Larry Holmes, Big John Tate, Gerrie Coetzee: Former WBA Heavyweight Champion Mike Weaver Looks Back
Exclusive Interview by “Bad” Brad Berkwitt
(Interview conducted in 2007)
“I have no regrets.”–Mike Weaver
The date March 31, 1980…The Network ABC… The card was a double bill with Eddie Mustafa Muhammad fighting then champion Marvin Johnson. Muhammad would knock out Johnson in the eleventh round to take the title and lead us into the main event that night. That main event pitted World Boxing Association (WBA) Heavyweight Champion “Big” John Tate, 22-0 with 15 knockouts in his first defense against top heavyweight contender Mike Weaver, 21-9, with 14 knockouts. Tate had won the title a little over five months earlier against South African Gerrie Coetzee via a 15 round decision.
For 14 and 1/2 rounds, Tate was beating Weaver decisively, but as they say in boxing, it aint over till the final bell rings. Well, the bell rang, but not the one the timekeeper bangs on. Tate’s bell was rung which echoed throughout the arena, when Weaver, knocked him out with just seconds left. The knockout came on a devastating left hook followed by a right hand that put Tate down face first to the canvas, and out cold. The referee could have counted to a 1000, and Tate would not have been able to rise.
Going into that last round, Tate was up by the scores of 136-133, 137-134, and 138-133. With this victory, Weaver secured a version of the heavyweight title and entered the records books as a boxing champion. I can remember to this very day, the celebration and the class he showed in victory thanking so many people and was just humbled by the fact he was now a champion.
Weaver, no stranger to fighting for a heavyweight title faced a then huge favorite Larry Holmes just a little over a year earlier, and gave an in his prime Holmes, all he could handle, hurting him throughout the match until he was eventually stopped by “The Easton Assassin” the 12th round of a scheduled 15.
Weaver would make his first defense on October 25, 1980 against the man Tate beat for the belt South African Gerrie Coetzee. Mike would travel to South Africa at a time when other black fighters would not go. Weaver did, and in a tough match, he stopped top ranked Gerrie Coetzee in the 13th round for a successful first defense of his crown.