...are we talking about the same Larry Holmes - the one that got up off the canvas and shook off a full-power right hand from Shavers? :think
...well, Young himself fought Shavers...twice. Didn't mention his name while extolling Page's explosiveness, did he? :yep
What did Jimmy Young say about Shavers? Shavers knocked young out in their first fight then decked young before getting a Draw in their 1974 rematch. I recon Shavers hit Young a good deal harder than page did in their 1981 12 round snoozer.
I remember seeing Jimmy Young in the Garden 3-10-72 (im getting old) and he lost to randy Neuman, I was not impressed but it should be noted that when he got stopped by Earnie in 73 his record was 7-3-0 in the rematch which many felt Young won but was called a draw, Young was 13-4-1 but Young was on his best run right after that fight he beat Ron Lyle 2X and beat George Foreman in that period only losing a disputed decision to Ali but when he lost a disputed SD to Ken Norton, Jimmy just stopped training, he grew a pair of man boobs and only won 12 of his next 27 fights
There was surely a big period of opportunity to rematch and unify vs Weaver John Tate was on a good run and that was a big match and a $$$ fight for Holmes until Weaver knocked off Tate Coetzee was white and South African and those fights draw, he KO'd Spinks in 1 but it was Leon that got the shot form Holmes..Coetzee dropped Snipes 2X and was robbed of the win by King, Snipes got the shot Thomas had a good Jab and decent power, would have made for a good unification Page was erratic but why would Larry drop a title Dokes OK lets blame it on King, he wanted both titles Rematches, Norton, Witherspoon,Williams Sorry the more I think about it, I got to dock Holmes, far worse than anything Dempsey did for sure X 4
I think most of what stopped the weaver rematch was the fact Holmes already knocked him out and the ALi Fight was bigger. John Tate should have happened but his vacent match with Coetzee was around the time Shavers and occasio were in line for Holmes on account of their wins over Young and Norton. Coetzee should have got Holmes right after the Spinks win but his rating was higher with the WBA and he went after the vacent belt. Later when be was a champ Gerrie blew his belt in a warm up for Holmes against Page. The fight was agreed. Page was never a real #1. Holmes got stripped for nothing. Page proved to be no better than Snipes, Berbick, Bey and as multitude of others at the time of that rating. Thomas, could have happened. There was a moment when he was genuinely regarded as either an equal to Holmes or second best but that was either because Holmes had begun to decline or because Larry was already talking retirement. The window was not that big and Holmes had bonecrusher and bey to deal with at that time. Maybe Thomas is one fight that had most reason to happen. The rematches kind of ran out of time because the loser saught the rival championship (weaver, Witherspoon) or blew their next big fight (norton, Williams) whilst Holmes was obligated to take another challenger. Most of all unification fights not happening had a LOT more to do with King wanting to promote multiple champions than Larry Holmes ducking anyone. That way Don got promote more than one or two heavyweight title fights a year. If he could keep all the champions defending simultaneously he could potentially promote as many as 6 heavyweight bouts labels as championship fights a year. This suited king and the ABC croneys a lot more than unification fights. The HBO tournament only got going in late 1985.
That's all championship. What about pre-championship fights? I was at some of those early Holmes fights. they were all horrible mismatches. Just like another guy around at the time who's fights I went to--Duane Bobick. Larry fought nobodies up until Shavers 1. And old Earnie was no lock in that one and lots of folks like Larry in that one. But it wasn't as if Holmes was cleaning out the division. Way way too many Praters and so forth on that opponent list. Ibar Arrington. Names like that. I followed the sport very very closely back then. If you didn't, those guys; weren't on the heavyweight radar list. If you were around, you knew there were lots of fights we wanted to see Holmes in, but we always got these type of keep busy fights instead. But they were always a sloppy defense guy. Made to order for a jabber and mover. Bummy was around at the time and we can ask him if he agree's. He avoided lots of fights during the title reign, but I'm saying it happened way before the Evangelista fight. Man, That fight had maybe even less interest than the upcoming Klitschko defense--if that's possible. But there aren't many others to choose from presently. Back then, there was. Now maybe Larry wins them anyway, maybe he gets upset. Or cut. Or hurts a hand. 1 thing for sure he was doing would have been to have been forced to dig deeper to win. And the big thing with continually digging deep to win is it always takes a toll. On reflexes and legs.
John Tate won the title in a dull decision over a flat Coetzee ( one of a history of let down performances through out his career ) and was knocked cold by Mike Weaver five months later in his first title defense. I wouldn't exactly call that a run. Then he was flattened by Trevor Berbick. Pretty much run over. Coetzee burst into the spotlight in 79 by flattening a drugged out, poorly trained novice Leon Spinks in one round on national T.V. It was a dramatic win and the consensus was the fight proved just how shot Ali was. He then lost to Tate in his back yard and was KO'ed by Weaver again in his backyard. He then lost a questionable decision to Snipes and Renaldo got the fight as a pure tune up for Larry prior to a Cooney super fight. After that Coetzee fought a few stiffs, was shocked again by getting held to a draw by then unknown Thomas ( defaulting his momentum again ) and getting a shot against a super drugged out Dokes and winning the title and then getting flatten by Page, again in his backyard. I always thought Norton was one of the biggest victims of boxing politics out there ... besides being robbed against Ali in the third fight he was forced to fight an eliminator prior to a Holmes rematch which was absurd. He was then crushed in it by Shavers and that took him out of the picture. While odds are that Holmes would have been better and Norton older, who knows ? Out of everyone, Weaver and Witherspoon should have gotten rematches ..
John Tate was well known fighting for America in the Olympics as a contender he KO'd 20-0 Bernardo Mercado (who KO'd Berbick in 1, 2 fights later) in 2 rounds in 78 and then Ko'd 48-2 Duane Bobick in 1 in 79 then beat Kallie Knoetzee and then Gerrie Coetzee before fighting Weaver Weaver was a 18-9 trial horse who gained his confidence fighting Holmes, he shook and wobbled Larry many times...a rematch was in order but then Weaver had an almost 3 year run beating the likes of Scot Ledeux, John Tate and Coetzee before King pulled his magic with the 1st round bogus stoppage of Weaver by Dokes
I have to agree, Remember I thought Larry improved but I remember him at the peak of his amateur career getting dropped and chased by Duane Bobick and then going out in a stretcher 2 X vs Nick Wells so I was not totally sold on this Ali replica...from the time King payed RING magazine to raise John Prater in the ratings to all of the rating manipulation and defense navigation Holmes did not fight the best of his era, it was by mistake that he fought the 18-9 Weaver the 1st time and guys like 10-0 Marvis, 10-2-2 Spinks (already KO'd in 1 by Coetzee 2yrs earlier) 13 fight Ocasio, 14-1 Smith, 14 fight David Bey, Evangilista, built up Leroy Jones (who I saw get battered by a middleweight) Scott Frank a build up.... Holmes had live challengers and they would have made for more realistic fights with a possible STYLE advantage....Holmes was carefully navigated and lets face it his toughest fights going in were Gerry Cooney (who realistically never went past 8 and had only fought 2 rounds in 2 years and Earnie Shavers who Holmes already outpointed and was already beaten by many and Norton at the twilight ...... There were fighters who could have given Larry Trouble because of certain factors, Powerful right hands, Coetzee, Page,improved and confident Weaver, Thomas had an excellent Jab...Dokes had speed, these were the guys Larry avoided and I feel win, lose or draw he would have had to dig deeper than he did by the 10-16 fight novices they hand picked as opponents
I wish Larry fought them too. It's slightly disappointing. I just don't think it's that outrageous. Snipes got Kayoed by Holmes, loses to Witherspoon and Page then beats Berbick. Page beats Snipes but loses to Berbick, witherspoon and Bey. Tate beats Coetzee but loses to Berbick and Weaver. After losing to Holmes, Weaver beats Coetzee and Tate but loses to Dokes, Thomas and Bonecrusher. Dokes beats Weaver, draws with weaver and is knocked out by Coetzee. Witherspoon loses to Holmes, beats Page but loses to Thomas. Coetzee loses to weaver and Tate, draws with Thomas beats dokes, loses to Page. Thomas draws with Coetzee, beats Witherspoon and Weaver but loses to Berbick. Page already lost to Berbick, Witherspoon and bey but beats Coetzee then loses to Tubbs. Tubbs beats bonecrusher and Page but loses to Witherspoon. Bonecrusher is stopped by Holmes but knocks out Weaver and Witherspoon after losing to marvis Frazier.... During all that "pass the parcel" Holmes was beating Berbick, Snipes, Weaver, Witherspoon, Bonecrusher as well as David Bey and Marvis Frazier among his 20 fight win streak in championship fights. The only outrageous thing was Don King wanting to promote multiple championship simultaneously rather than unifying them.
I don't really find much fault with Holmes and his reign. He was a great champion. I think any shortcomings had to do with boxing economics and boxing politics as much as, in the later years, Larry trying to play it safe while maximizing his income. But then only Louis, Ali, and Tyson cleaned out their divisions (arguably). That said, I would have liked to have seen Larry vs.: Jimmy Young (spoiled by Ocasio) Ken Norton II (spoiled by politics and Earnie Shavers) John Tate (spoiled by Weaver) Mike Weaver II (spoiled by politics and Weaver's inactivity (one fight between Fall of '80 and end of '82)) Greg Page Michael Dokes Gerrie Coetzee (all spoiled by losses at various times) Tim Witherspoon II Pinklon Thomas Carl Williams II And I could have done without defenses against Evangelista, Zanon, Rodriguez, and Frank.
Never going to happen. Far more likely would have been a Lynn Ball defense after he ko'd an 80 year old Lyle. Stan Ward based on his 2 victories over Weaver. Or an ST Gordon after his bout with Berbick. Or a moving up in weight Rossman. Lee Canalito when folks were buying into him. that's the kind of replacements we would have got. More soft touches.