How drastically would boxing history change? Quite a lot,I think. Assuming the path of the WBA stays roughly the same - except Mike Weaver's history may alter slightly - the WBC trajectory certainly follows a different orbit. Who would Ken Norton make his first defence against? Who would be Muhammad Ali's ill fated comeback opponent? Would Gerry Cooney win a belt? The scenarios are endless. What do you all think?
I'm Nice thread, Stevie. Well, I see Ali out of the picture as he was for a couple of years. Shavers picks up a title from smashing Norton. Maybe Shavers defends it a few times then I can actually see, either A Berbick or Snipes even pulling off a win over him. Cooney around this time has an excellent chance of winning the WBC title. Let's say Cooney blasts out Snipes. He's a massive favourite against his next oppenent Ali. It's a awful fight for Muhammad and is stopped in 5 one sided rounds. Cooney then meets Tim Witherspoon. Spoon, unbeaten, beats him via ko in ten. Witherspoon holds the belt briefly before losing on points to Carl Williams. William s loses in a shock, early ko to Michael Spinks. Well that's one way it could have gone mate!
Shavers takes it, then Weaver stops Shavers in 11. Weaver stops Tate in a unification bout that no one watches, wins a sloppy UD against a shot Ali, defends it against Coetzee and Tillis; wins a disputed 15 round SD against Berbick, gets pounded by Cooney in 82 (KO by 2). Cooney gets stopped by Witherspoon in his first defense, and there are excellent wars/victories for Tim against Dokes and Weaver, a decision against Page, a blow out of Spinks in 4, before Thomas takes it. A young fellow named Mike starts making the rounds...
This is a question I asked myself while writing. Even if Weav unified the title against Tate, the governing bodies were really fractious even in the 80s, and probably would have done something to strip Mike W of one of those titles not too long after winning it.
And we've have ended up with a right mess, just like the alphabet boys usually do. We would probably have to wait, as we did, for Tyson to round em all up. But maybe m Spinks not the lineal champ, but god knows who.
This one was done a few years ago. I offered a detailed what if scenario but dont have the time nor energy to repeat it here. There would have been a lot more champs and nobody dominating.
True. Nobody was capable of stepping up and becoming a "Third Force" of 80s heavyweights between the Holmes and Tyson eras.
