial stoppage in the first Dokes meeting was probably premature.. But regardless, Dokes had him in quite a bit of trouble.. Swap out Dokes for Gerry and its very conceivable that Weaver would have been KO'd.
Weaver by late stoppage. Come on....Weaver knocked out Coetzee in South Africa who was better than ****ey. If King is involved and really doesn't want Weaver to win..maybe ****ey can rock Weaver and the ref will immediately wave it off. :think
Interesting how C00ney was the WBA's #1 contender for Weaver's title, and Bob Arum managed to talk the organization into having Mike fight #4 rated Tillis instead of the mandatory who incidentally would have made probably three times the money.
Arum Business, nothing to do with Weaver being scared of Cney. "In September 1981 Weaver had decided to fight New York heavyweight Gerry ****ey, the WBA's number-one contenderfor the championship. Under the association's rules a champion must defend against the number-one contender during a specified time period. Arum did not control ****ey. He did control James 'Quick' Tillis, the number-three contender for the title. At a WBA executive meeting Arum argued that Weaver should fight Tillis instead of ****ey. Weaver's lawyer was present at the meeting but was not allowed to speak. The WBA ordered Weaver to fight Tillis or be stripped of his title." - page 128 & 129 of Stephen Brunt's 'Mean Business' You even said this: "The fight was never going to happen. By the time Weaver - Tillis came off, ****ey's people were already aiming at much larger sites with the Holmes fight, which would make ****ey a purse of $10,000,000. No way would he have ever made that kind of money fighting Weaver. Additionally, Weaver would lose 1 year of his career in between the Tillis and Dokes fights due to an injury of some sort I believe. He was basically out of the picture for most of 1982. "
yeah I've already read this before thanks. It wasn't Weaver who I was implying that was ducking Gerry C. But Arum keeping the best horse in his stable away from him.. And from the looks of how it all went down that's exactly what he was doing. Gerry was the #1 contender and would have brought more money to the table than Quick Tillis did..
I'd give ****ey a very good shot of icing Weaver early. ****ey up to the point he took on Holmes and even after to an extent was a force to be reckoned with. I feel he could've had a much better career had things gone differently.
Agreed, If Mike lingered around until about the 9th round or beyond then his chances of winning would increase exponentially. But a slow starter with an average chin vs a much larger puncher who does his best work within the first five rounds is a bad match. That's not to say that C00ney won't get tagged, rocked, etc, but I don't think he's going down with one left hook from weaver, and I'm not confident that Mike can enough off within the first five rounds to make Gerry fold that way that Holmes eventually did.
I don't see it. Tate and Coetzee could be fast starters as well. Tate destroyed Bobick and Mercado early. Had 8 career 1st round knockouts..about same as ****ey. Coetzee had just destroyed Spinks in 1 and proved to be a superior fighter to ****ey, scoring a big knockout win over Dokes, dropped Snipes early and was robbed of a decision, and boxed Thomas to a draw while past his best.
I don't think Tate and Coetzee were as devastating in the early rounds as C00ney was. Sure both men demonstrated that they could dispatch a man early but then again nearly every heavyweight has at some point in his career, and the men you listed weren't particularly known for durability.. Hell an aged Ken Norton dispatched Bobick in what? 30 seconds? Not exactly a unique feat.. On the flip side, how many can claim to having battered Jimmy young to submission so early? Sure he was past it, but it never happened again despite his career continuing for almost another decade.. Undefeated Phil Brown was stopped by Gerry in 4 rounds then went 10 with Bruno in his next fight.. Get my drift? While Weaver was probably shafted in that premature stoppage against Dokes, there's no denying that he was in trouble and that was against a man who at that point in his career was more of a boxer than a slugger.. If this were an argument about who was "better" overall, then I'd side with you on Weaver. But the chemistry doesn't make for a head to head match with C00ney in his favor.. The size difference alone calls many things into question as a prime C00ney was 6'7", 225 lbs while Weaver was like 6'1", 200 or something like that. Mike's only chance is to linger around until the latter half of the fight where he MIGHT be able to gain control as C00ney fades.. But that's assuming he can weather a very nasty storm early and that he's not too battered to capitalize on his chances when or if they finally come..
Correct. He was a force until things went south. This is why it's annoying when I read about when ****ey fought Spinks years later while hungover from alcohol and cocaine. Gerry did eventually clean himself up but ran into George Foreman and that's another story altogether.
The Foreman and Spinks defeats really shouldn't be factored into head to head match ups. C00ney was a semi retired fighter for both of these bouts and living a lifestyle that wasn't conducive to staying in the game. He was basically finished after about 1984.
The Weaver that beat Tate and Coetzee would beat ****ey, probably KO him. He was simply a better fighter. I don't think ****ey would be all that aggressive against a strong fighter he knew could hurt him. He would be more tentative and eventually Weaver would hurt him and stop him. I just don't give ****ey that much credit for his big KO's over Norton, Lyle and Young. He knew they were all over-the-hill and he had no fear or respect for them so he just waded in punching. I don't think his chin was that good and he didn't really have the heart for boxing. He was kind of a head case. The Weaver that won the title was a lot different than the one that was beaten and stopped early in his career. I just don't see ****ey beating him.
Another thing that I don't think has been factored so far on this thread is the issue of ****ey's self confidence (or lack of it, more to the point). It's one thing having the confidence to go out fast against the washed up Lyle & Norton, who let's face it, had both shown massive signs of decline in the year or two before they met ****ey; it's another thing to have the confidence to start fast against the very lively Weaver, whose recent form had been a sterling effort against Holmes & knockouts of the very highly rated Tate & Coetzee. ****ey would know that there would be a lot more danger coming back from Weaver than Lyle or Norton...and I am not sure that ****ey had that deep-rooted self confidence at top level. I think ****ey had a lot of self doubt.
I agree, I don't know about you but personally I feel I'd probably have favored ****ey against any other heavyweight in the world at the time he faced Holmes (aside from Holmes). I don't think Greg Page or Dokes would be able to box well enough or consistent enough to keep him off and I think ****ey could find them with the jab and set up his power shots off of it and bust them up. Coetzee perhaps could get through with his right hand and hurt ****ey but I'd expect ****ey to over power him. Witherspoon I'd give a solid chance at beating ****ey but he came along after ****ey fought Holmes same goes for Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tubbs and Tucker. Aside from that I wouldn't give to many of the other heavyweights around at the time much more then a punchers chance.