If you’re suggesting that mandatories are determined by popularity and not accomplishment then you’re contradicting your claims on what defines an “ authentic” contender. Page was 23-1 and had beaten snipes, Tillis, Monroe, Young, Chaplin, ledoux, and Ward. Marvis was 10-0 and had only beaten a fellow prospect in Broad and a comeback trail Joe Bugner.
I never made the claim that Page wasn't a contender, I said he wasn't an authentic #1 contender, which is the only kind of contender that should have an unequivocal claim to a title shot. & there should be a general consensus among the public that a particular fighter is the most deserving of a title shot.
But what makes an authentic contender in your mind ? Is it actual wins over quality opposition ? Or is it popularity ? You seem to be in favor over the latter. And if you are, then by your definition Scott Frank, Marvis Frazier, Tim Witherspoon and Lucien Rodriguez were all more qualified for a title fight in 1983 than Greg Page was.
I'm sure I've been thrusting Dokes name forward as such, have i? What Dokes can be put forward as is another top 5 guy Holmes did not fight regardless of excuses. What truly matters is that it was the only title Holmes held. Lewis, Usyk, Hagler etc all held other notable titles to fall back on, Holmes didn't. He dropped the only title he had after owning it for 5 years or so. If he couldn't fulfill the obligations of holding one title he was hardly going to fulfill the obligations of multiple belts. McCallum let his title go to fight a better fighter not worse ones as did others in your comments etc etc Are you comparing Ali not going to Vietnam with refusing to fight a mandatory? Or do you have things mixed up with Leon Spinks? It was nothing to do with drumming up "enough public support" the trouble was Holmes shirking Don King. The mandatory is the mandatory no matter what your personal opinion is. The obligation is the obligation.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The question - "Why didn't Holmes ever unify" Dubs - So funny. In a thread bashing Holmes about why he didn't unify, I post article after article showing how he tried to unify ... Also Dubs (Dubblepersonality?) - Instead, the guys with power who could box at distance tended to be the WBA champs who Holmes made little to no effort to fight. Enjoy your day too.
Even taken out of context, that isn't the "gotcha" quote you seem to read it as. Holmes wasn't interested in unifying against Weaver (he already beat him in a title fight months earlier), wasn't interested in unifying with Witherspoon (he already beat him in a title fight months earlier), Dokes (he lost right away after his mandated rematch with Weaver), and Holmes TRIED to unify against Coetzee for a year. In addition to trying to make the Coetzee unification, Holmes did sign up for the HBO unification tournament in 1986. Had Holmes gotten the deserved decision in the rematch with Spinks, the only guys left in the tournament were ... WBC champ Berbick, WBA champ Spoon, and at year's end, Smith ... All of whom Larry beat in title defenses previously. Holmes was a dominant champ. He didn't need to unify. Most of the other champs were guys he already fought. Even so, he tried to unify more than all the others did (excluding Coetzee). The only heavyweight champs who signed to unify against each other (hell, since Frazier-Ellis) before the HBO unifcation were Holmes and Coetzee. 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 Weaver, Dokes, Spoon, Page, Tubbs, Thomas ... none of them tried to unify with their WBC or WBA counterparts ever before the tournament ... despite the fact that they all kinda needed to do something to elevate themselves, and even shared the same promoter and the same network they fought on. What prevented them from unifying against each other ... other than the fact that most never held it long enough to do so? None of those 80s titleholders even got as far as signing to fight another champion in a unification fight ... except Holmes-Coetzee. Not until Smith-Tyson in 87.
It doesn't even need words, it's you encapsulated in a couple of short paragraphs. Holmes simply wasn't interested in fighting the very top fighters, certainly post Witherspoon. Joe Louis and Marciano fought loads of people they'd already fought if they gave them a tough fight. There'in lay the difference between some champs and others. He signed to fight Greg Page too, we all know what happened there, well some of us do. Yeah rematches are illegal. But Larry would have simply claimed he was retiring and slid out of it like he had been doing not long previously. He was semi dominant with his entire reign taken into context. He didn't rematch hard fights, shut up shop and avoided top contenders later. Not a chance he did. Unification also involves the IBF title Thomas was on the cover of one boxing mag clamoring for Holmes which would have been WBC vs IBF. Page just after he'd beaten Coetzee climbed into the ring after a Holmes fight and said he wanted to unify with Holmes next fight. Weaver clamored for Holmes from the moment he won the WBA title. Witherspoon was shouting for Holmes as soon as he lost to him and that would include when he was WBC champ. There's one common theme here - Holmes deafening silence. They were all trying to unify, with Holmes! No they were trying to unify with Holmes and it's not even debatable. What prevented Holmes from unifying with them? They were screaming for Holmes more than each other. Holmes was considered the top dog and they all wanted him - but he didn't want them. He even told you he didn't. It's that simple. There's no exonerating. No they were all chasing Holmes signature, publicly to boot. No amount of wriggling changes that fact.
The below is extremely enlightening to state the obvious. The Ring - February 1984 Don King Ring: Should Larry be stripped of his title if he does not fight Greg Page? Dashing Don: What bothers me is that we got the championship on the rule that he's now trying to renege on. You know, Norton got the fight for the title because Ali and Spinks reneged on giving him the mandatory challenge. All right, so now here we come. Norton got in, and then Norton wanted to renege on Holmes. Ring: Did Norton want to renege on Holmes? I don't remember that. Dashing Don: Yes he did. His manager even offered me a million dollars-told me they were taking him to Europe for a couple of fights, and i would have promotional rights on him and we would deal post Holmes. But i wouldn't stand for it then and i'm shocked and hurt and disappointed to see Larry Holmes trying to do the same thing. Ring: So you're used to it now and you expect to see it from fighters? Dashing Don: They all could want the same things, but i was very hurt that Larry Holmes would come up with that because i raised Larry. And i picked every opponent that Larry fought. And i worked and maneuvered him right into position and carried him to his heavyweight championship tenure. We discussed it. He said he would fight Page. He signed to fight Page if we give him a release for Scott Frank. So he got the release for Frank, which was an optional defense, and every champion is entitled to an optional defense. But then he went and signed to fight Marvis Frazier in an unsanctioned fight. Ring: But at the time he was fighting Frank, everyone already knew that it was part of a package Andreoli had put together: Frank and then Frazier, both on NBC. Dashing Don: That's not altogether true. He had signed to fight Marvis Frazier and then Andreoli couldn't delivered Frazier on the date he was scheduled to be delivered, which was September 30th. In order to keep Larry's mouth quiet, he had to throw another cookie in there; feed him so that he wouldn't run off at the mouth. And pull out of the contract. So the other cookie was Scott Frank, which they threw in on the September date that he was supposed to fight Marvis Frazier. Then they added the other fight to this comedy of errors.
As of today, Larry Holmes UNIFIED! As of today, Boxrec says there were no WBA champs. Those guys were never champ. Wash them from history. So, according to boxing's official "record keepers" (not sure how they got that title but okay) Larry Holmes was the UNIFED World Heavyweight Champion when he beat Ken Norton!!!! Congratulations Larry. Nice that the good folks at Boxrec are keeping track of boxing history. That will save a lot of arguing going forward.
