Why didn’t Holmes ever unify?

Yes, in March 1985, after a seven year reign and 18 successful title defenses, Jeff Ryan said Holmes was tarnishing his reputation by struggling with future champ Bonecrusher Smith, who only qualified for a title shot by knocking out unbeaten future champ Frank Bruno.

Next, Larry would further embarrass himself by fighting David Bey. All Bey did to qualify for a title shot was beat WBA beltholder Greg Page in his last fight.

Who were all the top contenders in March 1985 again? Ryan leaves that out.

According to Ring, there was Weaver, who Holmes knocked out. Cooney, who Holmes knocked out. Smith, who Holmes just knocked out. Bey, who Holmes was about to knock out. Witherspoon, who Holmes already outpointed. Coetzee, who Holmes spent a year trying to unify with.

Yes, that terrible Larry Holmes.

Seven years and 18 defenses after winning the title, in 1985, Larry had only beaten five of the top 10 heavyweights ranked that year and spent the entire previous year trying to fight a sixth.

What a slacker.

 

To be fair, even during his last 5 defences, he beat Bonecrusher - the future WBA titlist, David Bey - a guy who beat Greg Page and Carl Williams - a future Top 5 guy.

 

That was after the fact tho - incidental. Both were seen as easy beats at the time. Did you know they wouldn't even take bets on the winner in the Bonecrusher fight? They only bet on whether Holmes stopped him before or after a certain point, i think 7 rounds was the over and under. Holmes was a 4-1 favorite vs Bey and it would have been wider if not for his recent performances being poor. Both were seen as easy wins hence why he selected them.

 

I know all that. Just saying, sometimes when we see full history unfold, we have a broader view and in this instance it favors Holmes. I'm not desputing he was taking easy fights post Whiterspoon. He definetely did.

 

Personally i don't think Bey and Bonecrusher do anything for him. Bonecrusher a little actually but there were many better fighters about.

 

Tho it was bolded and highlighted in green you still somehow managed to misread him. "by avoiding his strongest competition" was what he clearly addressed.

Bruno was green and had faced quite average competition. It was hardly a big thing he was undefeated given he'd barely faced any opposition. Despite looking like he was on his way to an easy but unimpressive win Bruno capitulated at the last hurdle as soon as smith showed a bit of life. By all means add the hyperbole tho.

Future champ Bruno wasn't champ for another 11 years so lets not let context get in the way of a solid agenda.

It was his only decent win too. Page was known for blowing hot and cold. Berbick stopped Bey right after Holmes did, Bey won his next fight then didn't beat anyone with a winning record for the rest of his career. That's David Bey. One single win over a contender in his life. Next fight Page blew hot and pole axed Gerrie Coetzee.

We will have a look.

Smith wasn't a "top contender" and nor was Cooney. They were #9 and #10 respectively. Show some honesty at least.

It was 6 years since Holmes beat Weaver and 3 years since he'd beaten Cooney. Rematches aren't illegal.

This is the top 10 contenders via Ring magazine. He refused point blank to fight Thomas and Page and also said at one point Witherspoon was never getting a rematch.

1. Pinklon Thomas
2. Greg Page
3. David Bey
4. Tim Witherspoon
5. Gerrie Coetzee
6. Mike Weaver
7. Michael Dokes
8. James Broad
9. James (Bonecrusher) Smith
10. Gerry Cooney

He'd beaten 3 of the top 8 and one was 6 years prior. The money he wanted to fight Coetzee was astronomical and it was hardly surprising it fell thru. Don't forget he tried to force a rematch with Cooney as well around this point but the networks showed him the door on that one for obvious reasons.

 

Yes I found the 1980 argument from him to be absolutely laughable he changes his narrative to whatever suits him. He only said that because hes known as the biggest Wilder fan boy on this site, and has made some absolutely laughable predictions regarding Wilder that has comeback to haunt him. So yes of course he'll change his narrative so it makes Wilder look better.

And if you look at my reply to that comment in that thread you'll see i said it was a ridiculous comment. Because Holmes was fighting against a less than spectacular list of opponents so he just fought in 1st gear because there was no threat from that opposition and probably no motivation as they weren't big fights.

If Holmes was fighting against a dangerous KO artist like Wilder it's obvious he would raise his game as Wilder would be significant threat.

 

What people have to realize aswell is that all these arguments are with hindsight involved.

Witherspoon was a 15 fight novice when he fought Holmes. And was coming off a controversial decision vs Snipes that many thought he lost and that was Witherspoon's only notable victory at that time.

Yet Greg Page who schooled Snipes and beat Tillis isn't worthy of shot ?

Carl Williams again was a 16 fight novice who only had 1 notable victory against Tillis who floored him twice. The general perception is that Williams had a suspect chin and Holmes said that himself, and thought he would be able to catch Williams eventually he thought wrong and was lucky to walk away with the decision.

I've also seen this argument that because Holmes beat certain fighters that he didn't need to rematch them......

Witherspoon vs Holmes was a highly controversial and I'm sure a rematch would've been better than the likes of vs Frank, Frazier, Williams, Bonecrusher, Bey.

Holmes never fought a number 1 contender and swerved some dangerous contenders towards the end of his reign. I do like Holmes and his fights vs Weaver, Witherspoon, Norton, are some of my favourite Heavyweight fights of all time.

But trying to defend Holmes for fighting the likes of Frazier, Frank, and other novice contenders who had less than 20 fights is silly to me. Holmes admitted he didn't want to face Pinklon Thomas and had no interest in fighting the other dangerous contenders towards the end of his reign. So if you have it from the horses mouth it seems daft to me you're defending Holmes for not fighting someone like Thomas who went undefeated for 7 years.

 

He's an overrated inbetweener that gets praised for being the only talented fighter between generations of talented fighters.

Like Wlad and Lennox.

Cleared out the old guard but unlike Marciano or Jeffries, you know, dominant champions. Some champs didn't bother to clear out the new guard. Instead just picked and chose a few of their best scalps to juxtapose themselves against any other supposed champion. Seems to me that style of reign has become incredibly successful in recent years and in fact a full clear out might be what fans claim to want but once it becomes history then it's they had no real challenges during their career. Ironically. Fans have already started to retroactively decide Usyk had an easy ride in CW because he had no good competition like Holy.


He didn't do it because fans didn't pressure him into it. It doesn't hurt his legacy much because fans do not care about undisputed or ranked opposition, mandos, etc. half as much as they care about bitching about the bodies.

Basically no one blames Lennox for the WBA Reg being a thing.

No one blames Wlad for the WBC belts, champions, or rankings

No one blames Larry for forcing a three belts system.

The fighters are forgiven, but let the body rate a man Ring doesn't rate.

Refusal to blame fighters for their actions, blaming the rule providers for the actions of fighters, and forgiving money over legacy leads to a figure like Larry Holmes never needing more than one belt at a time.



What would undisputed have done for his legacy? He's already a consistent top ten among fans and pundits. People who hold his toes to his acts are outliers.

 

Larry Holmes entered the HBO Heavyweight Elimination tournament. Everyone who entered was contracted to fight the winner of the other fights. You couldn't get in unless you agreed to participate.

The original fighters on hand at the press conference announcing it were Holmes, Spinks, Thomas and Berbick. Witherspoon wasn't there but was signed.

Larry Holmes had no qualms about unifying against Thomas in the tournament. All they both had to do was win.

Of course, Thomas was the most vocal at the press conference. And, of course, he immediately lost to Berbick. And, we all know Holmes was robbed in the rematch with Spinks.

Had Larry been rightfully given the decision, all the champs remaining in the tournament were guys he'd beaten - Berbick and Witherspoon.

The former champion (the International Boxing Federation version) sported five gold and diamond rings, a gold Piaget watch, a pin with his initials in diamonds, a diamond-encrusted bracelet and a gold pendant containing the initials “L.H.” composed of diamonds.

“This fight isn’t for money,” said Larry Holmes, who apparently has plenty of it. “It’s for respect.”

And that’s why he is coming back, he said early this week as a host of sponsors unveiled grand plans to unify the heavyweight championship, now claimed by three fighters.

Holmes will return to the ring April 19 in a rematch with Michael Spinks, who unseated him last September and prevented Holmes from equaling Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record. But this meeting will not be solely for the IBF title. It is part of The Heavyweight World Series, underwritten by Home Box Office for $20 million — an 18-month, seven-fight odyssey to pick one champion.

The search begins on March 22 when Pinklon Thomas, the World Boxing Council champion, meets Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas. In subsequent fights, Tim Witherspoon, the World Boxing Association title-holder, will appear.

Thomas was steaming at the press conference, though. He growled through a luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria after asking if Holmes truly was committed to this series. Thomas has contended for several years that Holmes has ducked him.

Thomas said he even has been snubbed by the promoters of the World Series. When he arrived at the luncheon, he discovered that a poster of the Spinks- Holmes fight was larger than the one heralding the Thomas-Berbick battle.

“The IBF, FBI, I don’t know what that is,” Thomas said.

“Finally, the day will come when the world will see the dominant force surface — I’m the one and only undefeated heavyweight champion of the world,” snorted Thomas (26-0-1). “I’ll start by knocking out Trevor Berbick, I’ll wither the Spoon, take the jinx out of Spinks and send Larry Holmes home. With all due respect, all the others are impersonators.”

Holmes, though, was almost sanguine in discussing his return.

Yes, he admitted, he had made a mistake by denigrating Marciano, the day after the loss to Spinks, when Holmes also said that some people had rooted against him because he is black and Marciano was white.

“I don’t regret what I said. I just regret the words that I chose,” said Holmes.

Holmes, 36, claims his concentration level is greater now.

“I’m taking this fight one step at a time,” he said. “That’s not like what I was doing in September — I was speeding. Now, it’s Michael Spinks.”

He admits he is not happy about training. He weighs 225 pounds, he said, just about his fighting weight. “What makes it tough now is knowing I’ve got to get up in the morning and train.”

Perhaps a clue, too, to why Holmes is coming back was offered by Spinks.

“It haunts him. He can’t sleep at night thinking about the loss,” Spinks said.

This is the sort of potentially dramatic confrontation HBO is seeking by giving impetus to the one-champion search.

“Last October, Don King tried to sell us on a Pinklon Thomas-Trevor Berbick fight, and I said, ‘To what end? What does this fight mean? Is it just another series of contenders fighting?’ ” said Ross Greenburg, vice president and executive producer of HBO Sports.

But this argument that Holmes dodged contenders for years kind blows up in the faces of people who make it when you look at the HBO tournament and who was in it.

Larry Holmes had already faced all the champs who coming out of the first bouts - Berbick, Witherspoon and Spinks. And Holmes should've been there instead of Spinks, but Michael got a bad decision.

The top champions left weren't people Holmes "missed." They were all people Holmes defended against.

If Thomas and Dokes and Page were the three champions left standing after the first round of the HBO Unification Tournament, this argument they were all deprived would hold so much more weight.

Yet, by the time 1986 and the tournament rolled around, Page had already lost to Berbick, Witherspoon, Bey, Tubbs, Douglas and Mark Wills. Dokes was a cokehead who hadn't fought for nearly two years. And Thomas couldn't manage to make a defense against Berbick.

And for all the flack freaking Marvis Frazier gets, Marvis beat Bonecrusher in 1986, the same year Bonecrusher beat Bey and knocked out Mike Weaver in one round and knocked out Tim Witherspoon in one round for the WBA belt.

So everyone can suck a dick about bashing Marvis Frazier.
At least he didn't lose to Joe Bugner, like some people who were apparently "deprived" did.

 

At what point do any of these guys who people argue were "deprived" have to take some of the blame?

Larry Holmes made 20 defenses. He was the champ for seven years. He was always there with a belt.

Where were they? Here today, gone tomorrow.

If they stuck around for any length of time, it's because they didn't fight.

Mike Weaver is the only champion on the other side of the aisle who made two successful defenses (but he was WBA champ almost three years). I always wanted to see them fight again. But they didn't.

Weaver tried to fight Cooney, but the WBA blocked it. Weaver tried to fight Cobb, but that didn't happen, either.

And it's not like Weaver was "deprived." Even when he didn't have a belt, everyone was giving him title shots. Tate made his only defense (unsuccessful) against Weaver. Dokes made his only successful defense (a draw) against Weaver. Thomas made his only successful defense against Weaver.

It's like if they didn't have Mike Weaver to defend against once, they wouldn't have fought anyone.

Thomas held his title for a year and six months, and made one successful defense (against Mike Weaver, who was basically coming off a first-round KO loss to Tony Anthony).

By comparison, during Pinklon's one-defense reign, Larry Holmes fought Bonecrusher Smith, David Bey, Carl Williams, Michael Spinks and then rematched Spinks a month after Thomas lost to Berbick.

Larry Holmes wasn't blocking Thomas from defending his title. Why wasn't he?

For all the stick Holmes gets about his challengers, he wasn't fighting twice as often as the other champs, it was more like three times or even four times as often.

Coetzee held his title for a year and a month, and made no successful defenses (because he was negotiating with Holmes the whole time.)

The rest held their belts for months.

Tate - 5 months
Dokes - 10 months
Page - 4 months
Spoon - 5 months as WBC champ
Tubbs - 7 months

By the time Spoon beat Tubbs to start his WBA reign, Larry wasn't the champ anymore. Did Spoon offer Holmes a title shot? Of course not. He was busy getting knocked out in one round by Bonecrusher to offer Larry a shot.

You know, the WBA actually ranked the IBF champion in their ratings when the IBF began. Larry Holmes was Gerrie Coetzee's WBA #1 contender while Holmes and Gerrie negotiated.

Did Greg Page offer Larry Holmes a title fight when Page finally won his WBA title (in that four-minute round)? Of course not.

Page defended against WBA seventh-ranked Tubbs, and, of course, Page lost in his first defense.

So, for all the stick Holmes gets, it's not like any of them were doing anything to make a fight with him - except Coetzee. And it seemed like everyone tried to block that.

 

Nothing that you say can be taken seriously theres quotes and threads of you saying the complete opposite in regards to Holmes's opposition and Holmes himself.

As another poster said it best "Whichever way the wind blows"

And writing out entire paragraphs isn't going to change that I'm afraid.

 

You can argue Cooney was the real number 1 contender when he fought Holmes as Larry already beat Weaver.

 

Dubblepersonality Vs Everyone!

 

Not really Cooney feasted on shot fighters from another era whilst Weaver was beating current top fighters of his era and was a belt holder.

Holmes barely scrapped by Weaver who was known as the guy who lost to both Bobick brothers at that time. Weaver significantly improved as a fighter and went on to have a very respectable career after the Holmes fight key word "after".