Tim Witherspoon W 12 Greg Page 1984

And if Rocky Marciano had a 75" reach and if Joe Louis had greater foot speed and if Ali had one punch KO power .... all irrelevant ....

 

Page had taken on a new trainer (the superb Janks Morton) going into that one and Janks said post fight their union was a works in progress and he was actually happy with Pages progress and performance as to where he wanted to get him to. He also said he was going to bring him in heavier in future fights, believing he needed a bit more weight. Of course post Coetzee the same old laziness came back. He actually trained hard for Coetzee despite coming in so heavy.

 

Well if you think that sorry bunch were top contenders you are simply wrong.

Well, everyhing negative about Holmes in this case. Trouble is it was the Joe Public's opinion to.

Where did i admit this? Page could rise to heights Bey could only rub one out to.

He should have rematched Witherspoon pronto as other great champs have done when shocked by an unsung challenger to put the record straight.

Moving forward looking for excuses doesn't work, Holmes told witherspoon long before he lost to Thomas he ain't gettin' no rematch.

Holmes apologists love moving back and forth picking apart records in an effort to blur the timelines when Larry simply did not get the job done.

I've never seen anyone accused of ducking Tubbs

Destroyed? Such propaganda. Snipes put Larry resoundingly on his ass and was a haymaker or two away from winning. Holmes went down HEAVY. However if Snipes beat Page in the eliminator instead of the other way around i'd not be surprised to see Holmes fronting up.

These guys you pick apart were actually dangerous and had good wins - unlike most of the sad sacks Larry actually fought.

Now we're getting into BS. A gift draw vs Weaver? That's just crap sorry.

*SIGH* For starters Thomas had a good extended run and for ages the people wanted the two champs to fight to show who the true champ really was. With good victories over Witherspoon and Weaver Thomas was on a great streak but Holmes told the world he would never ever fight Thomas, or the junkie, whatever he slanged him.

The fans very definitely wanted this fight.

I'll await you to go past Thomas's good run so you can attempt to pick him apart and blur the true feeling of the time and the respect Thomas had going.

Williams was a fledgling who hadn't done jack, lets be honest. You're memory of him sure doesn't match mine, or most of the worlds.

You might need to read that back again LOL

As said above, moving forward and backward to suit the agenda. What does his fights after Holmes have to do with his worthiness to take on Holmes as a legitimate contender?

his fights post Holmes were a split decision over the scintilating Ribalta (Who was coming off a draw with Cecil Coffee (lol), a near shutout loss to Witherspoon and a loss to Frazier.

The ko further down the track of witherspoon is well documented and i should not even need go there.

 

Make that the last 3 years. You did all that debating and posturing above then come straigt out and admit it!!! Sorry i didn't see this last paragraph first atsch

Nobodies expecting one hard challenge after another, goodness no. As you point out they all had their moments of mediocrity.

The only thing i would have asked was that Larry take on even 2 or 3 live or semi live opponents in that last 3 years. He did not take on a single one. No matter which way one slices it that is extremely disappointing.

Lets look at a parallel great, Holmes standard and Holmes time. Marvin Hagler. It's well known i don't hold Hagler as high as the norm but here is a guy who knew how represent and uphold a title. He took on all comers right from the start of his career all the way thru to his latter years. He was constantly looking for harder challengers and better fighters. Some of this was monetary based but full credit to the man setting such a fantastic example.

 

The best hybrid of weight and condition Page ever came in with was against Renaldo Snipes, and it was his most mature performance ever.

 

Where the hell are we at here? This is gettin beat into the ground like a dead horse....

MR.BILL

 

You might have to bypass it then, Bill

 

I simply , clearly disagree with your assessment ... Snipes landed one lucky punch ... perhaps yu can tell me how many other rounds he won in that fight . Also what he managed to do after Larry got up ... talk about revisionism.

In the last three years of his reign he destroyed Tex Cobb who had just lost razor thin decisons to Norton and Dokes in addition to Witherspoon, Bey, Bonecrusher ( a future champ who defeated champions Witherspoon, Weaver and Bruno) and a very tough Carl Williams ... perhaps you can name me the post 33 year old heavyweight champion who fought and defeated better competition. Certainly not Johnson, Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Frazier, Liston, Tyson ... in fact not even Ali who defeated a semi-shot , half blind Frazier and in my opinion got a gift over Norton. So JT, there are all sort of armchair critics out there but based on all those who came before him and who followed who did more ? Other than possibly Lennox Lewis I cannot think of anyone ... that's pretty damn good.

 

I'm going to keep this really simple, and really clear.

You said, and i quote

Now regardless whether he won near every round, and regardless of whether he regained control by the end of the round - nobody could call this "destroyed" when he was dropped so hard in the 7th round he ran face first into the turnbuckle when trying to rise!

The 3.06 mark of the video you're after, perhaps you haven't seen it before?

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlu4R_ZobU0[/ame]

If this is destroyed i'd hate to see struggled. Not exactly like Snipes was left on his back either, there was some controversy over the stoppage, rightly or wrongly. To say he was destroyed is absurd and biased. Hearns destroyed Duran, Louis destroyed Schmeling, Tyson destroyed Spinks.

He won every round but destroyed? Cobb was decisioned and never left his feet. Thoroughly outclassed i would call it. Shut out would be even better. Tho not as ridiculous as your "destroyed" Snipes assertion i'd still be loathe to accept the term.

You're just deflecting from the issue. The topic is Holmes not taking on deserving opposition for the last 3 years of his "reign".

But you have already admitted it yourself so i'll cut it short

Make it three years and we are in total agreement on that one.

I saw earlier you defended Holmes for fighting Leon Spinks. This was very ironic because at the end of the day the Leon fight should not have been questioned. Leon was in good form and actually won an eliminator for the right to fight holmes, as his mandatory.

You know, like Page did when he defeated (destroyed???) Snipes :good

 

Because he made even more than that fighting Frazier, and had the potential to make several times more than that for a big unification fight with Coetzee, which the WBC was trying to block. Giving up the WBC title was no longer an obstacle since he now had the newly created IBF title to fall back on. If anything, Holmes deserves some kudos for telling the WBC/Sulaiman to go fkk themselves.

I agree that there are some very valid criticisms to be made of Holmes' reign - namely, not rematching Weaver (in a unification fight) or Witherspoon, after both of them had given him such rough fights - but not fighting Page during the brief spell that he was the WBC's mandatory isn't one of them.

You are correct when you say Witherspoon and Smith were not top contenders, and I've always said that Holmes has benefited quite a bit from revisionist history in this regard. On the flipside, trying to make out Page into some sort of "avoided" challenger, or implying that this fight was somehow crucial to Holmes' legacy, is equally misleading and revisionist. So are your efforts to downplay or excuse Bey's status as a legit leading contender (who was rated in the top 3 by The Ring around that time), which shows a certain amount of hypocrisy on your part. Bey was every bit as credible a challenger in '85 as Page had been in '83.

 

Actually, he made somewhere between $2.7 and 3.1 million for fighting Frazier.

Exactly.

Accusing Holmes of "ducking" Page by giving up the WBC title means ignoring the entire circumstances in which that happened.

 

Thomas is a big standout too. More so than Weaver due to various circumstances.

I use Page as part of the big picture. He was right at the start of Holmes new stuff everyone i'm going easy street attitude and it stands out like the proverbial.

I've never made Page absolutely crucial to Holmes legacy, but he is sizable part of a 2-3 year picture of why many many people rate the guy so low.

Holmes did avoid Page, for whatever reason anyone wants to put forth. He also avoided any top names from that point on. Some of the things he said per not fighting Tim and Pinklon were rotten to the core.

Holmes was more than happy to be in bed with King and the WBC when it suited him. He was also saying he'd fight Page but kept delaying. He was given plenty of grace before dropping the bomb. The technicality he was trying to call into question had never been in place.

Bey was no-where near as credible as Page in 83. Some mags were openly picking Page after Holmes surprising struggle vs Witherspoon. One considered him to be the right man in the right place at the right time. It was believed he'd turned the corner and was ready to fulfill his potential after outperforming Weaver, Dokes, Holmes and Witherspoon in the Triple Crown Affair.

Page had been picked as a future champion for many years, recieving massive hype from many reknowned corners, and regardless of whether he got there matters not. He was 23-1 and the loss to the tough Berbick was thought to have been an excellent learning curve. Bey was not that highly considered at all. He'd had all of 14 fights and boxed less than 50 rounds in his entire pro career. Excepting Page he had next to nothing behind him.

 

True, he did look good against Snipes, if he could've kept up the focus.

 

Page only missed one time due to a cold.The second and third time Clark had fought Stevenson, Page had already turned pro.

 

Pretty Pretty good JT :good