kudos &his ar#icle reinforces #he idea king wan#ed #o make holmes/coe@ee bu$ onl# af#er larr# fulfilled his obliga#ions #o figh# Fra@ier and page. king con$rolled WBC and WBA bel#s. B# bal#ing on facing page holmes was s#ripped b# WBC, lef# king and los# chance #o unif* WBC and WBA vs. Coe$ee.
Spinks unified in 1983. hagler was unified champion 1980-87. leonard was unified champion 1981-1982 Curr# unified in 1985 holmes could have unified 1983-1984 when Dk held all #he hw cards bu# op#ed #o forfei@ #he chance b# going agains# kings wishes and jumping #o ibf
Seth Abraham at HBO got into unifications in the 1980s. HBO was behind the Spinks-Qawi and Curry-McCrory unifications. HBO put on a heavyweight unification tourney in 1986 that Holmes signed up for. HBO also wanted to air the Holmes-Coetzee unification, but the money kept falling thru. Holmes tried to unify all of 1984. . Hagler never unified. He won the unified title before he got involved with HBO.
The WBC was his belt that he was stripped of, he had already beaten Tim Witherspoon who picked up what he was stripped of. Could you argue he should've fought Pinklon? I guess, but Pinklon lost to Berbick (who he had also already beaten). There really was no point in unifying as it isn't like he never had that particular belt. That's a press to unify: if you've never had it. this wasn't that.
He wasn't stripped of the WBC belt. He went the WBC convention and relinquished it. He wanted to fight Coetzee. The WBC would never allow it as he was South African. An article about it is on one of these pages.
Of course not. It just jumped off his waist and walked itself away. The same way it jumped off Bowe’s waist and leaped strait into the trash…. Man those WBC belts are flighty things…
Holmes dumped it just like Riddick Bowe did. Except, Holmes handed it to Sulaiman at the WBC Convention instead of dropping it in the garbage can. I don't know why you guys are so pissy about it. That's what happened. The difference is in 1993, the guy the WBC gave their belt to (Lewis) didn't lose his next fight to someone Bowe just beat, like Page did when they tried to give him theirs. Page wasn't a very good mandatory.
NY TIMES Dec. 12, 1983 Larry Holmes resigned his World Boxing Council heavyweight title today and said he would fight as champion of the fledgling International Boxing Federation. The 34-year-old Holmes, who has been champion since 1978, made the announcement on the final day of the W.B.C.'s convention at Caesars Palace, and Jose Sulaiman, the council president, accepted the resignation. Holmes relinguished the title just as the W.B.C. was to approve a compromise that would have ordered arbitration to resolve Holmes's dispute with the promoter Don King over a mandatory defense against No. 1-ranked Greg Page. Sig Rogich, the council's vice president, said that Page would fight No. 2-ranked Tim Witherspoon for the vacant title. The fight is expected to be held Feb. 24 at a site to be determined. Holmes had signed an agreement to meet Page in a bout promoted by King, but he said today that he would not fight for King, of whom he has been sharply critical recently. The International Boxing Federation was formed as the United States Boxing Association/International early this year under the leadership of Bob Lee, who is deputy commissioner of the New Jersey State Athletic Commission. The federation, whose headquarters are in Newark, grew out of dissatisfaction with the W.B.C. and the World Boxing Association. The present W.B.A. champion is Gerrie Coetzee of South Africa, whom Holmes has said he would like to fight for a big purse. ''I said a lot of things during the meeting I think I shouldn't have said,'' Holmes added. ''But sometimes when you push somebody up against the wall, they push back.'' King, who has promoted most of Holmes's title fights and reportedly holds options to his future fights, said he was releasing him from all obligations. ''We have come to grips with reality that he should be able to spread his wings and fly,'' King said.
Handing it over or not, that belt was gone. Do you think if he chose to hold on to it and NOT fight Greg page that it still would have been there ? That was the very reason he handed it back and not because he didn’t like its green color. When fighters are being stripped it’s not as though the organization sends a repossession company over to their homes
He wanted to fight Coetzee for a big purse ... he was paid a $3 million signing bonus just to agree to fight Coetzee ... and the WBC wouldn't sanction a Coetzee fight because they didn't rank South Africans or allow their champs to fight them. Holmes was the world heavyweight champion. He was still viewed as such when he dumped the WBC belt and pursued the Coetzee fight. He was bigger than the belt he held. I know that sounds foreign to some fans today who think collecting belts is the end all, be all.
Everyone here is aware of all this as these arguments have gone on for decades and the very same articles you post have already been shared. And no, not everyone here is obsessed with collecting belts, but fighting mandatories to hold on to one ? Yeah that’s kind of important
Coetzee wasn't even champ when Holmes fought Frank. The WBC threatened to strip him if he fought Frank but backed out. King had a contract for Page at one point. Then they threatened him again pre Frazier and postured by refusing to recognize it as a title bout. Holmes had said he'd fight Page after Frazier. Then he wanted to fight Coetzee. The WBC was at their wits end and he jumped before he was pushed. The story he didn't fight Page because he wanted to unify is just that, a story. Many tons of water flowed under the bridge before that point. NYT September 11 1983 Duva had said earlier that he thought Frank had a chance in this fight, which Holmes had agreed to after getting a phone call from Frank asking for a title fight. But Jose Sulaiman, president of the W.B.C., threatened to strip Holmes of the title if he went through with the bout. Although Holmes has been a busy champion, he has not fought a No. 1 contender since he defeated Gerry Cooney on June 11, 1982.
Based on that..........Kinda seems like it was more the WBC's fault that Holmes was never "unified./undisputed". And then he never even fought Coetzee................... gave up one belt to fight someone with another belt, and that fight never happened either.
It isn't a "story." You know the WBC didn't strip Holmes. (He went to their convention and vacated the title in person.) You know why the WBC threatened to strip him before the Frank fight and then backed out (because the King and Lewis lawsuit against each other for promotional rights to Page hadn't been settled yet). You know the Holmes-Coetzee fight was "announced" ... a press conference was held announcing it ... there was a date, a location, millions had been paid to Holmes ... Larry Holmes even cashed a check for $3 million as a signging bonus to make the Coetzee fight. (I posted articles in this thread where he talks about having to pay taxes on that signing bonus even though the fight didn't happen.) https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/FpkAAOSwwa1lnDN~/s-l1200.jpg https://www.josportsinc.com/product...e-signed-on-site-poster-1984-signed-by-holmes Despite the WBC blocking it (because they didn't rank or sanction fights with South Africans), despite the WBA trying to block it because Holmes wasn't ranked (the WBA ended up ranking Holmes #1 even though he was IBF champ), despite various promoters and lawyers taking a crack at promoting it, and various venues agreeing then backing out over money, the money just fell thru. Sometimes promotions don't happen because of politics, lawsuits, money or all of it. As for Holmes and Frank and Page and Coetzee, I posted the whole timeline on this a couple of pages ago in this thread, but it doesn't suit your narrative so you ignore it. Now, you're back to obfuscating about the timeline. I'm done trying to share facts and information with you. I've been doing it for nearly two weeks in this thread. It's all in this thread. But you don't want it. Enjoy your day.
& that's somehow a reflection on Holmes' legacy? Why on earth is Dokes' name being bandied about this thread as someone Holmes "should've unified" against if Dokes had no interest in unifying in the first place? That's even more inane than faulting Holmes for the signed Coetzee fight falling apart. & loads of others have disregarded sanctioning body "obligations" & forfeited titles w/o any stain on their legacies, including Ali, Lennox, Hagler, & Mayweather just to name a few. When Paulie Ayala & Bones Adams defied sanctioning body "obligations" to pursue a fight w/ each other & were stripped as a result, they received universal praise for doing so. McCallum tossed his belt in the trash during the build-up to what was supposed to be a unification w/ Toney, & nobody thought any less of him or the fight itself. Heck, Marco A Barrera threw belts in the trash just to avoid paying sanctioning body fees, & I've yet to hear anyone fault his legacy for it. & I've also yet to hear anyone claim Usyk's legacy should suffer for having tossed one of his titles earlier this year. Actually, Hagler was stripped at least a couple of times during his reign: https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/21/sports/hagler-is-stripped-of-title-by-wbc.html https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/1...ed-of-the-World-Boxing-Council/7082467092800/ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-02-26-sp-5930-story.html Nobody remembers today b/c, in his case, people (rightfully) disregard sanctioning body decrees as an absolute joke. Holmes distinctly couldn't unify in 83-84 b/c, 1. Dokes wasn't interested in pursuing a unification during his reign, even by his own public admission. 2. The Coetzee unification that was signed & scheduled for June 84 was cancelled by the venue just weeks shy of its date. There's nothing whatsoever "new" at all about that "doctrine." That's dependent upon who the mandatory is & whether anyone outside of the sanctioning body actually gives a damn about him. If someone like Page can't drum up enough public support to be worth more than someone like Frazier, then he had no business being declared a "must-fight mandatory" in the 1st place.
