Why didn’t Holmes ever unify?

right ? Maybe he should have fought Steve Zouski

 

If that contender doesn't deserve to be #1, then yes.

By the end of '83, Coetzee was both the WBA's titlist & The Ring's top contender for Holmes' title, & probably the closest thing to a consensus top opponent for Holmes among the general public as well. It was only the WBC that mysteriously had Page rated "#1."

No, he should've signed to fight Coetzee, which is precisely what he did.

 

lol! I'm convinced Holmes could defend against a random audience member, and Dubble would write a graphic novel trying to justify it.

 

Yet if you read his handful of posts in this thread Larry couldn't even beat Carl Williams

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/could-holmes-circ-1984-85-have-beaten-wilder.709193/

And it's even worse for Holmes in this thread...bear in mind this is only a handful of months ago! -

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...of-deontay-wilder.717832/page-2#post-22768495

Dubblechin -

In 1980, Larry fought Lorenzo Zanon, Leroy Jones, Scott Ledoux and the corpse of Muhammad Ali. Against that clunky mess of challengers, Holmes didn't look impressive really at all against a pretty bad assortment who mostly just stood right in front of him.

And all Holmes could do was just jab. Jab. Jab. Right hand. Jab. Jab. Jab. Right hand. Jab. Jab. Jab. Right uppercut. Jab. The corpse of Ali went nowhere. Leroy Jones was never staggered and just stood there and ate everything Larry threw. Ledoux went down with a thumb, but got right up furious about the foul.

1980 was also the year boxing fans thought Holmes "lost his movement." In his earlier years, Larry, on occasion, would dance and move around the ring, throwing his jab. 1980 was the year he became more of a flatfooted agressive boxer/puncher.

I think Wilder from 2018 knocks out Larry Holmes from 1980.

Ortiz and Fury were also very good boxers in 2018, both with dominant jabs (Ortiz from the southpaw side, Fury switch hitting). Both were also arguably more elusive than the very stationary, straight forward 1980 Holmes, too. Fury in particularly, was hard to hit flush then.

2018 Wilder would've wiped out everyone Holmes fought in 1980. I don't even know if 1980 Holmes who fought Ledoux gets past 2018 Luis Ortiz and 2018 Tyson Fury, let alone Wilder.

Leroy Jones and Scott Ledoux weren't Luis Ortiz or Tyson Fury, after all.

2018 Wilder wipes out 1980 Larry with the lazer right.

Wilder by KO.

No one was marveling at Larry's wins in 1980. Fans weren't drawn to Larry by his SPECTACULAR performances that year.

On the contrary, I think his fights with Zanon and Jones were fought in front of about 3,000 people. So he had to go to Minnesota so they could get Scott Ledoux's fans to buy tickets.

It wasn't a great year for Holmes. He had regressed, in the minds of the public.

Actually go back and watch those fights. I'm sure they're easy to find. Holmes-Lorenzo Zanon. (Zanon actually took rounds.) Holmes-Leroy Jones (one fat blob round after round letting Holmes pound away, and Larry still can't put drop him). Holmes-Scott Ledoux (Larry couldn't even hurt Ledoux, until he thumbed him in the eye). And, of course, Holmes-Ali, where nothing was coming back at all, and Holmes just jabbed and jabbed and threw straight rights, and Holmes needed Dundee to stop the fight (because Larry couldn't put him away).

Ken Norton also had no problem landing on Larry in 1978. And 1978 Holmes, to me at least, was Holmes at his best.

But Larry never had great head movement. When he did fight guys who could jab, like Norton, Weaver and later Spoon and even Carl Williams, they tended to hit him quite a bit. Spoon and Williams nearly closed his eye.

 

I saved the best until last tho Swag, what an incredible turnaround from just 4 months ago!!!!!

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.

Oh deary me!

 

And if Tyson didn't happen to fight Buster Douglas.....

Well Douglas lost to Tucker who Tyson outpointed convincingly............not much point in Tyson fighting Douglas was there?

Hearns pole axed Duran in 2 rounds, Barkley stopped Tommy in there rounds.......no-one was clamoring for Duran vs Barkley. Bit of a mismatch really.

There's thousands of examples.

 

It doesn't hurt his legacy at all that he ADMITTED TO AVOIDING HIS BEST CONTENDERS?

As JT already showed, you were singing a completely different tune months ago.

 

Q. Why didn't Holmes ever unify?
A. Holmes spent a year trying to unify with Coetzee, the WBA champ.

Q. Why did you post a bunch of articles about one fighter he tried to unify with?
A. Because it's a thread asking why Holmes didn't unify. He did.

Q. Why didn't Holmes try to unify with someone else?
A. Holmes entered the HBO Unification tournament. In his first bout, he was robbed of the decision in the rematch with Michael Spinks. Had he been given the decision, the only two champs left in the tournament were two guys he already beat (WBC Champ Trevor Berbick and WBA champ Tim Witherspoon). And Witherspoon lost at the end of the year in one round to Bonecrusher Smith, who Holmes also already beat.

Q. Why didn't Holmes unify against Pinklon Thomas?
A. Holmes and Pinklon Thomas would've fought if both kept winning in the HBO tournament. But Thomas lost to Berbick in March 86, and Holmes got robbed against Spinks a month later. So neither had belts to unify.

Q. Why did Holmes vacate the WBC belt instead of fighting Greg Page?
A. Because he got more money in a signing bonus ($3 million) for agreeing to fight Coetzee than he would've defending against Page. And the WBC wouldn't allow him to unify with Coetzee even if he fought Page first, because Coetzee was South African.

Q. Holmes ruined boxing by accepting the IBF belt trying to unify with Coetzee.
A. That's not really a question. And all the top champs at the time - Michael Spinks, Marvin Hagler, Donald Curry, Aaron Pryor and Holmes - accepted the IBF belt.

Q. A real champ defends against his mandatories.
A. Larry Holmes made 20 title defenses.

Q. You said you think a prime Deontay Wilder would've beat Larry Holmes ... here are links.
A. Well, Holmes was susceptible to right hands. And that was a prime Wilder's best punch. But that's not the topic of the thread. And it's not a question, either.

Q. Here are links to threads where you said you liked Wilder?
A. Why do you guys have Wilder on the brain? He's retired and has nothing to do with why Holmes didn't unify.


When you've got nothing left to say to make an argument ... and just turn it into another Wilder thread ... you lost.

Larry Holmes is an all-time great. He's got FIVE TIMES as many successful title defenses than all the WBA champs and WBC champs who reigned at the same time as him COMBINED.

And Larry's a Hall of Famer.

The champs on the other side of the aisle while he reigned - Weaver, Dokes, Page, Coetzee, Thomas, Berbick, Tubbs, Tate and Witherspoon - are not.

Larry Won. Getting your panties in a twist won't do anything about it.

 

Ali lost to Frazier. He has no chance against Foreman.

 

Zactly!

 

Greg Page wasn't Ali. I know John Thomas thinks he was. But not even close.

Page wasn't Duran. Or Hearns. Or Barkley. Page wasn't Buster Douglas, either.

Ask Mark Wills. Page was a bust at 25.

If not for everyone in the WBA top 10 declining to go to South Africa first, and a four-minute round ... Page wouldn't have won anything. Once he got his hands on a belt, he held it for all of four months.

Not Ali.

 

You state you don't recall him ducking anyone but then state "he picked opponents carefully from around '83". That's ducking. He was constantly ducking the best opponents post Witherspoon.

Scott Frank, Marvis Frazier, James Smith, David Bey, Carl Williams then Michael Spinks. No Page, Dokes, Thomas, Weaver or Witherspoon (rematches after tough fights aren't illegal) to be seen. Bey would be the only guy among that lot remotely top 5 and that was on the basis of one good win.

The perception actually started as soon as the final bell rang vs Witherspoon. It gathered force with each subsequent outing.

 

Here's how the "era was seen at the time" by one of it's great writers -

World Boxing March 1985
by Jeff Ryan

Larry Holmes: A champion ready to fall?

Promoter Don King, displaying for perhaps the 100th time his ever present flair for the dramatic, dubbed Larry Holmes IBF title defense against Bonecrusher Smith, Countdown to Glory. For Holmes, then 45-0, the bout with Smith would be another step closer toward eclipsing the record of 49-0 that had been compiled by the great Rocky Marciano, the only heavyweight champion to retire undefeated. Considering that the bookmakers in Las Vegas were taking bets not on who would win, but on whether or not Smith would last more than seven rounds, there wasn't really any other way for King to attract attention to the apparent mismatch other than to play up the historic record angle. During the last 6 years, Holmes has been so good and so dominating that he has become boring. He's a story with few new angles.

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his post-Cooney bouts have been sadly lacking any prefight drama. Until now. An inspired Bonecrusher and the erosion of Holmes' skills combined to make an expectedly easy defense become a difficult one. And the events that transpired during Holmes' close call in Vegas proved that from now until he retires, each of the champions fights can carry the same enticing nickname: Countdown to Dethronement.

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After all, at age 35, Holmes doesn't need to get in any wars like the one he just had with Bonecrusher.

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Cooney was the number one challenger when Holmes beat him, but Tex Cobb, Lucien Rodriguez, Scott Frank, Marvis Frazier, and Smith, five of Holmes six opponents since then, would have needed to take a long elevator ride to get anywhere near the top of the ratings.

Holmes fought the best competition available during the first four years of his reign and eventually established himself as one of boxing's most respected titlists.

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Christ, your Page obsession might only be second to your Wilder one

I'd be miffed too if i were you. Here you were boasting Larry into the heavens and up coming you bagging the hell out of him just a handful of months ago. Talk about embarrassing.

Here it is again tho just to underline the point. After countless quotes and posts today telling us Larry tried his utmost to unify (half a decade into his reign trying to cash out, who do you think that's going to fool?) here it is -

Dubs - 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.

 

Another point is that Holmes said in 1983 that he'd never fight Thomas because he fought Coetzee, a South African, in America mind you yet here he was not that much later trying his utmost to do the same.

When asked about Thomas after Thomas had beaten Weaver (and told Thomas had criticised him for making dergoatory comments about Marciano, this is well before the Spinks loss) he said "i won't fight him because he's an SOB". "Do you want an ex junkie representing the world"? "He's a programmed ******". He was never ever going to face Thomas.

When told he and Thomas was the fight the public wanted to see "the public can say what they want, but i can't let the public run my life". "They have no right to control me".

The fact is Holmes avoided live competition post Witherspoon, some say post Cooney. He's still an ATG heavyweight and well inside the top 10. Facts are facts tho and his later years sure did him no favors. I find it difficult to count his last 5 defenses.

From memory Marciano cops questioning for facing a number #2 instead of a number #1 despite facing 5 number #1 contenders. Marciano in his short little reign best the next best fighter on the planet a whopping 4 times. Holmes in his massive long reign did it once and in hindsight i don't think many would agree Ali was the next best Heavyweight on the planet.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...best-fighter-on-the-planet-most-often.701311/

Still a great reign and career at any rate for Holmes.