why did Larry Holmes never once try and unify?

The eventually of none of the above matters. He didn’t fight his mandatories and didn’t unify. This argument has been plaguing this forum for years And it shouldn’t have to. Btw, Dokes first round stoppage of Weaver was highly controversial and many thought weaver won the rematch. And speaking of rematches why didn’t Holmes give Hercules one after he gave him fits THEN proceeding to be the second best heavy in the division for the next 2-3 years ???

 

You are 100 percent correct, champions are supposed to defend their titles and especially against their mandatory challengers, or else be stripped. No one should be immune to this, no matter who they are.

 

Of coursed it shouldn't but it does because of revisionist history and a lack of knowledge of the facts ..

1. Holmes KOed Weaver. After that he was all about a big rematch with Shavers . After that there was the build up to a huge money fight, Larry's first , with Ali ... DK was not risking that fight for anything ..

2. At same time Weaver regrouped, got a shot against Tate and shocked everyone by winning ... then he had a huge money fight in SA against Coetzee .. then its was typical Alphabet crap mixed with the golden ticket of a Cooney fight for both ...

Thats what happened .. Holmes ended up fighting Cooney and Weaver ended up losing to Dokes and getting robbed in the rematch ..

Anyone that knows anything about Larry Holmes knows he was all about the money, always, period. No one is denying that Weaver gave him a very tough fight .. maybe Larry was sick like he says and maybe he wasn't . Either way if the money was there Holmes fight anyone .. period .. almost more then any other fighter he wanted the money. He fought Butternbean at 52 for money .. that is Larry ..

 

The title was split when he won it.

DK was his promoter once he won the WBC title.

Bob Arum promoted Ali at the time.

At first Holmes wasn't even recognized as the true Champ. Leon Spinks was as he had defeated Ali.

Then Ali beat Spinks and had the WBA title.

Then he retired and Arum held a WBA tournament

Slowly Holmes was seen as the true Champ and solidified it when he beat Ali. This was kind of a unification as Ali never lost the WBA title in the ring

King continued to promote Holmes and Arum promoted the WBA champ Weaver

Then DK got control of the WBA title when Dokes stopped Weaver

Holmes saw the writing on the wall that King had a large stable of young HWs chomping at the bit to take over the division so after the Witherspoon scare he bolted from DK and the WBC

After Coetzee surprisingly won the WBA title title and Holmes was given the IBF title apparently Holmes flirted with the idea of fighting Coetzee. I guess technically this would have been a unification fight. After that failed to materialize and King regained control of the WBA title he didn't seem eager to fight DKs WBA or WBC titlists. Truth be told these guys were tougher that the guys Holmes was defending his IBF title against.

 

He did cherry pick after the Witherspoon scare but apparently as double chin said he did try to fight Coetzee

He probably saw that Coetzee was beatable as Gerry had benefited from the fact Dokes had a huge Coke problem

 

Because he DGAF interweb nerds.

 

Correct.

 

Correct.

 

Hopefully you wrote childrens fiction books in your pomp. You'd be a millionaire chok.

 

Anyone who defends the title 20 times successfully and had the title 7+ years is going to have the filler in there. There aren't that many good heavyweights at any one time let alone great ones. Ali fought Richard Dunn and Jean Pierre Coogan not to mention Leon Spinks. Does he get much grief?

 

your talking about unifications with Page, Tubbs, Witherspoon and Thomas right?

by the time Page won a belt he was fresh off a loss to David Bey and committed to fight Tony Tubbs. So Larry couldn’t fight Page until he lost to Tubbs. (What had Tubbs done I’d like to know, outpoint Smith right after Larry stopped him?).

A rematch unification with Tim would have been great but he lost his title so fast to Thomas when could that have possibly happened? Instead of the Coetzee unification? The one that kept falling through? Later when Tim beat Tubbs he tested for smoking dope, took a fight with Bruno, had to rematch Tubbs but ended up getting Smith instead and lost.

Thomas did defend against Weaver. But he was out with an eye problem. Larry was staying busy with Smith, Bey and Carl williams while Thomas was quite idle.

were Tubbs, Page, Witherspoon and Thomas really much tougher than Bey who beat Page, Smith who went 1-1 against Witherspoon) Thomas who lost to Berbick? Carl Williams later took Tim to a SD.

I think Greg Page was a slight spanner in the works of the Larry Holmes story. A slight one. Also the Marciano record and retirement talk, Larrys talk in general never helped him any..but I blame the governing bodies plenty.

The WBA never had any real justification not to support Holmes when Ali retired. Instead they allowed Bob Arum to invent Tate v Coetzee. Just so Bob could promote “title” fights in South Africa. It didn’t seem to be about much else.

When you think about it the whole thing about Larry not fighting paper champions in unifications was more about King v Arum than anything else. And boxing lost.

 

Ali gets excused as he beat Frazier, Norton, Patterson, Foreman and Liston. His run from 1971 - 1974/1975 was fairly impressive.

If Larry had such a run I don't think he would get the grief he gets.

Most long-reigning champs had filler fights so I don't really criticise Larry as much as others do, but there was definitely an unwillingness to make certain fights that Ali and Marciano and Lewis and Holyfield would likely have took had they the same opportunity.

It is what it is.

 

It seems that Larry got an inflated sense of his standing after Cooney. He turned down 2,5 mil to fight Page like it was beneath him, even though it was the same amount (minus inflation obviously) that Ali and Frazier got for FOTC.

He put all his eggs in the Coetzee basket, but seemed to be unlucky that it didn't come off.

 

I think every pro would fight anyone for enough money. Then there are those who also fight for legacy. Ali and Louis were more of the second variety, even though they wanted to get paid too.

 

That has more to do with the politics though. In the past, Without two governing bodies there was a simple meeting to find a logical challenger among one top ten. Yes one top ten.

Had the WBA supported Larry as soon as Ali retired (as the world had supported Charles when Louis retired or Patterson when Marciano retired) it would have been easier to make logical challengers out of that parade of inept belt holders.

Coetzee would have became logical when he beat Spinks. He never would have fought Tate. And Tate never would have been a factor once he lost to Larry victim Weaver.

Under old rules I imagine Page would have made a logical challenger at some point before losing to Berbick. But Page never would have been more logical than a defence against comeback Ali, ex champ Leon Spinks or Gerry Cooney. So he would have had to wait in line anyway. As he did.

perhaps without split titles Larry would not have needed to make a 1984 fight with Coetzee since they would have met in 1979. and Page would have been more logical at that point? Under those circumstances, with a lack of premium put on the value of Coetzee’s bogus belt, Page would have represented more money too?

under the old system, I doubt any of the WBA challengers might have made it to logical challenger anyway.

what red hot result on Michael Dokes resume was ever going to put him ahead of somebody like Cooney? Same with Tony Tubbs. He never eclipsed anyone did he? When was Tubbs more relevant than David Bey?

Can anyone say Tubbs ever outshone the rest of the best!

None of these guys were anything more than rank average contenders. Voluntary defence materiel at best. Yet politics meant they were able to pass a belt around rather than move up and down the ratings like the floating one hit wonders they were.

Thomas did look good. I guess his win over Witherspoon was more convincing than Larrys win over Witherspoon and under the old system that kind of result would have made Thomas a logical challenger at any other point in history.

Witherspoon himself was really like Tommy Farr to Joe Louis. A challenger who turned out good enough to push the champ. That’s it. Tims “challenge to Tubbs” would have been a run of the mill contender fight in any other era. With no more significance than Foley vs Machen or Farr vs Nova. Or Witherspoon v page for that matter. No real relevance.

But that Holmes vs Thomas match is probably the only one fight that would have happened in the old days. Nothing would have prevented that without the politics.

Under the old system most of these belt holders would have qualified for a championship fight no more than Marvis Frazier or James Smith had.