Tim Witherspoon W 12 Greg Page 1984

Holmes was not one of the more physically statuesque heavyweight champions that's for sure.

 

All of the ducking of fighting Greg Page was done before Coetzee won the WBA title, all of it. He did not avoid Page to go after Coetzee, he avoided Page to fight Frazier after already having baulked before the Frank fight. He promised he would fight Page after Frank and also actually signed to fight Page.

He didn't fight Page so he could go after the easy fights, not the hard ones. Holmes told us that himself. He asked for an obscene amount of money to fight Coetzee and looked like getting some of it, this is why he was going to fight Coetzee. The money was too ridonkulous to pass up. He was also pretty confident.

 

That's not quite how you put it earlier in this thread:

Even looking at it from that angle, the fact still remains he got paid more for fighting Frazier, and without having to deal with King on top of it.

More like the MONEY fights.

The fact that he made several attempts to arrange a Coetzee fight in '84, when Coetzee was his co-titlist, #1 rated by Ring magazine, and coming off a dominant KO win over Dokes, and almost certainly the biggest fight in the division at that time (certainly moreso than Page), shows his intentions were not to simply "avoid hard fights."

Now if you want to criticize Holmes for being overly preoccupied with $, then so be it. But that's still not the same as simply saying "He avoided Page." Page would've been a decent, credible challenger, but he wasn't some sort of outstanding #1 contender in the eyes of fans - regardless of whatever inflated "mandatory" status been bestowed on him by some sanctioning body. The fact that Holmes was actually offered less to fight Page than to someone like Frazier speaks volumes about the magnitude (or lack therefore, I should say) that a Page fight had at that time.

If Page didn't go on to win a title after the whole Holmes debacle, he'd probably be remembered the same way as Bey is today - and likely there'd be little, if any, criticism for not fighting him. Likewise, if the megafight with Coetzee hadn't fallen apart, most people wouldn't even care - and in fact, most people would probably praise Holmes - for giving up a title and turning his back on a "mandatory" challenge to make it happen.

 

Charles had lost two of his last four fights heading into the first Marciano match - if those numbers didn't preclude him from getting a shot (in fact, two shots) at Marciano, why should Valdez's?

How can you say that? No one on this site has seen it (have you?), and there's plenty of sources that say it was a clear and decisive win for Valdez.

Also, Valdez's own loss to Moore (in the rematch), which you used as an argument against Valdez, was reported as being close as well.

Valdez had already won an elimination fight with Hurricane Jackson, in addition to beating Charles and Neuhaus. How can you give credence to one fight as an "eliminator" and then ignore or downplay another fight's status as an eliminator as well?

Besides, you could just as well argue "Valdez beat Jackson who beat Rex Layne who beat Charles," or something equally convoluted and misleading.

And Valdez beat Charles who had beaten Moore 3 times.

 

Have we got it sorted that Holmes did not avoid the Page fight to go after a unification with Coetzee? This was simply not true, and it's not debatable.

No. In a singular instance he gained more money fighting Frazier than Page, due to some pretty substancial intangibles.

He would have gained bigger money later fighting Thomas but he sure wasn't going there. There was also more money to be made fighting better corpes instead of dead ones post Frazier.

Isn't it funny, Larry avoided all the hard challenges in his latter chase to break the Marciano record yet second career when the 0 was gone he wanted to fight all and sundrey

Tyson, Holyfiend, whoever. Yes the money was great but he was finally going after the best available. Ironic.

The money on offer for Coetzee was crazy, so crazy even Larry wouldn't poke his nose at it. It was miles and miles above what it was worth risk wise, and Larry loved that scenario.

It was also known to all and sundrey that Dokes entered the ring quite the mess that night. Coetzee's right hand would have been a big danger but Holmes knew his limitations.

Not many know but King pulled some big strings getting Page in with Coetzee. Gerrie **** on him per the Holmes fight (negotiating with another when King had contractual rights) and had also ripped off a King associate in other matters. It didn't sit well for King having contractual rights to a South African and at first he was going to alienate Gerry but in the end had to utilize his contract to stay in control. King and his cronies weren't confident Bey could beat Coetzee and he asked the associte who Gerrie was scared of - the reply was Page. King said consider it done. Before Gerrie tried to go around him King's plan was for two impressive (set ups believe it or not) wins for him to build the money up for the Holmes fight.

The reasons for Frazier paying more wasn't because he was considered even a remotely decent challenger and it sure as hell wasn't because the people wanted to see it. Why would they? There was some real wheeling and dealing going on regarding Holmes and other promoters.

And if my aunty had balls she'd be my uncle.

Page winning the title has NOTHING to do with it for me. Larry simply avoided his obligations as champion.

Bey never ever had anything like the fanfare Page did, jeez. Bey had one single notable win in his career and sure wasn't proclaimed by many as the next Ali.

Yet again, Holmes almost having a unification with Coetzee had nothing to do with avoiding the Page fight.

Holmes didn't avoid fighting Page to fight Coetzee.

It doesn't get any clearer, really. He'd arsoled the Page fight confortably before Coetzee beat Dokes. If Dokes would have won there would have been no talk of any unification by Holmes, guaranteed. He sure wasn't interested in any unification prior to it. When Coetzee won and the dollars went way up for a fight against a less talented champ Holmes suddenly jumped jumped at the opportunity.

Lets be honest, Gerrie had a great right hand but was very limited outside of it. It was the massive sums of money and Holmes confidence that had him taking on a live foe. I'll grant Gerrie would have been a more dangerous opponent than any of Holmes latter foes.

 

a truthful assessment of the facts that the Holmes revisionists attempt to manipulate. Had anyone else been in Holmes shoes in the same set of circumstances you would never hear the end of it but I guess some love and protect the Mallard

 

and Charles beat Gilliam and Moore and Bob Satterfield and Moore beat Baker,Satterfield and Harold Johnson (who all beat Valdez in the period of 1953 to 1955


so if in your opinion Valdes should have gotten the tile shot before Charles you are entitled to your opinion,I disagree, but even so there was a small window of opportunity for Valdes in light of his 4 losses in 1953 and 3 losses out of 4 fights in 1955. and remember most thought Valdes lost to Archie McBride in 1954

Weak comparison to all of the Homes avoidances

 

As already discussed Holmes did not sidestep Page due to any unification aim, the fight was buried before Coetzee beat Dokes and any offer was being put to Holmes.

Lets also be clear about Holmes chasing a unification with Coetzee - he was doing this for Larry Holmes and Larry Holmes only, not the people. It was only about the money.

"The Peoples Choice"? Do you have a link to this claim?

Well if you think Scott Frank and Marvis Frazier were bigger than Page after the Snipes win all power to you. Larry sure didn't.

He failed to fulfill his title obligations for starters, just because he wanted to take it easy on the way out. He had been given concessions before, but as soon as things didn't suit him he jumped.

Which is about 5% of the full story. Bey fell short of 1983 Page as an opponent on countless levels. Going into them would be wasting words.

True for sure. Holmes was seen to be slipping, and slipping fast. So much that even a fighter of Bey's experience and record was being favoured.

Bey had nothing like the amatuer glam and hype of Page when he turned pro. They sure weren't going around picking Bey as the next Ali (or whoever) or the can't miss champion to be.

Never saw any reports he'd been exposed, the prevalent view was that this was the lesson that would one day make him champ. This was pioneered very strongly by your before mentioned Ring Magazine.

What corner? Bey had only 14 fights and had never been beaten. Bey wasn't seen as the next serious or potantial long term champ. Comparing the hype and reputation of Bey and Page at the time they were to have fought Holmes is absurd.

Page was coming off a loss, no? A loss where he practically slept walked his way tru 12 rounds. Page's stock went down heavily with the poor showing against Witherspoon, due to the shape he was in and the lethargic effort.

 

In a nutshell, '84 and '85 made and broke Page's career.... Losses to Spoon and Bey were hard losses to accept, but Page got lucky when team Coetzee hand-picked Page as an easy win, but wound up getting KTFO by Page to cap-off 1984.... Just when Page was back in bidness again, he looks like **** and blows the belt to a motivated 229 pound Tubbs in the spring of '85.....

Page had great gifts and talent, but he was a lazy slob who simply lacked focus.... Despite being an ex-WBA champion, Page must be classified as an under-achiever..... 1986 was a horrid year for Page.....

MR.BILL

 

We need to stick to the facts Bill and not make things up or guess them.

Team Coetzee did not handpick Page, this is the factual story, not the fictional one. King actually talked the WBA and Kerzner into accepting Page as a substitute for Bey.

 

Be as it may be, Page got a shot at Coetzee while coming off two losses to Spoon and Bey..... If that ain't luck, I don't what is.... Bey had some injury or contract dispute that kept him from going on to fight Coetzee, but Page still snuck in cuz he did lose to Bey but only by a decision..... Page had never been KO'd at this juncture..... Page proved worthy to face Coetzee after the fight was over, but Page was NOT a real deserving contender in Dec. 1984 to get a title shot from the WBA..... Now that is no ****.....
bbb

MR.BILL:hat

 

I'll let you in on some very little known secrets.

Coetzee wanted to fight Holmes straight away. Coetzee thought he could garner $4mil right away for the bout. King wanted him to beat two fighters in his homeland to build up the bucks for the unification. Coetzee did not know but these two fighters were going to be beaten in quite spectacular fashion. Take that how you may

Don was a bit embarrassed to hold the rights to a South African fighter.
In the meantime it came out that a rival promoter had promised Gerrie $4mil to fight Holmes in the short term which was where Gerrie's thoughts had come from. Gerrie had already signed despite other agreements. Gerrie was also supposed to have paid 10% of his Dokes purse to a certain foundation as agreed with Kings contact. He didn't.

King decided to let him rot, and had his ranked contenders refuse to face him. The plan was for the WBA to strip him for not defending in 12 months. Just before it come to this King changed his mind. King said he needed Coetzee to fight so King could keep control of the title.

King asked his contact who Coetzee was afraid of. Kings contact replied "Greg Page". King - "It's done".

Next thing Bey didn't want to go to SA on political grounds and along came Greg Page.

Freaky stuff.

 

You mean YOUR bait and switch. :nono

YOU were the one who posted this, remember?:
http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11635104&postcount=96

:deal

So? You still have no idea with any certainty what happened in that fight, and you have no basis for just assuming that those reports that describe it as a clear win for Valdes are somehow "wrong."

Even Charles himself admitted that Valdes "gave me a licking" and "beat me fairly."

As per Charles himself, Valdes did not outright "refuse" the rematch, but "his manager demanded too much."

"Most" accounts do NOT say that Moore "handled him easily" in the 2nd fight. Most reports of that fight say Moore won only 9-6 or even 8-7, just pulling it out by winning the last round.

Which I posed my thoughts on a page or two earlier.

More like '53 AND '55

Which leaves a stretch of around 22 months in and around 1954, in which Valdes was on a winning streak that included Charles and Hurricane Jackson.

Your argument is as deceptively misleading as saying "Page didn't deserve a shot at Holmes due to his losses to Berbick, Witherspoon, and Bey during the period of 1982 to 1984."

Yes - he had the bigger win at HW (vs. Charles), he had won a designated eliminator (vs. Jackson), and had been rated as the #1 contender for the majority of a nearly 2-year stretch.

It was almost the EXACT same window (if not larger) that Page had for a Holmes fight in between his losses to Berbick and Witherspoon. How is Valdes' window "too small" but not Page's?

In fact, the "small window of opportunity" argument could probably be applied to just about anyone you could accuse Holmes of "avoiding" - i.e: Dokes, Thomas.

If it's so "weak" then why have you resorted to using all of the same arguments used to defend Holmes, which you have criticized? - i.e: "small window of opportunity," losses before and after the relevant time period, "Fighter A beat Fighter B who went on to beat Fighter C," etc., etc.

 

Not quite. YOU had specifically cited Holmes giving up the WBC title to show that Holmes had "avoided" Page - and yet this was done in response to the WBC blocking Holmes' attempts to pursue a Coetzee fight at that time. If pursuing Coetzee had "nothing to do" with Holmes not fighting Page, as you claim, then neither does the act of giving up his title either.

What "dead" corpses are you referring to here? Every defense he had between Frazier and Spinks was against a young, rising prospect, and every one was at least ranked in The Ring's top 10 (and in Bey's case, top 5).

In response to this, I'll cite what you posted elsewhere in this thread:

And yet nearly everything in that quoted section above is speculation or hearsay.

I wasn't necessarily suggesting that it was - just that Page's failure to generate a bigger purse than someone like Frazier is still a reflection on the fact that Page was not considered an outstanding challenger in the general public's eye at that time.

Page was NOT Larry's "obligation" as champion. He was only his "obligation" insofar as the WBC title was concerned. Outside of the WBC, Page was not rated as the #1 contender, nor was he considered any kind of "must have" fight for Holmes.

On the flipside, Bey hadn't yet suffered an embarassing loss in a crucial showcase fight that had sent his "fanfare" plummeting.

Incidentally, what wins did Page have pre-'84 that were on par with Bey's "single notable" win?

There's no way for either of us to "guarantee" something like that.

As YOU said elsewhere in this thread:

EVERY HW titleholder of the '80s, barring Holmes and Tyson, had one or two standout traits and then some glaring limitations. In that regard, Coetzee was no different than any other titleholder of that era, including any one that you might accuse Holmes of "avoiding."

You can claim whatever you want about his personal "motives," but the fact remains he was still doing here precisely what you and others have criticized him for not doing in other instances.

Aside from my memory?

"Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn whether or not the WBA sanctions the Larry Holmes-Gerrie Coetzee heavyweight title fight.

What is more important is that I sanction it and, much more important than that, you sanction it.

You, the fight fan, the guy who will put your money on the line to watch it.

They are billing this June 8 showdown as 'The People's Choice,' and they are right."
-NY Daily News, March 29, 1984

"The Grand Hyatt Hotel yesterday played host to a press bash designed to hype 'Heavy Thunder,' a.k.a. the 'People's Choice Championship Fight,' between Holmes and Gerrie Coetzee."
-Philadelphia Daily News

I don't think that at all. I only said that Page, even after the Snipes win, was not nearly as big a fight as you make it out to be.

Yet you had argued that Page was a more credible challenger than Bey based upon people picking him for exactly the same reason.

No, that was NOT "the prevalent" view - it was just "a" view.

This view was much, if not moreso "prevalent":

"Page will have a tougher time defeating critics, whose skepticism was buoyed by the loss to Berbick."
-Palm Beach Post, June 24, 1982

Just as his stock had gone down heavily with his poor showing against Berbick prior to the whole Holmes issue.

Do you consider Page's win over Spines similarly diminished because Snipes had recently lost to Witherspoon and drawn with Frank? - both of whom you've criticized for getting title shots off of those fights.