What will it take to dislodge Ali & Louis from 1&2?

Vitaly was a replacement fpr Kirk Johnson, so the plan was in that case to fight him instead of Byrd. Defending against Vitaly was the best possible, though.

 

David Bey was rated #3 at the end of 1984 by Ring magazine.
They had Pinklon Thomas #1 and Greg Page #2 (Bey had defeated Page a few months earlier, but Page and subsequently defeated Coetzee for the WBA title, an opportunity Bey turned down because he didn't want to go to apartheid South Africa).
According to Ring magazine then, Bey was their highest-ranked contender who didn't hold a 'world title' belt. And he's just beat a guy who now held one of those titles.

Holmes actually entered that fight with an injury (he broke his thumb in the fight with Smith, 4 months earlier).
He then took on Carl Williams (expected to be a soft-touch, as @JohnThomas1 pointed out) just nine weeks after defeating Bey.
The first Spinks fight came 4 months after the Williams fight.

Holmes fought 4 fights in just over 10 months at this age and stage of his career. He was 35 years old.
Smith lasted into 12th round, Bey lasted into 10th, Williams went 15, Spinks won a 15 rounder.
He won those first three fights in a period of just a few days over 6 months .... 37 demanding rounds, and all the training it entails.

I don't think his IBF run was all that bad at all, when you consider all the facts.

 

Well, if Page was considered a far far tougher challenge, wouldn't that vindicate Holmes's demands for far more money ?

 

Lewis was negotiating to fight Vitali instead of Byrd when he vacated the IBF title - to fight Vitali. After that title was gone negotiations to fight Vitali fell through. The WBC then said a rematch between Lewis and Tyson could occur but the winner had to fight Vitali. Tyson didn't want the rematch. Lewis - Johnson then came about with Vitali to feature on the undercard and then Lewis and Vitali would fight each other next. Johnson got injured so they both said yeah lets do it now.

Lewis did drop the title in order to fight Vitali instead of Byrd it's just that negotiations etc ended up complicating things and postponing them in the wash up otherwise it would have been Lewis vs Vitali instead of Johnson.

 

As The Rolling Stones sang, you can't always get what you want. He was to get $2.55mil. These guys have contractual and mandatory obligations. Holmes had no trouble meeting them for half a decade. It didn't just end up being Page, he named a host of guys he would not be fighting with no mention of money.

Even later on in the peace he added this to his earlier statements -

Larry Holmes -

"I'm tired of guys like David Bey hitting me up the side of my head. That means no Pinklon Thomas, no Greg Page, no Tim Witherspoon."

It's all there plain as day with no wriggle room.

 

Trying to bracket them together isn't going to fly even for a second. One is far worse than the other as i explained at length earlier. One guy still had two titles including his original. One guy had no title and left behind the title he had validated for half a decade.

In the days of two titles boxers validated the title. Holmes validated the WBC title by winning and defending it multiple times while showing he was comfortably the best heavyweight on the planet. His was THE title. He was the man.

The IBF had just formed and were nothing at that time. They gave Holmes a title without having to fight for it in an effort to strengthen themselves. 15 rounds mattered little.

 

Good stuff! You have a good memory of things.

Yeah, can't really blame Lewis for any of this. Vitaly was the guy to face.

 

Yes.

So in 1976 he took on and beat two of the top 3 heavyweights in the world. That's hardly avoiding the top dogs is it? Beating/fighting both of them in same year is actually impressive.

Young stunk the place out and there was certainly no call for fighting him again. Witherspoon and Williams were actually good fights particularly Witherspoon.

Regarding Norton, how many times do you want a guy to fight someone? Ali had fought him three times. They always had close fights. They could have fought each other another 3 times in a row and all would have likely been close and they could have froze everyone else out of the title and just kept on rematching yes? At least Ali took on a nemesis 3 times. Lyle at #5 in your ratings had been beaten the year prior too.

Incidentally Holmes defended against Evangelista as well you know right after he won the title? Evangelista had done very little in the meantime since Ali beat him as well.

The difference being that Ali had fought Norton three times. He also didn't point blank state he was refusing to fight all the top guys. As a matter of fact going by your ranking above he fought 3 of them in just a 16 month period. Big differences right there.

Ali could well have given Foreman a rematch, absolutely. I've seen him criticized for it. He did however beat Foreman very decisively.

 

I think Ali's reign after Norton III was a bit weak. I don't have much problems with him not rematching Foreman, though. When Foreman gained the nr 1 spot as contender Ali was already scheduled to face Norton, and not not long after Foreman lost to Young and retired.

And while there were no outstanding challengers out there at that time, there were certainly better ones than Evagelista, Spinks and even Shavers.

But in terms of legacy, Ali had already had such momentous achievements at that time that it doesn't mean much. Holmes seemed to think he was at the same place after beating Cooney, but he of course absolutely wasn't. History went on to show that some of the guys he did beat 83-85 was better than first expected, but there is absolutely no comparison when it comes to where Ali was going into 1977 to Holmes going into 1983.

 

Yes, Holmes was very blunt and honest in his statements. He was looking to retirement at the time (funny, he came back and fought Tyson for less than he was demanding against those guys and ended up fighting until he was about 50 !).

The statement you mention has quoted him after he faced David Bey, to be fair.

 

I'm glad you brought this topic up.

I've seen it claimed numerous times but i'm pretty sure only by klompton who seemed to have a fair old axe to grind when it came to Monzon and to an extent other hugely rated middleweights. We know why i reckon.

His story goes that Monzon only ever agreed to fight Valdes after his hand was horribly mangled in that accident and Monzon somehow knew he was affected. Pretty sure when i researched it the only stuff i found was klompton in other forums rehashing the same claim.

Here is a clipping, i think it was Rodrigo's next fight after hurting his hand -

PARIS, March 28—Rodrigo Valdes continuously tested his once‐shattered right hand on Max Cohen's face tonight as he easily retained his World Boxing Council middleweight title when his opponent gave up in the fourth round.

The Colombian knocked Cohen down twice in the third round with the right hand he smashed in an auto accident last year. Valdes apparently felt no pain; Cohen apparently did.

So i'm not really convinced to be honest.

Let it be said that Monzon did decide a year and a half or so prior to fighting him not to take him on for whatever reason and dropped his WBC title. Let it also be said he still held the WBA version and as i said earlier the man maketh the title.

So i'm extremely open to any documentation/information on the whole Valdes/Monzon thing. Going by the clipping above i am going to call the actual hand claim rubbish until proven otherwise.

These are minor claims comparative to taking the easy route for half a dozen "defenses" or so.

Mugabi was actually the #1 contender for all three governing bodies when Hagler fought him.

Hagler was looking seriously at retiring when mid year Ray said he was challenging him. Hagler initially wasn't keen but decided to take the fight.

Yet again letting one title go when you have three is nothing like letting one go and having none.

Hagler was actually supposed to fight Hearns as the Hagler - Mugabi/Hearns - Schuler card was aimed at generating interest in the rematch. Hearns was actually offered incentive money to get Schuler out of there quickly to help boost his side of the rematch. I don't see any claims Hagler avoided a Hearns rematch tho!

I've been meaning to ask for years (and don't think i have) if your username is inspired by the movie?

 

Cheers Boje!! Always enjoy your posts and open mindedness.

 

Another fair post mate.

 

I made sure i made that extremely clear and also that similar statements were made much earlier. I'd have them on the forum somewhere. I have an interview by one of the mags of the time somewhere that i used to drag out when people were in aggressive denial and it was a great concluder. There's no need for that here of course.

 

I'm not posting all this for the sake of bagging out Holmes either. I've defended him on claims of ducking certain other fighters by posters on here over the years too. It was hoped he and Tate were heading toward a lucrative unification at one early point when Tate was even regarded by some as the better fighter by some. I believe they would have made it happen even with the WBC/WBA politics of the day. Tate of course went bust. It quite likely would have been set with Weaver too but Mike got some injuries and promoter setbacks from memory and barely fought. After beating Tate Dokes was his third fight in a bit over 2 1/2 years. There was never really talk of Holmes - Dokes either as Dokes was managed by Dons son and Holmes was on the verge of retirement. Dokes was steered toward Weaver with that in mind.