1984 - A turning point in heavyweight history

The heavyweight division, as with boxing in general, tends to go in cycles. The Olympic Games and the inevitable fresh blood of blue-chip professionals that it produces, plays a significant part in this. The Paris Games this summer will be full of vested amateurs being targeted by promoters with vested interests hoping to hit the professional jackpot.

In the professional game, the heavyweight division has suddenly become interesting. It took a flood of Saudi money to bring Frank and Eddie together in the most unlikely bromance since Rocky and Apollo. Fights seem to be getting made and fighters are willing to be more active. All it took was a business model where a royal family was willing to lose billions of dollars for the sake of promoting their country. A business model built on metaphorical sand in the middle of the literal desert. What wonderful timing that all this is happening in the year of the 50th anniversary of a fight sponsored by the patron saint of sports washers, President Mobuto of Zaire.

Back in 1984, the best amateur heavyweights from around the world were dreaming of striking gold in Los Angeles. That is, the best heavyweights in the world apart from those from those countries boycotting the Games. These countries included boxing powerhouse Cuba, and 14 of the Eastern Bloc nations. This left the field clear for the US team to have their most successful ever medal haul in the boxing tournament. They dominated the podium with 11 medals, nine gold, one silver and one bronze.

With the Paris Games approaching and the professional heavyweight scene creating excitement again, it’s worth looking back 40 years to the big men of that time, both those with Olympic dreams and those already at or near the professional summit.

Larry Holmes was the heavyweight champion of the world, but the only belt he had was one he had been gifted by the IBF. He was their first heavyweight champ and traditionalists bemoaned the fact that there were now three champions. As a much younger man, Holmes had Olympic dreams of his own and had been aiming for the 1972 Games but hadn’t made the team. By 1984 he was approaching the end of his reign as the dominant heavyweight of the time.

Holmes vacated the WBC title that he had held since 1978 due to a dispute over a possible defense against number one contender, Greg Page. Holmes was not happy with the money on offer and felt there were bigger paydays elsewhere. He was at the stage of his career where the low risk – high reward ratio was becoming more of a factor for him. In 1983 he’d been paid handsomely to demolish Scott Frank and Marvis Frazier. Page figured to be a tougher test, so his asking price would reflect that. With the IBF waiting in the wings, he made his choice and walked. In 1982 Holmes had not enjoyed the buildup to fighting “Great White Hope” Gerry Cooney and the racial ugliness that went into the promotion. But now he thought there could be a financial windfall to be claimed in meeting another white champion, current WBA king, Gerrie Coetzee. Coetzee seemed a beatable champion who would provide a big payday.

Holmes was right about Coetzee being a beatable champion. The WBA had been seemingly determined to give Coetzee as many shots at their title as it would take for him to win it, despite him rarely doing anything to earn the opportunity. At the third time of asking, he won the title with a tenth-round knockout of Michael Dokes in September 1983. Coetzee was assisted by the fact that Dokes’s drug problem had escalated to the point where he barely knew what day it was.

Sadly, for Holmes, he was not the beneficiary of the Coetzee windfall. That privilege fell to Greg Page. Page, of Louisville, Kentucky, had his own highly unusual route to becoming a world title holder. Once considered by many to be the heir apparent to Holmes, by the tail end of 1984 Page’s career seemed to have hit the skids. When Holmes gave up the WBC belt, Page had been matched with Tim Witherspoon to contest the vacant title in March of that year. Witherspoon was the more forceful fighter and after twelve rounds was awarded a unanimous decision. Things only got worse for him in his next contest when he again lost over twelve rounds against unheralded David Bey. How do you go about rebuilding a career after two back-to-back losses like that? How about straight into a title shot? Perfect!

Bey had been offered the chance to fight Coetzee for the WBA title but declined it as he was not prepared to fight in South Africa in the time of apartheid. Page took his place. He knew his opportunities would be limited and felt he had to take his chance. While Coetzee may have won the title with the aid of facing a drug-addled opponent, Page in turn received help in the form of inept officiating. The eighth round was well into its fourth minute when Page landed his knockout combination. Coetzee’s management appealed what they saw as an injustice, but it came to nothing and Page was the new champion.

Another big winner in the South African fight was promoter Don King. King had previously railed against Bob Arum for Arum’s willingness to promote in the country earlier in the decade. But never mistake King for a man of principle. As King had owned Dokes, he now had a piece of Coetzee, and he also knew the value of a white heavyweight. King took a back seat in the promotion in an effort to hide his hypocrisy, but he still banked a $1m check.

So as 1984 drew to a close, Holmes was IBF champion, Page was WBA champion, and Witherspoon was WBC champion. It was a muddled picture that would not get any clearer until the HBO unification series finally managed to crown a unified champion several years later. So, these were the fighters that the big men in the 84 Olympics would be looking to challenge or replace once they turned professional.

Among the super-heavyweight class in Los Angeles was a young man representing Canada. He was beaten on points in the second round by the eventual gold medalist. The LA Games had come too soon for Lennox Lewis. He’d be back in four years and ready to take gold.

The silver medal went to Italian Francesco Damiani, who went on to have a successful professional career. Damiani should be a folk hero to those deluded fools who like to glorify the “four belt era”, as he was the first man to hold the WBO world heavyweight title. While the rest of the world was living the rollercoaster of having Mike Tyson as undisputed champion, the WBO came along and sanctioned a bout between Damiani and Johnny Du Plooy for their inaugural vacant belt. And they wonder why we don’t take them seriously.

Tyrell Biggs won the super-heavy gold medal for the US team in Los Angeles. Biggs had a very impressive amateur career, and hopes were high for his professional prospects. After less than three years in the professional ranks, Biggs had secured a number one ranking with a sanctioning body. That might make you eligible for a title shot, but it doesn’t make you ready. Especially when the champion is Mike Tyson.

In October 1987, in the lead up to Tyson-Biggs, the champion’s co-manager, Jim Jacobs alleged at a press conference that Biggs’s handlers essentially had no faith in him and were cashing out. He claimed that a member of Team Biggs had referred to him as a “mental case” and that Jacobs had been asked to help them hand pick opponents for Biggs that would nurse him through to a title shot without suffering defeat. Biggs, who acknowledged that he was in recovery from cocaine addiction, denied that the comments would affect him, but it was not a good omen.

Tyson and Biggs had history going back to those 84 Olympics. Pre-fight, Tyson would not acknowledge any resentment regarding Biggs’s success at the Games but his comments after the fight told a different story. Tyson could not seem to miss Biggs with left hooks and finished him off with that punch in the seventh round after administering a terrible beating. Tyson claimed he could have finished his opponent earlier if he had wished but he had wanted to punish him so that he would remember the beating for a long time. He also added that his punches had Biggs, “making noises like a woman”. Biggs lost his next two fights and was never in title contention again.

The heavyweight gold medal in Los Angeles was also won by an American, Henry Tillman. Tillman is another who is most often linked these days with Tyson. Tillman earnt his place on the 1984 US Olympic team at the expense of Tyson, having beaten him twice in the amateurs as the Games approached. His gold medal at the Games did not lead to the highly successful professional career that he might have hoped for. He competed as a cruiserweight and secured a shot at Evander Holyfield’s WBA world title in February 1987. He was no match for the “Real Deal” and was stopped in the seventh round. By June 1990, his career was floundering to the degree that he was considered to be the perfect comeback opponent for Tyson after Iron Mike had lost his title to Buster Douglas. Tillman’s success against Tyson in the amateurs was enough to act as a selling point for the match but it did him no good in the ring. Tyson stopped him in the first round. Anonymity beckoned and just three fights later he was fighting in Kalamazoo. It’s an unforgiving sport.

In 1952, Cus D’Amato was managing the US middleweight representative for the Olympic Games that summer in Helsinki. The plan was to use the Games as a springboard to professional success. Cus’s fighter was the 17-year-old Floyd Patterson. Patterson won the gold medal and went on to move up to heavyweight as a professional and become the youngest man ever to win the world title and first to reclaim it. As 1984 came around, Cus had another amateur prospect on his hands. The young Mike Tyson was only a few years from reform school, with Cus having been made his legal guardian.

The plan was the same; Olympic glory to be followed by professional success and world titles. Cus had told Tyson the first time that they had met that he could become heavyweight champion of the world. As previously mentioned, that route was derailed early on by Henry Tillman, so while Tyson was with the team in Los Angeles, he wasn’t part of the team. Tyson was the epitome of the expression that some fighters are just cut out for the pros. A lack of Olympic profile may have resulted in a lower profile professional debut than some of his more illustrious amateur counterparts, but it did not delay his meteoric rise through the heavyweight ranks.

Evander Holyfield competed at the 1984 Games as a light-heavyweight. Hopes of adding to the US team’s gold rush were dashed when he was disqualified in the semi-final. Holyfield turned professional before the end of the year, weighing 178lbs for his debut in November. He made quick progress through the ranks and gaining weight along the way. In July 1986, he won his first world title beating Dwight Muhammad Qawi over fifteen rounds to take the WBA cruiserweight title. Holyfield weighed 186lbs for that contest. After cleaning up at cruiserweight, Holyfield made his heavyweight debut in July 1988, just one month after Tyson secured his career defining win over Michael Spinks. For his heavyweight debut against James Tillis, Holyfield was now weighing 202lbs. By the end of the decade, by which time he had established himself as the number one contender for Tyson’s title, Holyfield was weighing as much as 212lbs, a huge gain from the 178lbs of his pro debut less than six years earlier.

Holyfield was in Tokyo in February 1990, sitting ringside to cast an eye over his prospective opponent. All Tyson had to do was to get past 42/1 outsider Buster Douglas. Holyfield was due his shot and as number one contender, Tyson would have to accommodate him soon.

Of course, all those plans went out of the window in the eerily quiet Tokyo Dome as Douglas left Tyson fumbling for his gumshield on the canvas in the tenth round in the biggest upset in heavyweight history. Another six years would pass, along with an awful lot of water under the bridge, before Holyfield and Tyson would meet in the ring. By that time, Holyfield would be considered washed up and in grave danger by stepping in the ring with Tyson. For his part, Tyson had served three years in prison for rape and upon release quickly went about regaining some of the titles he had lost. Titles that Don King had carefully manipulated into place for Tyson to reclaim with minimum risk and maximum reward. Tyson-Holyfield in 1996 was considered a mismatch. Tyson was nailed on.

But not everyone thought so. Rewind twelve years and back to their amateur days in the lead up to those 1984 Olympics. Tyson and Holyfield had spent time together in training camps and had got to know each other. In those type of camps, it was impossible not to get to know your teammates and potential rivals. It’s not all training and the fighters have to amuse themselves in their downtime. The story goes that a few of the guys were playing pool. As is the accepted convention, it was winner stays on. Holyfield was due on next. It was Tyson’s turn to leave the table, but he did not want to. There was a brief confrontation. Tyson backed down. They both learned something about each other in that moment. Holyfield would never back down. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a mismatch in 1996.

Holmes, Witherspoon, Page, Coetzee, Lewis, Damiani, Biggs, Tillman, Tyson, and Holyfield. All at varying points in their lives and careers, but 1984 was a significant year for all of them in different ways and for many of them their fates were destined to be interlinked. Forty year later, we have another bunch of fascinating heavyweights and 2024 will be crucial to their careers. I wonder how we will look back on them when the time comes to write their stories.

There are plenty more stories of the 1980s heavyweight division in my forthcoming book, Adulation & Immortality: Heavyweight Boxing In The 1980s.