Zzzzzzzzz. Holmes beat Cooney. Holmes had already beat Berbick so there was no reason for the fight. Had Page won he was fighting either Holmes or Cooney next. Straight from Daddy Don King’s mouth.
How many hall of famers did Holmes beat and how many did Ali beat? (Obv not counting Holmes’ win over Ali.)
I agree. We seem to have a clash of perceptions ... between the people who followed boxing then ... and the people who follow boxing now, whose ideas around champions tend to be the complete opposite. Coming out of the 70s, we were used to there being one champion. It was more about the fighter than the belt. Larry was the champion. Sanchez was the champion. Gomez was the champion. Arguello was the champion. Aaron Pryor was the champion. Hagler was the champion. As was the case with Larry and some others, like Arguello, for example, with Mancini, if you beat a challenger in a title fight, and that challenger turned around and won the other org's belt, it just offered more proof you were the champion. And it made the other belt essentially meaningless in the fans eyes. Nobody was banging on the ceiling demanding Arguello rematch with Mancini. Today, fans look at it as if a challenger wins another belt, that means "he's better" than when you fought him. And you have to rematch him. The opposite was true back then. If you beat a challenger, or stopped him, and he turned around and won the other org's belt, that just proved you were the better guy. When Weaver (who Holmes stopped months earlier in a title fight) beat Tate, that was pretty much it for the WBA belt at heavyweight. The fact that more and more of Holmes' former 'unsuccessful' challengers kept winning it (and the WBC belt after he dropped it) didn't give those belts any more prestige. It wasn't until HBO's Seth Abraham got heavily involved with boxing that he started pushing for unifications. I like unifications as much as the next guy. But some fans now are just preocuppied with counting belts. They will say in one breath that there area too many belts, yet they are also the fans that give all the power to those belts. They're the ones who go: "Well, there's another belt, now someone has to win ALL of those before they're considered the world champ." Maybe you do. But we don't. Like this thread. Why didn't Holmes unify? Because fans back then recognized him as the champ. (That's about it.) He didn't need to. Later on, when the money being thrown around to fight Coetzee was significant, he made an attempt to. When HBO had a unification tournament, he joined that, too. But it wasn't a big deal for fans of that era, certainly in NO WAY like it is now. Counting belts is a major hobby of most fans now (which only gives the belts/orgs more control). And, you're right, all longtime champs tend to fall into periods where they pick and choose, because they fought nearly everyone and aren't really motivated to start fighting guys they already beat all over again. Hell, Joe Louis purposely wouldn't fight any black challengers throughout most of his reign. He fought a grand total of ONE in his first decade and first 23 title defenses as champ, and that was a favor to his sick friend John Henry Lewis. That sort of limited the opposition a bit during a whole era.
I mean if you’ve read or seen any footage for the build up to Holmes - Cooney then you would know what King’s intentions were. Page was to get the winner. It was all but guaranteed by King. But Page didn’t win so it became moot. There was no reason to see Holmes - Berbick again as the first fight was a total snoozer and Holmes easily won. Page didn’t hold his end of the bargain.
Yeah I've seen that and read countless articles in both the lead up and aftermath and never seen anything about Page fighting Holmes if he won. He was still being groomed.
king and arum each had a piece so holmes had no choice. Around '83 he broke from king who used his s*able for WBC and holmes was given ibf. king also con*rolled WBA. mabe could have unified in 83 before leaving king vs. Dokes if king agreed however king liked having WBA and WBC con%rol
he wen* for maximum $ minimum risk mid '83 onward. who he could have faced page pinklon Wi#herspoon rema#ch #ubbs Coe#ee Dokes who he faced marvis Fra@ier Frank Bonecrusher Be# Williams ...michael Spinks in cherr# pick gone wrong
Before Bonecrusher knocked ou% Wi#herspoon he was easil# bea#en b# #ubbs and Wi#herspoon. Ever#one knows Wi%herspoon was off for second Bonecrusher encoun@er.
