Was Witherspoon avoided in the late 1980's/early 1990's?

Holmes certainly steered clear of a rematch with him. The winner of Witherspoon - Smith II was to fight Tyson but Tim lost so don't let anyone tell you Tyson avoided him.

After the Smith fight however he was on bad terms with King so had huge problems getting meaningful fights.

 

He did beat a prime Holmes so what is this silly question?

 

Would not surprise.

 

I think a lot of that was Tim living large while in London, bringing a big entourage over, and going on shopping sprees, charging it all to Don King. So when all was said and done, Tim didn't get paid as much as he was expecting. 'Course I wouldn't mind making $100,000 for maybe eight weeks of work, counting training.

When Witherspoon was on, he was great. But I think he was his own worst enemy. Too much time off. Not being focused and well-trained for some fights. He could have achieved a lot more had he been more dedicated to his career. Such is the way with a lot of fighters. That's part of what makes boxing interesting.

 

He was blackballed by Don King who controlled most of the top 10.

As to why he couldnt get big fights with Arum I am not sure.

He didnt get a really meaningful fight between the Bonecrusher fiasco and the Carl Williams win in spring 1991. Thats basically four wasted years.

Then he was embarassingly upset by Bigfoot Martin in 1992 in a fight where he was clearly out of shape.

If in shape I think he could have beaten old Holmes and Foreman in 1991-1992.

Even in 1995-1996 he showed he had a lot left when in shape.

 

I’ve seen the breakdown of his purse, it was around 60000

 

All very good valid points all of them.
Don king utilised Ali and bought the promotion .....he bought the purses ....to make HW boxing the richest sport on earth.

But Don wasnt interested in being a father figure to these fighters...he'd rip them off.....tim bought that 25 strong entourage..thats a lot of food,hotel and airline tickets......but typical don he charged him with a 500% markup and he took his 33% cut and had his son Carl take another 30% cut as manager

Witherspoon wasted 4 years 1987-1991...he claimed to be carrying a gun to protect himself from associates of King..he spent 8 years in the wilderness ...only beating Williams...than he put together that nice little run in 1996...ice cole and jorge luis gonzalez ...the Mercer fight coulda gone either way....that witherspoon... even at 38 ...was gonna be trouble for lewis and bowe and holyfield...personally i think 1995-96 Spoon takes 95/96 Tyson.

 

He would KO overrated Ruddock, would probably beat old Holmes and Foreman (but could lose to both in his off-night), and would lose to Bowe and Holyfield giving them some tough moments in the process

 

In retrospect it certainly seems to have been that way, but by then Tim had already been a two time “champion” and was seen as a guy who had been as far as he was going. I remember those days. Tim was winning fights off the radar. Busy. Going up the ranks but he wasn’t getting mentioned. I mean, once Tyson was champion, it was like there was Tyson and everyone else. It’s okay now to look back at the qualities Tim had and wonder why he wasn’t included in the Tyson campaign...but back then Tyson was the biggest thing. Spinks vs Tyson was the fight everyone wanted to see. Before that the unifications with Tucker and Smith. Even Tyrell Biggs and Bruno there would have been more demand for than Witherspoon. You have to see it how it was. Witherspoon was still seen as one of those Greg Page, Tubbs, Thomas type guys. They had had their chances already. They had less juice by then. But looking back, Tim was looking more competitive. But that’s only after the horse bolted. Douglas was getting good wins then. Even he overshadowed Witherspoon.

 

Don King promoted Tyson in the late 80s and early 90s. But King didn't promote Spoon after his loss to Smith.

And King didn't promote Spinks, Holyfield, Bowe, Lewis, Mercer, Moorer, Morrison, Bruno, Stewart, George or Larry's comeback, or really anyone else in this thread.

Tim's manager/promoter at the time was Dennis Rappaport, Cooney's manager. Most people in the business hated Rappaport and didn't want to work with him. That was Tim's problem.

Rappaport encouraged Tim to sue King, so King wasn't going to go out of his way to give him a Tyson fight. Rappaport blew up the HBO heavyweight unification tournament by making the Cooney-Spinks fight, so HBO wanted nothing to do with him or Tim. And, apparently, none of the rising stars or their teams could deal with Rappaport either.

Moorer's team tried to make a fight with Spoon. But Spoon lost to Martin and Rappaport accused all the judges in Michigan of being corrupt and trying to cheat Tim out of a Moorer fight, so Moorer's team moved on.

Rappaport, apparently, got a huge ego when he was Cooney's guy and made a lot of demands. That came back to burn him.

Anyone who could've given Tim a break, Rappaport would swoop in with his ego and demands and accusations, and people would just decide they didn't need the aggravation.

Tim wasn't the draw Cooney was. So Rappaport couldn't get away with what he did before.

 

It would have been a fool who didn't avoid him.

It was a high risk,low reward fight!

 

Tim was always capable. But there were a lot of capable fighters back then. Carl Truth Williams was capable too. He fought Witherspoon during this period. It was one of those “off the radar” USBA or NABF title fights (cannot remember which) where all the capable fighters that had no where else to go wound up and it was a very close fight between two guys the business had lost interest in that could have went either way. A split decision. Williams never got to be a belt holder, but his fight with Witherspoon showed he was always on Tim’s level.

As you say Bowe and Holyfield were fed a few ageing belt holders. They missed out Tim. I guess you could say that was because for the same money their people could land a name for Evander or Riddick who was already through with the business in a slightly more evident way than Tim was, but then, you could also say exactly that about Carl the Truth Williams too. He was the same guy.

Nobody does of course. Because Carl never got to be a belt holder and we know how he fared against Tyson. Tim did get to be a belt holder and he didn’t get to fight Tyson.

And that’s how it really was.

I do accept that later on, even though he had never been away, Tim did reemerge with something of a comeback... appearing that time as a much better threat to the title than he had ever been since he’d held a title around the time he beat Al Cole, Luis Gonzales and took Ray Mercer to the absolute wire. I think at that time he shone a bit brighter than he had in the late 1980s even. But not getting that decision with Ray seemed to finally break his spirit.