Lennox Lewis A Top 10 ATG Heavyweight...Really?

[GJC]

Not as far as I know,mate.He never said as much,only claiming that $2.5 million wasn't enough and that he wanted more.He also said he'd only fight Coetzee for a $100 million.Page had been the mandatory contender for some time before the wbc eventually did strip Holmes of the title.

Think we are looking at around the time Holmes fought Marvis Frazier?
Did a bit of research and it looks as if he got $3.1 for Marvis as opposed to $2.5 for Page, so as you said Holmes was about the money.
After the Frazier fight Page lost to Witherspoon and Bey (who Holmes did fight) and after that his career was spotty to say the least and with Holmes winding down the time was never right again.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/03/sp...greg-page.html

Below is a thread on another boxing site which is quite interesting:

http://www.********boxing.com/forum/...d.php?t=212986

Here is a few quotes from the thread which I tend to lean towards although to be fair if you follow the thread there are others that lean towards your view. Depends as always on your opinion I guess

From 1983 forward, things got a bit dicey though... He was stripped of his WBC title for not meeting Greg Page... I don't know if this was all Larry's doing or if it had something to do with his parting ways with Don King that mucked up its making... I suspect that the real answer lies somewhere in between

I remember seeing this question years ago and it spiraled into an accusation of who ducked who when really it's a question of who had the money and time to meet Holmes. Also, King did have a lot to do with Holmes not getting the other title. He wanted to unify the titles only when "the perfect situation" would come along. He was looking for a unification fight that would also be a megafight. Proposed fights between Cooney to fight Weaver to then fight Holmes were hinted at, a unification with Coetzee almost happened, and Larry claims that he would have faced Page, Dokes, or Thomas if they had the ability to keep a title (in addititon to your standard boxing politics).

The second was that Holmes was so disturbed from being exploited by the corrupt alphabet soup politics and Don King that he said f-ck it, that he was fighting who he wanted to ... this took place after the Cooney fight when he was already pushing 33 so we are really talking two years out of a near seven year reign. And still he fought Bonecrusher, Bey, Witherspoon and Williams, all young, big strong fighters.

Regardless of the harsh criticism that I have reserved for certain fighters,I am a fan of the sport of boxing and therfore I do rate many fighters of the past and of today.

I don't doubt you are a fan of the sport Poop and I personally don't have any personal problem with you although I disagree with many of your opinions, you have always treated me with courtesy and I hope I to you.
I would like to see you praise some fighters though sometimes rather than keep criticising certain fighters. I can see you are a knowledgable person on boxing even if I don't agree with many of your opinions so it would be refreshing to see a little positivity from you rather than the constant negativity.

[prinzemanspopa]

Think we are looking at around the time Holmes fought Marvis Frazier?
Did a bit of research and it looks as if he got $3.1 for Marvis as opposed to $2.5 for Page, so as you said Holmes was about the money.
After the Frazier fight Page lost to Witherspoon and Bey (who Holmes did fight) and after that his career was spotty to say the least and with Holmes winding down the time was never right again.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/03/sp...greg-page.html

The sources that I've read had Holmes receiving just over the amount that King was offering him for the mandatory defense against Page,with Frazier receiving half of what your source reported:


http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?...+frazier&hl=en



The time that should be looked at here is when Page won a title eliminator(May of 83) until when holmes was stripped of the title(December of 83).

Holmes fought twice in this time; both fights against unranked opposition.


I'd say Page was a more worthy contender than Scott frank,Marvis frazier and a past it,no longer relevent,John Tate(whom Holmes was scheduled to meet in April of 84),wouldn't you?

[GJC]

The sources that I've read had Holmes receiving just over the amount that King was offering him for the mandatory defense against Page,with razier receiving half of what your source reported:


http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?...+frazier&hl=en



The time that should be looked at here is when Page won a title eliminator(May of 83) until when holmes was stripped of the title(December of 83).

Holmes fought twice in this time; both fights against unranked opposition.


I'd say Page was a more worthy contender than Scott frank,Marvis frazier,and past it,no longer relevent,John Tate(whom Holmes was scheduled to meet in April of 84),wouldn't you?

I wouldn't argue that Page had more talent than Frank and Frazier but whether he was the best HW out there at that time isn't neccessarily the same as King getting Sulaiman to bump him to being the mandatory. You know as well as I do if me or you gave King 100% of the purse and a million under the table we would be the number one contender even now!
I don't like triangle theories but Page had lost comprehensively to Berbick who lost comprehensively to Holmes there was nothing there that would have frightenend Holmes imo