NORMAL assumes that every boxer starts with the intention of becoming a world champion. But after starting his professional career 6-6, those intentions quickly went up in smoke for heavyweight Mike Weaver.
Enter Ken Norton, a future champion who Weaver has coached with…well, whenever the Texas-born Californian decides to make his way to the gym.
“I was working with Ken Norton one day and he said to me, ‘Michael, you don’t go to the gym often to work out and you don’t take it seriously. If you go to the gym regularly and stay focused, you can make a lot of noise at heavyweight,'” recalls Weaver, who estimates he only comes to the gym a day or two a week. Even so, whenever the phone rang with an offer to fight, the 23-year-old would answer.
“I had some ups and downs because I would fight anyone,” Weaver said. boxing news in the first day of this month. “One day, I was getting ready to go to a party when I received a phone call. ‘Mike, can you fight tomorrow? The guy fell. Will you take it?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’ll take it.’ I drove there that very night and joined the fight. It was crazy.”
Note that there’s no question about who he’ll be fighting, and that was Weaver’s MO in the early days after he left the US Marines and started boxing professionally. A soccer star and track and field athlete in high school, Weaver studied boxing in the military, eventually scoring an amateur 23-3 before entering the boxing division in 1972. And among those That first day, he fought four undefeated opponents, including Duane Bobick, along with Rodney, Duane’s brother. But that talk with Norton convinced him that maybe he has more to do with boxing than being an opponent.
“I never forgot what he said. It was around ’74 when I used to work with him. I did what he said, got me a manager who knew the business and cared about me. I told him what I wanted to do, and I started taking it seriously.”
Teaming up with manager Don Manuel in 1976, Weaver won 8-0 after losing to Duane Bobick in 1974, before losing to Stan Ward and Leroy Jones. Frustrated but undaunted, Weaver faced Colombian rival Bernardo Mercado in October 1978. In the ring was heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, who had just successfully defended his first crown against Alfredo Evangelista.
“Larry Holmes was there. In fact, he was the one who gave me the trophy (as the Nevada State heavyweight champion),” said Weaver, who stopped Mercado after five innings. “Next thing I knew, they asked me if I wanted to fight Larry Holmes. I was like, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ I think my manager is joking. He said, ‘No, Larry Holmes wants to fight you.’ When I found out it was serious, I told everyone, ‘I’m going to fight Larry Holmes.’ They said, ‘He’s going to hit you, Mike.’”
Weaver laughed at the doubters who surrounded him then, and he already had the answer.
“I was confident. I’m not afraid of Larry Holmes or anything like that. I told everyone that I would fight him. He can beat me, but he’ll know he’s fighting.”
Holmes was fighting, and a few rounds on June 22, 1979, at Madison Square Garden, the specter of sadness hung in the air.
Weaver recalls: “I hit Larry Holmes and I injured him. “But after five rounds, I felt tired.”
Weaver won’t back down, but his gas tank is draining with each passing frame. In 11order, a top laner finally took down the challenger. One round later, Holmes retained his title via TKO.
It was a tough loss for Weaver, but a win in many other ways, as the boxer, now dubbed the “Hercules” because of his impressive physique, is a player in the boxing arena. world, and two wins and nine months later he will receive a second crown, this time against undefeated former US Olympic athlete John Tate.
Tate, who won the vacant WBA belt in a match against Gerrie Coetzee, seems to have been underrated for his maiden defense at Weaver 21-9, and most of the boxing world would have given it. that he will win easily, especially the match in his hometown. Knoxville, Tennessee.
“I told everyone I was going to take Tate down,” Weaver said. “And I believed it. I actually bet a few people. One guy said, ‘How do you think you would do it?’ I said, ‘I will win.’ ‘Want to fish?’ We bet $500.”
Weaver laughs, but in 14 innings, it looks like he’ll make $500 as Tate has built an insurmountable lead. Turning 15 years oldorder, the Californian needs a knockout to win, and he’s determined to win it. Otherwise, Manuel would have had more motivation for him.
“My manager Don said, ‘You told everyone you were going to beat Tate. If you don’t do it, don’t come back.’”
Weaver did just that, with a single left hook knocking Tate down like a cut tree. The former champ turned head-to-head champion, essentially handing the belt to Mike Weaver on the way down.
“I waited all night to do that. He was caught with that left hook and he fell,” said Weaver, who changed his life with one punch, whether he realized it at the time or not.
“I had a little extra money,” he said. “I can buy more food to eat. (Laughs) I had some money to buy things that I didn’t have. I bought myself a Corvette and the like. But other than that, nothing has changed.”
That is also his motivation, because, if so, winning the title gives him more inspiration to keep it.
“I’m still hungry,” Weaver said. “I went to South Africa (to play against Coetzee) and that was when I trained the hardest. I’m still motivated, and I train even harder because I’m a champion, and I know someone who wants to take that away from me. My belt looks good, so I’ve been training hard.”
Mike Weaver at Hard Rock Live! during the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel Casino on September 5, 2015 in Hollywood, Florida. (Johnny Louis/FilmMagic)
Now 71, Weaver admits that other than Tyson Fury, he can’t tell you who holds the heavyweight belt, an indictment of the state of the game today.
“I used to watch boxing the whole time, and now I don’t know who the champion is. It sucks.”
Once ridiculed, many believe that if the heavyweights of the ’80s – Weaver, Holmes and their peers – were to survive today, they would not only be champions but champions dominated at that time. It was imaginary matchmaking, but Weaver wanted to think it was real.
“I want to believe that if I were here today, I would be a champion,” he said. “I think I’ll do pretty well in this era, but who knows.”
And truth be told, even at 71, Weaver looks like he can still play a few rounds in the ring if need be.
He laughs.
“Not to brag, but I’m in pretty good shape at 71. I take care of myself.”
Twenty-two years ago, Weaver could have done more, and when he went to Sun City in South Africa to face another favorite foe in Coetzee, he had no doubt he would retain the title. his WBA and came home with the WBA championship belt. belt.
“I knew I was going to beat Coetzee,” he said. “This guy never fell, never fell. I will be the first to do it. And that’s what I did.” However, Weaver had to eat some thunder to get there, most notably Coetzee’s legendary “bionic” right hand.
“He hit me with it on the eighth round and I thought I was on a swing,” laughs Weaver, who stopped Coetzee in round 13.order ring. Second successful title defense after James “Quick” Tillis, preceded by two career lows against Michael Dokes.
In their first match in December 1982, Weaver was the victim of one of the strangest stops in boxing history, when referee Joey Curtis stopped the fight after just 63 seconds, with Weaver at defensive stance, but apparently uninjured.
Weaver said: “I was very upset. “I remember a guy saying to me, ‘Watch out for Michael, they’ll stop the fight soon, the first chance they get.’ He told me, but I didn’t pay attention. But I was very angry.”
To this day, Weaver believes the fight was off the mark, but he had a rematch with Dokes six months later. This time, the match was deemed a draw, which did not ease Weaver’s disillusionment with the sport.
“I was more upset then,” he said of the rematch against Dokes. “It was a good game, but I really think I won. I hit him the hardest, I supported him, and I thought I won the match, but they called it a draw. Then I really started to lose a bit of interest. I really don’t believe in the game anymore.”
However, Weaver still had a name, and he could still fight, which meant more chances, and in June 1985, he won Pinklon Thomas’ WBC title. It was a glorious opportunity again, but Weaver knew it was a loss before the opening bell rang.
He said: “When I played against Pinklon Thomas, I really knew I wasn’t going to beat Thomas. “You can tell when your legs are ready to run, and when I used to run, everything felt weak during training. Nobody knows it, but I know it. So I said I would try my best, but I really don’t think I can beat him. And that’s it.
The former champion hit the deck twice, and while the match was deadlocked even on the scoreboard, with a score of 1-42 in the eighth round, he lost his last chance to fight for the heavyweight title. He was 34 years old and went on to fight for another 15 years, with his final fight in 2000 being a strange rematch with Holmes, a match he certainly didn’t expect.
“They came to me with that fight and I said, ‘I haven’t hit the gym in over a year,'” said Weaver, who questioned the statement. “’How much do I get?’ 50,000 USD. ‘You give me ten more and I’ll take it.’”
Weaver got his $60,000 and was stopped after six rounds, ending his career at 49 with a 41-18-1 record with 28 KOs. Many of those setbacks came in the final years of his career, when he still braved the likes of “Bonecrusher” Smith, “Razor” Ruddock, Bert Cooper and Lennox Lewis. And while he considers the Tate match as his favorite, he recalls a good night’s sleep after the game against Thomas when he made a dent on Carl “The Truth” Williams’ chin in 2005. 1986.
“He actually told people he was going to go through me in a lap or two,” Weaver said. “But he was right, it didn’t go two laps. (Laughter) Someone said to me, ‘You’ll knock him out with a left hook.’ And that’s just what happened.”
Weaver smiled, satisfied with a good fighting career. These days, he describes life as “Stay at home, bored to death with COVID,” but he hopes to get back to fighting soon, because when he is gone, he will be given the credit he deserves. worthy of what he has contributed to the sport.
“People say to me, ‘You never give up, you don’t care who you fight, and you’re always determined, and you never put anyone down,'” Weaver said. “They tell me that all the time and I think that’s amazing.”
