What if Larry Holmes had never been born?

A confident cooney batters spinks in a mismatch that probably wouldn't have ever got made.

Spinks fought a great hw fight against larry in the first but he clearly lost the second.

Meanwhile berbick beat thomas to become the second best hw after larry. Larry retired whilst tyson battered trevor to become numero uno (don't get distracted by the paper lineage at this point; it just confuses matters :good)

 

Without the presence of a true great like Holmes, you'd probably have no dominance, and I suspect that the careers of Cooney, Berbick, Weaver and Witherspoon would have been more pronounced with a tad more success... The rest would probably proceed as they actually did.

 

This is a likely scenario.

 

So you think its "likely" that Ali with a progressive disease would have hung around until 1986 or 87, and the age of 45-46, and still been a valid challenger for Tyson? By 1980 the guy would have struggled with fighters like Ossie Ocasio or James Tillis. By 1985, he was hardly capable of holding an interview.

 

Interesting.

In 1978 Leon Spinks upset Ali to win the HW title. Spinks was stripped of the WBC title (but remained WBA Champ) when he decided to fight a rematch with Ali instead of defend the title vs. #1 contender Ken Norton. Norton had lost a questionable decision vs. Ali (he went 1-2 vs. Ali lifetime) and won a close decision vs. Jimmy Young who had beat George Foreman.

Norton was proclaimed the WBC Champion and Ali regained the WBA title vs. Spinks in their rematch. Ali retired as WBA Champ in 1979.

Holmes beat Norton in 1978 for the WBC title then gained World recognition in 1980 with a win over Ali (who had come out of retirement).

The WBA title had been picked up by John Tate in 1979 who beat Gerrie Coetzee for the vacant title. Mike Weaver won the title in 1980 and held it until 1982 when he lost it to Michael Dokes.

So, what if there was no Holmes?

Well, Norton would have had to defend vs. someone else. Could Norton have made a few defenses? Would Shavers or Cooney have been WBC Champ? Shavers beat Norton in 1979. From 1976-1979 Shavers only lost to Holmes x2 and Ali (in a close fight). Randall Tex Cobb beat Shavers in 1980 and Norton beat Cobb in 1980. Yes, Shavers lost to Mercado before losing to Cobb but in this sceneraio Mercado will have already lost a title shot by KO... so he never gets to fight Shavers.

So... Norton is proclaimed WBC Champ then he makes 2 defenses. He beats Gerrie Coetzee by close decision in 1978. Coetzee still goes on to fight Tate, Coetzee never had a problem getting title shots. Norton also beats Mercado by KO, putting Mercado out of the title picture. Next up is Norton vs. Shavers. Shavers beats Norton by KO to win the WBC title.

Shavers makes defenses vs. Lorenzo Zanon and Leroy Jones and beats them both by KO. Next up is Shavers vs. Cobb. Cobb beats Shavers by KO to win the WBC title. Next up is Cobb vs. Norton. Norton wins a tough decision over Cobb to regain the WBC title.

Norton and his handlers realize that Norton is past prime and in order to hang on to the title as long as he can they will have to make the easiest title fights that can be made. Since his close win over Young he has struggled with Coetzee, been stopped by Shavers, struggled with LeDoux, and struggled with Cobb. He had a good win over Mercado but he was rocked a few times before stopping him. Norton fights Leon Spinks in his next fight, the year is 1981. Norton looks good in this fight, he overpowers Spinks and takes little punishment, Norton KO7. Norton is now 4-3 (2) in WBC HW World title fights and is a 2x champ.

Mike Weaver is the WBA champ and Ali wants to make a comeback. He is 2-1 over WBC champ Norton who is the more high profile of the two reigning champs. A win over Ali would give either champ world recognition as the HW Champ since Ali retired as the Lineal champ. Norton vs. Ali IV is finally made. Norton evens the score vs. Ali by winning a clear decision. Ali looks pretty bad in the fight. Norton is finally the real HW World Champ and is flying high. Next up is Cooney.... or retirement???

 

Well most IMPORTANTLY - teh 80s would have way less ducks for one thing!! :yep

 

Ali would still have been long retired by the time Tyson arrived on the scene.

 

...continued from above:

Norton takes the fight with Cooney, the money is too good. Norton lasts longer than 52 seconds but he still gets stopped. Gerry Cooney is the HW World Champ, it's 1982.

Cooney has defeated S.T. Gordon, Eddie Lopez, John Dino Denis, Leroy Boone, Jimmy Young, Ron Lyle, and Ken Norton among others. He's 25-0 (21). Mike Weaver is set to defend the WBA belt vs. Michael Dokes. Cooney makes his first defense vs. James Quick Tillis who gave Weaver a tough time in his shot at the WBA belt then beat Shavers by decision. Cooney wins by KO.

Dokes wins the WBA title in December of 1982. Everybody wants to see Cooney vs. Dokes. The fight is made in 1983. Cooney wins by KO in an exciting fight. At 6'6" with an 81" reach and a solid 225-230 Lbs, Cooney is an impressive HW World Champion. 27-0 (23) overall and 3-0 (3) in World Title fights.

Cooney goes on to defend vs. the likes of Weaver, Coetzee, Greg Page, Tony Tubbs, Tim Witherspoon (a split-decision win for Cooney), James Bonecrusher Smith, Pinklon Thomas, Trevor Berbick, Renaldo Snipes, and Carl The Truth Williams among others. A young man named Mike Tyson is making some noise. Some people want him to fight Witherspoon again, some want him to fight Tyson. Michael Spinks calls Cooney out as well but hasn't fought at HW yet.

 

Long story short... Cooney wins until he fights Spinks, Tyson, or maybe even Witherspoon (in a make believe rematch).

 

i think Tim Witherspoon even as early as 1983 and with 15 pro fights was capable of beating Gerry Cooney. Spoon was in Cooney's camp as a sparring partner in preparation for Gerry's fight with Holmes in 1982. They got rid of him when Tim started to batter Gerry in sparring. Had they fought in real life, Witherspoon would have had a real live chance of winning. Of course, knowing what they did about him, its possible that if Cooney ever won a title they'd try like hell to keep them out of the same ring.

 

Cooney wouldn't have beat all those guys.

He might have beat Weaver in a title fight. And then they might match him with a string of tomato cans defenses.

 

I agree.

Cooney could have matched up well with Weaver, Tillis and pehaps even Dokes, but after that, I see his managers keeping him away from anyone who they perceived as being a threat.. Witherspoon, Page and Thomas would likely be among such stalkers.

 

Interesting ! I can't see Cooney doing as well as that,to be honest.

 

Trevor Berbick would never have been drop kicked from a police car

 

Norton would hold on to the WBC title, until he loses it to Shavers, who after 3 title defenses, gets upset by Leon Spinks.The WBA title, vacant after Muhammad Ali realizes he has to deal with Shavers/Norton/Young, still goes to Big John Tate, but Tate loses the belt in '82 to a motivated Greg Page, who holds it until Tyson comes along.