By John Woolford: Back in October 1980 an event took place that closed a chapter within the heavyweight division. The burnt out Muhammad Ali faced the young destructive Larry “The Eastern Assassin” Holmes in a brutal fight that eventually contributed towards Ali’s gradual illness of Parkinson’s syndrome.
After much protest from onlookers the late Angelo Dundee refused to allow the aging 40 year old Ali to answer the bell for the 11th round.
In December of 1981 Muhammad Ali would fly to the Bahamas to attempt one final fight against the late journeyman and future WBC heavyweight champion Trevor Berbick before being soundly beaten into retirement.
From this point on something very strange and unique happened within the heavyweight division. Between 1980 to 1986 there were many very strong and durable, fast hard hitting heavyweights by the likes of Larry Holmes, Michael Spinks, Mike Weaver, Ernie Shavers, Tim Witherspoon, Greg Page, Michael Dokes, Frank Bruno, Gerry Coetzee, Pinklon Thomas, James Bonecrusher Smith, Gerry Cooney, Trevor Berbick and John Tate.
By 1986 nearly all of the above won a version of a world title except for Ernie Shavers, Frank Bruno and Jerry Cooney.
As much as Larry Holmes came within one fight in 1985 of equaling the fight record of the great Rocky Marciano (49-0) he defended his WBC title strap an amazing 16 times without a loss but struggled to obtain the unique legacy he richly deserved. That came down to a number of factors. I call the heavyweight division between 1980 and 1986 “the weird years” due to the new governing bodies sprouting up leaving many great boxing annalists not sure of how to list the top 10 heavyweights of the early to mid 1980’s.
As written above the 1980’s was flooded with many true heavyweights that were left to fight for six years within some giant unofficial royal rumble with an outcome still not sure by 1985.
Then all of a sudden within that same year the young Iron Mike Tyson came blasting onto the scene to quickly and efficiently mop the heavyweight division up like a dry mop to water. He ploughed through the heavyweight ranks like a possessed farmer high as a kite on bath salts, there was no stopping him.
Ever since Tyson’s retirement heavyweight boxing has limped along with titles going back and forth between very durable and talented heavyweights but strangely since his retirement it seems as if we’ve returned to the years of 1980-1986 with Vitali Klitschko as a type of Larry Holmes never truly being appreciated for his talent.
We need another 1980’s style superhero to bring heavyweight boxing back to the center stage. Who will that be? I can’t see any heavyweights in the same league as that Iron Mike Tyson of 1985-86 can you?
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