Scott Ledoux's title shot at Larry Holmes

It's not as simple as saying Larry should fight so and so. So and so has his own rules to abide by.

At no point was Tate more relevent than Norton or young or Shavers. At no point was Dokes more relevent than C00ney in the grand scheme of things. Winning a belt just made them second best to Holmes.

Weaver only happened to be relevent after losing to Holmes because he he beat Tate who was irrelevant so far as world domination counted anyway. They held the "second best to Larry" belt in reality.

Both Coetzee and Thomas acknowledged Holmes as the real champion AFTER beating another kind of champion

1984 Holmes tried to unify. In fact he gave up one belt because he wanted to unify rather than fight Page who lost to guys Larry already beat.

1985 Larry lost to Spinks after being more active and consistent than any of the rival champions.

And through it all he was the more active champion.

 

After dropping the WBC title instead of fighting Page Holmes actually mapped out that strategy for all to see in various statements and interviews. He went into full detail and showed great bitterness and disdain for boxing and it's establishment.

It astounds me that there are still clowns on here that try to argue different. It is utterly beyond debate post ****ey. I almost feel sympathetic when watching posters try to twist and turn events and facts in an embarrassing effort to make things look different to what Holmes told us they were going to be.

Rather than waste too much time debating i just file them into the "haven't got a clue basket" and watch others take them apart

 

Stop lying and give it up. Holmes giving up the belt had nothing to do with wanting to unify, something he had been uninterested in previously. Coetzee was not even a champ when Holmes refused to fight Page and was threatened with losing the belt.

LOL@ giving up a belt to unify atsch

The WBC belt was the top belt. Incredible.

 

Each governing body was as ludicrous as each other.

I]"SPORTS PEOPLE
SPORTS PEOPLE; Holmes vs. W.B.C.
Published: November 29, 1983
Larry Holmes made a triumphant return yesterday to his home in Easton, Pa., but he was still sparring with the World Boxing Council over its insistence that he defend his heavyweight title next against Greg Page instead of Gerrie Coetzee . ''I don't want them to try to dictate to me two days after the fight,'' he said, referring to his first-round knockout of Marvis Frazier on Friday in Las Vegas, Nev.
''I'm semi-retired,'' said the 34-year-old Holmes. ''If the Coetzee fight doesn't come, I'll retire in March. If I don't fight Coetzee, I'll quit.'' Holmes was smarting over reports from Bangkok, Thailand, that the W.B.C. president, Jose Sulaiman , had threatened to strip him of the title if he should fight Coetzee before Page. Holmes had agreed to meet the top-ranked Page in a mandatory title defense in February or March but now says that he can earn much more than the $2.55 million offered for that bout by facing Coetzee, the World Boxing Association champion. ''I don't like to be threatened or told what to do,'' said Holmes, who said he was thinking about relinquishing the W.B.C. title and accepting recognition instead from the International Boxing Association."[/I]


The decision to walk away from the WBC was not because Holmes "wanted easier fights" at all. It was because he wanted to peruse a fight with Coetzee.


The Holmes v Coetzee fight was supposed to happen at Ceasers palace in June, then Thomas and Mack centre in september before the whole thing fell through.

 

Holmes had refused to fight Page well before Coetzee was on the scene and was never going to fight him. He strung them along for a while, buying some time whilst he fought a couple of easy beats.

Did he retire in March as he said? Not likely.

Trying to line up against Coetzee had zero to do with unification and 100% to do with money.

 

Absolutely yet some continue to be in denial and go to extraordinary lengths trying to make excuses and create fictional accounts. Holmes didn't atsch

 

Yeah, I mean it's an insult to those of us who followed the sport closely back then.

I have recently re-read old issues from the time, and the most knowledgable, respected boxing writers of the time outright stated that Holmes was milking it to pass Marciano.

The IBF, though it gained some respect over time, was ridiculed for handing titles to Holmes and Pryor.

Clearly, the IBF needed instant credibility and thought it could obtain it by installing a few high profile fighers as champs.

 

This.

the quote has Holmes's spin on the matter.

Greg Page became the WBC's #1 Contender in May 1983 after beating Snipes.

Holmes fought the unranked Frazier and the lower ranked Frank AFTER Page had been installed as #1.

The WBC let him get away with those fights, but weren't going to allow him to avoid Page any longer.

 

That's it.

Just think about it though---refusing to fight Greg Page. Stripped of a title he held for quite a few years. Fight the guy. Don King was certainly capable of putting the fight together at the time. It was just a tough night's work. It would not be a ko and goes the distance but that seemed like too much work and he went the easier route.

Just think of any other long term champ & have them stripped for not facing Page. Just who else gets a get out of jail free and go to go and collect $200 for that manouver?

 

I had no problem with him getting a shot, you can't take on a ****ey ,or a Shavers every time out the gate.

 

Holmes wanted to stay busy with easy fights while bigger fights developed. He made no secret of that. The bigger fights were with the guys who held the "second best to Larry" belt. And those guys were simply #1 contender fare, not real champions.


The problem was they had this official belt to defend. It was like a #1 contender having to defend the "#1 contender crown". And before winning this belt, what did they do to attain that status as #1 contender?

All Greg Page did to make WBC #1 was lose to Berbick then beat Snipes.

To get a shot at the WBA title Dokes beat who? Tubbs beat who? Yet because of this warped split politics, each in turn, once beating the guy "who beat the guy who Larry Holmes knocked out" these guys attained a universal #1 status to Larry?

Before this period, a #1 contender only had the undisputed champion to aim at. But with a belt it took a year for those guys to defend and they tended to lose before a unification with Larry could materialise.

 

Spot on, especially the first sentence.

 

And this is true. They do have to, at some point tho, take on credible opponents. All of them have fodder mixed in.

But you know this, we are on the same page for sure.