Scott Ledoux's title shot at Larry Holmes

At the time, Scott Ledoux was promoted by Harold Smith, the guy who embezzled all the money from Wells Fargo Bank. Smith was like the Al Haymon of his day. He was trying to sign up everyone. And he managed to ink Ledoux, Norton, Shavers, Marty Monroe, Matthew Saad Muhammad, Tommy Hearns, Aaron Pryor, Leo Randolph ... and all the amateur guys like Tony Tubbs and Tony Tucker.

Ledoux had fought Ron Lyle and Norton, who were both still in the top 10. Many thought Ledoux won the Lyle fight and was about to KO Norton when that fight ended. So they put him in with Weaver, another top 10 guy, and he lost. Then he was supposed to fight a rematch with Lyle, but that fight fell through and Smith put him in with Monroe.

Then Smith went to Larry Holmes, and offered Holmes a ton of money to fight Ledoux. Don King told Holmes to take it, as long as it was just for one fight, because it was more than King thought the fight was worth. But when Smith got there, Holmes found out that Smith really wanted to promote Holmes-Ledoux because he was trying to get Holmes to sign to fight Ali. Smith also ran Ali's promotion company MAPS. Smith wanted to promote Ali-Holmes.

So Holmes agreed to fight Ledoux, but then Smith had trouble getting the money Holmes wanted in advance. And when it got to be close to the fight, King took over the promotion of that fight. And that's when Smith's empire started to crumble. He still kept it going for a while, but within six months, Smith was on the run.

But the Ledoux-Holmes fight was more about Smith wanting to give Holmes a lot of money to fight someone Smith promoted ... to get on Holmes' good side ... so Smith could sign Holmes.

 

Ledoux was a tough guy , not afraid of anyone and far better than a Chuck Wepner type ... he fought competitive with an older Lyle, and older Norton and was pretty gsme against maybe the best Mike Weaver .. how he lost to Duane Bobick I'll never know and wished I saw tape of it .. Foreman absolutely destroyed him despite a game few rounds .. any doubting Foreman's power needs to see that fight as he flattens a pretty iron chinned Ledoux ...

Holmes was in his absolute prime in 1980 and was pretty exceptional in dicing Ledoux like a sparring partner ..

 

Great post

Yeah, Smith being unable to come with the money and the promotion falling apart should have been a red flag to the managers of the other fighters Smith had signed that somethng was not right.

I can see why Holmes took the fight - big money, little risk.

That was Larry's MO.

As for Haymon, how did he get so much money that he entered promoting with a running start?

I know he worked with Mayweather. He must have got a big chunk of some of Mayweather's huge purses.

 

Yeah, kudos to Johnson. But, his management wasn't too smart. Franklin was not a mandatory defense. I am unsure about Mustafa.

Conversely, Mike Rossman, after beating Galindez, fought his first defense against a very mediocre Italian.

Rossman was not as good as Johnson, but had proper pigmentation (I am white, but I'll be the first to admit it helps out in Boxing) and had good management.

 

I hope their is no one on this forum that denies Foremans power.

I watched his bout with LeDoux live. That inside uppercut was an awesome punch. Nearly decapitated Scott.

 

Ali fought quality opposition in his second reign even though it was clear post Frazier III he was losing his skills pretty fast.

He fought Norton, Young and Shavers in 76-77

Yeah, he looked ****py, but at least he fought these tough fighters.

Sure, he threw in a coulpe of easy fights against Evangelista and Dunn.

Conversely, after Holmes edged Norton, and still or not even at his absolute prime yet, immediately defended against a slew of soft touches.

In '78 and '79 Evangelista, Zanon, Ocassio, Weaver (yes Weaver was seen by everyone as a "soft touch" when Holmes fought him. International boxing ran a story entitled "Mike Who?" right before the Weaver-Holmes fight).

Only Shavers was seen as risky, but how risky? Holmes had already shut him out in an easy fight in '78.

Then, in '80 Holmes fights Jones, LeDoux and a shot Ali.

It is true that it was a transition period in the division and the list of contenders was weak, but Holmes list of defenses is weak, overall, and especially from the time he won the title through the end of 1980.

He really peaked at the right time.

He would have had it tougher in the mid-'70s when the divsion was stacked.

 

I agree. Ali's second reign wasn't bad at all. If you go back and look at the ratings in the mid 70s, Ali basically fought everyone. The only guys he missed were maybe Duane Bobick and Howard Smith.

People complain that he didn't fight some guys two, three or four times, but he met nearly everyone at least once (and rematched a lot). Most people never get to everyone once. Let alone face them two, three or four times.

 

Very informative. Thanks:good

 

Hi Saad! Always read your posts, you clearly know the game. :good
As I've said, I rate Ali as THE greatest HW of all time, primarily because we never saw that summer-67 thru summer-70 that could have been.
But, in retrospect, I sadly have to say he played us for fools in that second reign IMO. He held the cards; Foreman was the Champion and they fought in Zaire in the middle of the night? Should have been in the Astrodome but, again,...Ali held the cards.
Norton III? Clearly Ali wanted to take a 2-1 trifecta and had to fight Norton before his skills went by the wayside. The result? A debate to this day! Look at Ali's head on his chest when the 15th round bell sounded. That speaks volumes IMO.
Young? 'Slick Jimmy' was just entering his narrow window of prime after his Hawaii embarrassment of Lyle. Smaller than Ali, similar skills, probably someone Ali could UD quite easily. Not the case as it turned out. I'll give the fight to Ali but only because Jimmy fought 'not to lose'. He was cracking some serious counters on Ali in the second half of that fight.
Shavers? Ali could still take a punch and the Shavers 'resume' was already starting to take shape by that time. Avoid his dynamite for 3-4 rounds and he'll get gassed. Sidebar: the Lyle-Shavers bout in Denver late 76. Again, not the case as it turned out. Earnie (suddenly) decided to pace himself. Earnie clearly hurt Ali in those early rounds and didn't follow up. In this one too, I'm not sure Shavers did enough to win but, if you consider, this fight MAY have been the start of Muhammad's physical decline. He took a pounding in this fight.
I'm out, wife working late and I've just finished two glasses of Merlot and need to get to my honeydoo chores.
You're an insightful poster Saad!
Blessings!
J

 

Great post. You clearly know more about that time period then me.

 

The problem was that Holmes rarely took on his number 1, at least not post-1982, when he really hit the cruise control and started s****ing the bottom of the barrel for opponents.

 

And yet Holmes, in the eyes of many boxing scribes and fans, gets heralded as being this 'take-on-all-comers' champion who fought them all and who cleaned out the division while reigning for 7 1/2 years. He definitely cleaned out the bottom tier of the division, but the real dangerous guys -- he mostly avoided; or he fought them accidentally and didn't realize they were dangerous until he was in the actual fight with them (e.g, Witherspoon, Williams). Had Holmes known how tough both guys were going to be, he probably would not have fought them.

 

Great post. Everything about the Holmes reign is explained here.

Those belts, and the schedules the other guys had stopped a lot of better fights happening. And those other guys kept losing.

In most cases a #1 contender spot is held only until the #1 guy fights another rated guy. You see, most world class fighters are lucky if they can beat more than one guy of that level in a row. Holmes and real champions could beat fighters like this back to back and this is what separates champions from a #1 contender to Larry Holmes.

The alternative champions were just #1 contenders. This was the reality. And without getting Holmes each just lost to the first world level guy they fought.

Holmes was able to stand alone what ever way we look a it.

The only way to understand it is that the alternative belts were just a trophy to determine who it was who in another era would have been no more than #1 contender.

Like any other era, apart from an eventual champion, the majority of #1 contenders is a rolling game of pass the parcel. Nobody is usually good enough to mind the spot without losing it to another contender. That's just what the WBA championship was too. A rolling seat.

I dont think Tony Tubbs was anymore a champion than say Lee Savold was in another generation.

Larry stayed busy waiting for these fights to happen. He signed to meet Coetzee in a unification but the money kept falling through. Larry only ducked Page because he was trying to make the Coetzee unification fight which was bigger. Larry gave up one belt chasing that WBA belt. The WBC then made Page v Witherspoon and the guy Larry already beat (witherspoon) won that one.

So in Larry's defence, the Coetzee fight was almost made. Dokes before him was not a leading contender until he beat Weaver. Holmes already beat Weaver. Don't forget Larry beat Smith who knocked out Witherspoon and he beat Berbick before Trevor beat Thomas.

I'll hazard a guess that Holmes would beat these guys he never fought because there was barely one world level win in any of them. If Holmes was forced to fight them he fights them after they were somebody. Its the night they lost anyway. Dokes the night he lost to Coetzee? Coetzee the night he lost to Tate? Witherspoon the night he lost to Thomas? Page the night he lost to Tubbs? These guys all sucked in their next fight.

 

You still can't understand that Holmes watched these guys fight each other while he fought guys below their level - and laughed all the way to the bank.

What you miss is that Don King didn't protect any of his guys because he put on highly competitve fights where he controlled both fighters. He won either way.

As John Thomas as pointed out in one of his eloquent posts, if they were protected they likely could have built up big records.

It is laughable that you feel these top guys Holmes never fought, had to "be somebody" before he fought them.

Frazier, Cobb, Zanon, Jones, Frank, Rodriguez - the list list is long.

Holmes clearly had a strategy of make the most $$ for the least risk. It was smart but we missed out on many potentially competitive matchups while we watched him fight mosly bums.