I'll add my 2 cents here. Apparently after the Cooney fight, Larry still wasn't accepted by the boxing public, and gave up trying to get recognition. So hell with fighting top guys, he started down an easier route, one which caused him to get stripped by the WBC I think for not fighting Greg Page. He did get recognized by the newly formed IBF which gave their belt instant credibility. Larry started fighting for money and lesser risk. Tex Cobb, Marvis Frazier, Scott Frank, David Bey, etc, a couple young guys-Witherspoon and Williams proved to be much tougher despite having very limited experience. Then came the shocking loss to Michael Spinks.
No offense, but I roll my eyes when people say that. Between 1978 and 1992, Larry Holmes fought Muhammad Ali, Leon Spinks, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Ken Norton, Ray Mercer, Tim Witherspoon, Bonecrusher Smith, Trevor Berbick, Mike Weaver, Earnie Shavers, Gerry Cooney and on and on ... "Better" opponents? Give me a break, seriously. If he missed one or two, like Greg Page (who he didn't fight because he was trying to make a unification with Coetzee), he beat guys who owned Greg Page (in Berbick, Bey and Witherspoon). Or Thomas, well Berbick lifted the title from Thomas. Tyson beat Thomas. Holyfield beat Thomas. No credit for fighting guys better than Thomas? Nobody fights everybody. Holmes fought more than most.
He ducked the best when he was in a position of power (Champ). Refused return fights with anyone who gave him a hard time - but couldn’t sign quick enough when Spinks beat him to get his title back (anyone want to argue if he’d been given the decision that Spinks would have been able to get Holmes back in the ring? I bet you don’t). When he needed credibility, he went after a young guy, like Holyfield or Mercer. Had they been coming up & he were Champion, they’d have been sidestepped.
No offense but your opening paragraph is pretty weak as some of those guys had nothing to do with his title reign while some of the others were unaccomplished nobodies at the time he fought them. And crediting him for beating Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks ? For real?? Berbick beating Thomas for the WBC title after Holmes had already been dethroned by Spinks was irrelevant with respect to when Thomas was a threat to his reign. As for Greg page, I’ve never been a big proponent but he was a mandatory nonetheless. In an earlier comment you compared him to a bunch of great fighters who also never unified… fair enough. But how many of those guys were stripped of a belt? How many of them opted for a Scott Frank or Marvis Frazier type opponent over a Greg Page or a Pinklon Thomas variety ?
Larry Holmes wasn't stripped of the WBC belt. https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/12/sports/holmes-yields-wbc-title.html He vacated the WBC belt because he was offered more money to fight Gerrie Coetzee. Greg Page fought for the vacant belt, and lost to a guy Holmes just beat in a title defense. When the Coetzee fight fell thru, Holmes fought Bonecrusher Smith, who'd knock Witherspoon out. As for opting to face Marvis Frazier types, ever hear of Fel Clemente or Tongta Kiatvayupakdi or Jose Palacios or any of the other number of **** opponents who got title shots against all-timers who didn't unify? People nitpicking Holmes tend to be newer fans who grew up watching guys drape belt after belt over their arms. When there were two belts, you tended to know who the real champ was and who wasn't. That's why it wasn't such a big deal.
Oh yeah ? And what would have happened if he hadn’t “ vacated “ the belt and still chose NOT to fight page ?
And fair enough...except that he complained about it quite a bit, especially when Ali's name came up. He even tried to cherry pick a LHW to tie Marciano, and threw what was boxings's biggest tantrum (until Anthony Joshua came along) when he blew it. You can't have it both ways, caring on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and not caring on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
I mean, it's worse than that. What no one wants to admit is that not only did he not unify, he further split by accepting a belt from the gutter and giving it credibility. Holmes hurt boxing immeasurably by giving the IBF credibility.
Holmes was more interested in promoting the new IBF federation, undefeated and lineal championship, than unification and indisputability.
I have no idea what you're even trying to say here. Larry Holmes vacated the WBC belt and picked up the IBF belt to UNIFY against WBA champ Gerrie Coetzee. The WBC never ranked Coetzee and refused to sanction any unification fight with Coetzee because of apartheid, but Holmes was offered far more money to fight Coetzee as opposed to Page. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/0...-title-unification-fight-worth/6296447915600/ The IBF gave belts to the other dominant champs Marvin Hagler and Aaron Pryor at the same time. The IBF would allow a unification with Coetzee. Holmes went for it. They tried to make it for nearly a year ... but the money fell thru and it seemed everyone was intent on blocking it. Fighting Page wasn't a unification fight. The WBC didn't strip Holmes for not fighting Page. Holmes didn't fight Page because he was TRYING to unify with the WBA champ. Before he was 30, Greg Page lost to journeyman Mark Wills twice and to freaking Joe Bugner, not to mention David Bey and Trevor Berbick and others. Why Page's name ever comes up in these discussions, I have no idea. Especially in a thread like "why didn't Holmes unify." Page and the WBC were literally blocking a unification between Holmes and Coetzee.
TALK OF COETZEE-HOLMES BOUT BEGINS By MICHAEL KATZ Published: September 25, 1983 Gerrie Coetzee said he could not sleep. He got out of bed and took a sleeping pill. It didn't work. He tried another. Still no sleep. Perhaps the new World Boxing Association heavyweight champion, the first white heavyweight champion since Ingemar Johansson lost the title back to Floyd Patterson in 1960, should have tried counting money, especially if he can get Larry Holmes, the World Boxing Council champion, in the same ring with him. ''Conceivably, that would be the biggest-grossing fight in history,'' said Cedric Kushner, Coetzee's adviser, today. ''Imagine, Larry Holmes, a black American, versus Gerrie Coetzee, a white South African.'' In boxing, where black and white add up to green, this thought had occurred to some other people less than 12 hours after Coetzee knocked out previously undefeated Michael Dokes in the 10th round for the W.B.A. title. ''Larry will be watering at the mouth,'' said Don King, the black promoter who has emerged with a contract giving him the rights to all of the white South African's title defenses. ''It's another Gerry Cooney situation.'' ''I'm in the money-making business in my last days of boxing,'' said Holmes this morning by telephone from his Easton, Pa., home. ''If I can fight a guy for $10 million, why should I fight for $1 million.'' Coetzee, who promised that he would defend his title in the United States, ''where I won it,'' said, ''That's the fight I really want.'' ''I think he'd flatten Larry Holmes,'' said Jackie McCoy, the West Coast trainer whose six weeks of work with Coetzee was so instrumental in defeating Dokes. Holmes said he was more than willing to fight Coetzee, ''but not over there in South Africa.'' Holmes has long been an outspoken critic of that country's policy of apartheid, or separation of races. ''I have to do what the people want,'' he said. ''If people want it, I'd cancel the Frazier fight if they put the money up.'' It is unlikely that Holmes will withdraw from his Nov. 25 defense against Marvis Frazier. And he has a commitment to King to make his mandatory defense against Greg Page in February or March next year. If the champion, who soon will be 34 years old, continues to fight at all next year, though, he knows his biggest payday would be against Coetzee, the gentle man with the hammering right hand. Coetzee, who calls apartheid ''rubbish,'' was asked at a news conference this morning about the black- white ''thing.'' 'I'm Proud of My Color' ''I suppose it's a thing you can't stop,'' he said. ''I don't like it very much. I'm proud of my color. Everybody should be proud of himself. But when I go into the ring, I am fighting an opponent, not a color.'' He fought extremely well Friday night in the Richfield (Ohio) Coliseum, 25 miles from here and only 10 miles from Dokes's hometown of Akron. Quickly, Coetzee learned that Dokes could not hurt him. Quickly, Dokes learned that Coetzee could hurt him. ''You can't get intimidated with this guy,'' said Holmes, who gave Dokes only two rounds. ''If you give him room, he'll hit you.'' ''Early in the first round,'' said McCoy, ''he hurt him with a right hand to the body and a left hook to the side of the head. From that moment, he had Dokes thinking about both hands.'' The knockout was achieved with two chopping right hands to the head of the virtually defenseless Dokes. But Coetzee won the fight with his left hand, the hand that Dokes did not think his opponent had, the hand that McCoy developed. It was a left hook that set up a short right hand that dropped Dokes in the fifth round. And it was more left hooks that helped take away the last of Dokes's considerable fighting spirit in the 10th until he dropped his hands, partly in fatigue, partly in pain, and perhaps partly in the hope that Coetzee would finally end the punishment. This 28-year-old South African, who had lost previous W.B.A. title fights to John Tate and Mike Weaver, did even while feeling pain shoot through his right hand, which has been broken 10 times. This morning, Coetzee was scheduled to be taken to a local hospital for X-rays of the hand by the same doctor who earlier had escorted Coetzee's wife, Rena, there for a Caesarean operation to deliver their third child. ''My third child,'' said Coetzee. ''And my third shot.''
SPORTS PEOPLE SPORTS PEOPLE; Holmes vs. W.B.C. Published: November 29, 1983 Larry Holmes made a triumphant return yesterday to his home in Easton, Pa., but he was still sparring with the World Boxing Council over its insistence that he defend his heavyweight title next against Greg Page instead of Gerrie Coetzee. ''I don't want them to try to dictate to me two days after the fight,'' he said, referring to his first-round knockout of Marvis Frazier on Friday in Las Vegas, Nev. ''I'm semi-retired,'' said the 34-year-old Holmes. ''If the Coetzee fight doesn't come, I'll retire in March. If I don't fight Coetzee, I'll quit.'' Holmes was smarting over reports from Bangkok, Thailand, that the W.B.C. president, Jose Sulaiman , had threatened to strip him of the title if he should fight Coetzee before Page. Holmes had agreed to meet the top-ranked Page in a mandatory title defense in February or March but now says that he can earn much more than the $2.55 million offered for that bout by facing Coetzee, the World Boxing Association champion. ''I don't like to be threatened or told what to do,'' said Holmes, who said he was thinking about relinquishing the W.B.C. title and accepting recognition instead from the International Boxing Federation.