BoxRec

Another one of those late starters to boxing who became an elite heavyweight champion in the late Ali era. Had a good scrap with Larry Holmes at MSG, also was in the mix for a fight with Ali but it didn't happen.

Stroll down memory lane with the man they called Hercules who mixed it up with many of the best of his super talented era...

http://spam.com/articles/biofil ... -interview

I have Mike Weaver in my Fb [john wilkinson] & what. GREAT CHAP/ "good individual" he is!

There's that name Bernardo Mercado again. A lot of fighters seem to cite him as the biggest puncher they encountered.

I'm surprised Mike didn't name Tony Anthony as his strangest fight / opponent.
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Fight:58222

And it's interesting that he lists the Bill Sharkey fight as his toughest. I only remember Sharkey as Kallie Knoetze's opponent on a TV fight. All along I thought he was kind of a collegiate hobbyist boxer. I couldn't have been further from the truth. Sharkey was a bad dude.
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Human:2656

Good solid fighter who made the very best of what he had. Always in sculpted condition and gave the crowd a good show. During his career he defeated prime versions of John Tate, Gerrie Coetzee, James Tillis, Bernardo Mercado and Carl Williams. He also chalked up wins in unbeaten prospects like Johnny Duplooy, James Pritchard and Bill Sharkey. Lastly, he gave Larry Holmes a terrific fight and quite possibly deserved the decision in his rematch with Michael Dokes. Definitely a top 50 atg heavyweight.

Anyone know how Mike is getting along these days?

drunkenpiper36 wrote:Good solid fighter who made the very best of what he had. Always in sculpted condition and gave the crowd a good show. During his career he defeated prime versions of John Tate, Gerrie Coetzee, James Tillis, Bernardo Mercado and Carl Williams. He also chalked up wins in unbeaten prospects like Johnny Duplooy, James Pritchard and Bill Sharkey. Lastly, he gave Larry Holmes a terrific fight and quite possibly deserved the decision in his rematch with Michael Dokes. Definitely a top 50 atg heavyweight.

Him beating Big John Tate on national TV was a brilliant win. Tate was never the same after losing by KO to Berbick and Weaver.

Always liked watching Weaver, you never quite knew what was going to happen, always in shape and rarely dull (apart from Tillis, Smith II, there are probably others)

In 1976, Mike Weaver was one of the first fighters that my then-14 year old self ( and brand new, rabid boxing fan ) began following closely pretty much solely through the pages of RING magazine. At the time, the best & one of very few ways to keep up with the less well known fighter's careers, untelevised and/or obscure fight results from across the globe. The back pages of THE RING in those days was a obsession for fans & an absolute necessity for those in the pro boxing industry...

Whoops. Sorry for going off on that tangent. LOL.

Anyway, the first time that I remember seeing & taking notice of Weaver fight results was when he fell victim to the Bobick bros. Rodney took a 10 round decision over the Diamond Bar, CA heavy & Duane stopped him on a cut eye TKO in 7. Then, the next time that Mike's name ( along w/ a photo, which was a pretty big deal for a fighter back then ) appeared was in full page story, a ringside account of his exciting brawl with the then-unbeaten NYC brawer Bill Sharkey. A fight which resulted in a close, but impressive victory for Weaver which really put him on the map. As he then went onto bigger & better fights with bigger & better opposition like the undefeated, top ten contenders in Weaver's fellow Cally fighter Stan Ward ( who was the CA State Heavyweight Champion ) & Denver's massive Leroy Jones, who held the North American Heavyweight title.
Weaver fought both men in two hotly contested 12 round affairs that saw both Ward & Jones retain their respectives titles in unpopular decisions. With the consensus being among fans & more importantly, the press ( including, of course, THE RING ) that Weaver had won both contests & was VERY unlucky to have come out on the short end in one of, much less both fights.
With renewed vigor & confidence in his skills & abilities though, Weaver rebounded with a winning streak that saw him avenge his loss to Stan Ward by not only knocking him out in the ninth round, but by winning & taking his California State Heavyweight Championship.
And, that impressive victory, coupled with his rising further up the top ten of the heavyweight rankings led Weaver to being a surprise choice as the opponent for Larry Holmes to have an "easy" title defense/tune up bout against in the legendary Madison Square Garden in June of '79. With Weaver being SUCH an unknown quantity & such a massive underdog at the time, that many sports writers blasted Don King for making the match & the Champ Holmes for taking the fight. These idiots were even labeling the fight as too much of a disgrace to be "allowed" to be held at the venerable sports palace. LOL.
The furor over Weaver as a legitimate world title challenger was so bad that ABC ,the television network that had up until that point showcased all of Holmes' title defenses in prime time, declined to telecast the MSG event even though the fight card that Holmes - Weaver ( well, actually their first of two fights, but I'd rather not even acknowledge the sad fact that a rematch ever occurred... ) was headlining had, as an absolutely magnificent semi-main event, a veritable SuperFight between the savage Roberto Duran & the just-deposed World Welterweight Champion & highly popular Carlos Palomino.
But nope.
Even with THAT as an extra added attraction, ABC wouldn't cough up the dough to telecast the show.
So, up stepped the then-relatively little known subscription cable tv service Home Box Office. They made a deal with King & the Garden & the rest is history.
Seen as little more that a strong, willing, slightly better than average walk in banger that was only supposed to last maybe four or five rounds tops, Weaver was difficult for Holmes from the start & should have been awarded a knockdown over a stunned Holmes in round four. As the contest wore on the large crowd at the Garden as well as millions of viewers worldwide witnessed the supposedly "undeserving" challenger give Holmes one of the most difficult fights of his entire career before eventually being caught by the desperate champion & dropped in the closing moments of round eleven, then finished in round twelve.
Often overlooked is the irony that Mike Weaver wound up being a much tougher challenger for Holmes than the fighter that Weaver was used as a "tune up" for in Earnie Shavers. And that's very much taking into consideration the knockdown that Shavers scored over Holmes in round seven. Other than that rather isolated moment, Holmes dominated Shavers the rest of the way until the referee was forced to save Earnie from further punishment.