When and with who did Larry Holmes become lineal champion?

Probably the fact he was WBA champ.

 

That'd do it among other things.

 

If I remember correctly, John Tate v Gerrie Coetzee for the WBA championship happened a few weeks after Holmes beat Shavers.

 

Not the rematch (which came after Shavers beat Norton).

For the first fight Shavers was nowhere near number 2 imo, the rematch he should have been iirc, but ring disagreed

Edit: Coetzee must have been 2 after spanking Spinks.

 

Muhammad Ali announced his retirement on June 27, 1979.
The second Holmes-Shavers fight happened on September 28, 1979.
Tate and Coetzee fought for the vacant WBA on October 20, 1979.

Yes, Coetzee's win over Leon Spinks (June 1979) would have put him high up in the ratings, but shouldn't have put him above Shavers who had defeated Norton a few months earler (March 1979).

It's all a matter of opinion though, I suppose.

 

At the point just prior to Holmes-Shavers II, Ring had Holmes #1, Coetzee #2, Shavers #3, and Tate #4.

Shavers had fallen out of the top 10 a couple of months after his loss to Holmes in their first fight and returned to the ratings, higher than ever, by kayoing Norton.

After Bert Sugar took over Ring in mid-79 he ran a pretty great magazine for several years; roughly the Larry Holmes era. The ratings were voted on by a group of boxing writers. He really cleaned it up after the disastrous (post-Fleischer) Loubet & Ort years. They didn't resort to the "eight original divisions only" and "not recognizing a champion" until after Sugar was gone.

Great informative posts, Dubblechin!

 

Ali took $300,000 from Bob Arum in 1979 to vacate the WBA belt so Arum could hold a WBA tournament.

Sort of like Lennox Lewis took $1 million and an SUV from Don King to vacate the IBF belt so Don King could stage Byrd-Holyfield.

That didn't mean Lennox Lewis wasn't the Heavyweight Champion of the World anymore. Like Lewis said: "My decision was also based upon the fact that I believe, as I have said repeatedly, that Chris Byrd offers no competitive challenge to me. The fact is that the champion makes the belt important, not the other way around."

And Ali vacating the WBA belt didn't mean he wasn't the Heavyweight Champion of the World anymore. He wasn't exactly throwing up his hands saying "I can't do this anymore."

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...g=6957,15880&dq=muhammad+ali+retirement&hl=en

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...2629,6164292&dq=muhammad+ali+retirement&hl=en

Ali retired after the Frazier fight in Manila. He retired before and after the Norton fight in New York. He retired in early 1977. He retired after he regained the title from Spinks in 1978. Then he was supposed to fight light heavyweight champ Mike Rossman in early 1979. Then he had an exhibition with Alzado. Then he retired in 1979 after Bob Arum paid him to vacate the WBA belt.

Hell, the Tate-Coetzee fight was already signed when Bob Arum finally got Ali to officially agree to give up the WBA belt. It was mid-summer when Ali finally took the check from Arum and agreed to issue a press release.

He was "retired" all of a couple months in 1979 before he started talking about fighting Scott Ledoux. And he was supposed to fight an exhibition with Kent Green (like he had with Alzado that summer). And after Tate won the WBA belt in October, talks immediately started about fighting Ali in Brazil, I believe.

It looks longer on paper, but it was the "busiest" retirement in history. Ali wasn't out much longer than any other time he retired. Essentially from July 1979 until he began negotiating for a Tate fight after Tate won the vacant WBA belt in October. Three or four months.

Ali basically took a break after beating Spinks, and grabbed a check from Arum, and avoided any mandos until he decided who he wanted to fight next. And he chose Tate at the end of 1979.

That's what old heavyweight champs tend to do.

 

You're comparing this Holmes-Ali situation with a instances where a champ retired and never returned.

That's not what occurred. Ali gave up the WBA in the summer of 1979 for a fee, but he was still fighting exhibitions, and by the winter of 1979 he had already negotiated to fight John Tate.

He just wasn't interested in making any mandatory defenses. That's all.

Same thing with Joe Louis. Joe Louis gave up his title for a fee. But he was always in the ring doing exhibitions non-stop. And when he fought Charles, and lost, that's when Charles became the LINEAL champ.

The other guys you mentioned quit the sport for good. Ali didn't. Like Louis didn't.

In those instances (where they quit for good), you restart the lineage with the top two contenders.

The Ali situation wasn't like that. It was more similar to the Joe Louis situation, or the Lennox Lewis situation with Byrd or the George Foreman situation, when Foreman beat Moorer and all the belts he had were stripped or vacated because he just wanted to fight who he wanted to fight. And when he lost to Shannon Briggs, Briggs became the lineal champ.

 

That's an interesting take on it.

His retirement to allow Frazier and Ellis fight for the world championship is usually seen as a real one even though he managed to overcome his problems and return from that to forge an even greater career.

I've never considered this retirement as anything but a legitimate one that be again returned from.

I saw it more as Ali retired and then they dragged him back again to face Holmes.

I'll look into it more though.

 

Yes, Dubblechin makes a good point.
Immediately I thought of the 1970 Frazier-Ellis situation too. Maybe a fighter's first retirement should be viewed as genuine, and subsequent retirements should be ignored !

 

It's not really a "take" on it. That's basically what happened.

Also, Muhammad Ali didn't retire to "allow" Frazier and Ellis to fight for the title. He had his boxing license revoked, he had his passport confiscated (so he couldn't leave the country and fight elsewhere) and he was sentenced to five years in prison, and he had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to get it overturned. He was banned.

1979 wasn't anything like that, though.

The 1979 "retirement" was just a payday. He beat Spinks, regained the title in 1978, and announced his retirement every other week like he did after practically all his fights in the mid to late 70s. Then he'd get offers for title defenses and consider them.

The worst offer being the defense against Mike Rossman in early 1979, who won the light heavy belt from Galindez on the Ali-Spinks II undercard. Bob Arum (who is Jewish) wanted to promote the Ali-Rossman fight from "the Muslim vs. the Jew" angle. Which sounds bad now and was even more inflammatory then, given the Middle East situation in 1979.

Meanwhile, Ali faced Jimmy Ellis and Joe Bugner on the same night in a big public exhibition in New Zealand in February 1979.

He faced Luke Capuano in a four-round public exhibition in Chicago also in February 1979.

He faced Jimmy Ellis (again) and Dino Denis in a public exhibition in Rhode Island in March 1979.

He faced Jimmy Ellis (yet again) and Alonzo Johnson in a 10-round exhibition (five rounds each) in May 1979 in Denmark.

He faced John L. Gardner (a ranked heavyweight) in a four-rounder in England also in May 1979.

He faced Karl Mildenberger and another German heavyweight in a couple goofy two-round exhibitions in Germany in June 1979.

He faced Jimmy Ellis (for the umpteenth time) in another five-round exhibition in England also in June 1979.

He took Bob Arum’s $300,000 to relinquish the WBA strap in late June.

Then he faced Lyle Alzado in a big public exhibition in Mile High Stadium in Denver in July 1979.

After Tate defeated Coetzee in October, Ali was back. He agreed to have an exhibition with Kent Green (who had beaten him in the amateurs) in December, but that fell thru. Then he fought an exhibition in January 1980 against Mike Rossman in Chicago and began negotiating to fight John Tate.

Ali was probably in the ring more in 1979 than Holmes was.

Nobody had to "drag" Ali out of retirement. He didn't really leave the ring in 1979. He was traveling and putting on boxing exhibitions all over the world. He had movies coming out. He was appearing on TV shows. He was everywhere in 1979.

The WBA was the problem.

The WBA originally wanted Kallie Knoetze and Leon Spinks, their top available contenders to fight each other, in early 1979. Knoetze was was rated #2, behind Norton at #1.

Then Norton lost to Shavers in one round in March, and Knoetze became the #1 WBA contender.

But Knoetze was banned from fighting in the U.S. because he was pro-Apartheid and had shot a kid in the leg (and he had to have his leg amputated) during a protest after Steven Biko was murdered. (Knoetze was also a cop in South Africa.)

So the WBA had a #1 contender who was banned in the U.S. and the black leaders in the U.S. weren't going to let Ali fight in South Africa against a racist white cop who might actually beat him.


So Arum's Top Rank - who promoted Knoetze, Spinks, Coetzee and Tate - convinced the WBA to let him stage a mini-tourney for them (because Knoetze couldn't fight in the U.S.). And black leaders in the U.S. were telling Ali not to fight anyone from South Africa.

So Arum gave Knoetze and Spinks a couple softer touches - Knoetze would fight Tate. Spinks would fight the unknown Coetzee. Then Tate upset Knoetze and Spinks (who had gone 30 rounds with Ali) got stopped in one by Coetzee.

Ali's black Muslims and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH group (which got Knoetze banned in the U.S.) didn't want Ali facing a white South African in Coetzee, who did that to Spinks.

And Arum was begging Ali to take his $300,000 grand to relinquish the WBA belt because Arum suddenly had a hot ticket in the Coetzee-Tate meeting, and he wanted to promote it as a title fight in South Africa (and make it a bigger event).

So Ali took the money and then, a couple weeks later, he was back in the ring fighting an exhibition with a football player in Denver.

After Tate beat Coetzee in an upset (and the Muslims and the Rainbow/PUSH group saw the coast was clear), then Ali's camp wanted him to fight Tate. So Ali started putting on exhibitions again and negotiating with Tate's people. And a deal was agreed on until Tate lost to Weaver in a tuneup.

So their attention turned to Holmes. But that got delayed because Ali got his lip busted open sparring with Jeff Sims in early 1980. And people didn't like how he sounded in interviews and wanted him to have tests done. And everything got pushed back.

 

I had always taken it for granted that Ali basically retired after Spinks II. As an 11-12 year old following boxing in a small town, I don't remember seeing the reports of doubt about Ali's retirement, his many exhibitions (tho I did hear about the Alzado exhibition), nor talks of other bouts. I always thought he rode off into the sunset after Spinks II and announced his retirement several months later to make it official.

Now I learn that there was a lot of money to be made in a WBA tournament and that Bob Arum basically wanted Ali out of the way. And, y'know, Arum was doing Ali a favor, like, "C'mon champ, go out on top. The world doesn't want to see you defend your title against Alfio Righetti. Don't risk your health. Let these young guys into the game now." Before tonight I'd never known about a proposed Ali defense against Righetti in September 1979. Interesting stuff.

March 2, 1979 - Ali To Come Out Of 'Retirement' For Last Bout - https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AAIBAJ&sjid=IckEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3097,277411&hl=en

 

After Ali beat Norton there was a huge uproar which led to many believing Norton was the true champion. This was a big deal among the boxing public. The first chance the WBC got (Spinks refusal to fight Norton after beating Ali) they handed that title to Norton. Holmes beat Norton and in many, perhaps most eyes, he was the true champion. Then by beating the unretired Ali he cemented himself as being the best of that time and the lineal champion. So Norton became lineal champion on the strength of beating Norton at a time where his stock was very very high plus beating the greatest Ali himself.

 

People didn't think Ken Norton was the lineal champ after the third Ali fight.

Muhammad Ali was the champion. People saw his fights against Evangelista and Shavers as WORLD title fights.

For example, NOBODY viewed Ken Norton-Lorenzo Zanon as a lineal title fight. NOBODY.

And when Ali was sitting ringside for the Norton-Young fight, and stealing all the thunder from the fighters in the ring, NOBODY said Norton-Young was a LINEAL WORLD title fight.

NOBODY. Because it wasn't. And the experts were split on whether Norton even won against Young.

They were Ali's top challengers ... and Ali was THE WORLD CHAMP. The positions they held were all very clear.

And when Leon Spinks beat Muhammad Ali, Leon Spinks became the WORLD heavyweight champion.

The WBC presenting Norton with their title belt had everything to do with Don King's influence on the relatively new WBC president Jose Sulaiman and the fact that Ali's manager wouldn't give King exclusive promotional rights to Ali.

So, once Ali lost, King made his move to grab control of the division from any other promoter. (King promoted Norton, Bob Arum promoted Leon Spinks and had the rights to the rematch with Ali.)

The WBC's move was universally viewed as political.

When Holmes defeated Norton (in a great fight, as was Spinks-Ali 1), Norton was widely ridiculed for being the first heavyweight beltholder to never have actually won a title fight.

Go back and read the reports leading up to Holmes vs. Evangelista, for example, shortly after Ali beat Spinks in the rematch, and see if ANYONE viewed Holmes as the LINEAL WORLD champ.

Nobody did.

 

I lived through that time. MANY felt Norton the true champion after his controversial loss to Ali. The idea of the Lineal champion in those days was never or rarely discussed. You had a large portion of the boxing world calling Norton the champion and with Ali losing to Spinks Nortons stock went that much higher. During that time period, during the time he lost to Holmes, Nortons stock in the boxing world was NEVER higher. Holmes beat that fighter. By the strength of THAT win and his ko win vs An unretired Ali Holmes was the true champion. No other hwt had that level of victories on his resume. Holmes cleared out the universal No 1 (Norton) and the former champion Ali. These are the facts from someone very close to the sport during that time period.