Why did Spinks put on 25lb to fight Holmes?

He wanted to become heavyweight champion. He thought that Holmes was older and beatable.

 

Power and punch resistance perhaps

 

Probably more like 10 lbs. I'd imagine that a rangy guy like him drained quite a bit to get to 175 lbs.

 

The main advantage that it would have given him, is strength in the clinches.

 

Because if you pack on 25lbs of muscle, you will hit harder than you did at 175lbs. You'd also have the strength to deal with the much bigger men.

But because he had a smaller frame, he wasn't a full sized heavyweight, rather just a cruiserweight.

He's one of the very best ever at 175, maybe Top 10 P4P.

 

He put on that muscle because he was told it was now possible to be just as fast and still maintain a decent work rate with "modern advances". He followed a programme of interval training allowing him to fight in spurts.

The weight meant that he could not be pushed around quite so much as he got tired. He might not need to deliver quite so many fully weighted blows to make an impression since With extra weight behind him he is not forced to use so much energy. His scoring punches can count in a way they would not before.

The extra weight meant he is not having to work so hard without it. Usually a lighter man has to be a lot better and work a lot harder. The extra weight addressed some of the deficit.

 

He didn't pack on 25 pounds of muscle.

Read the following Sports Illustrated article from 1985. It's really interesting:

http://www.si.com/vault/1985/10/07/620972/a-champ-with-strange-ideas


If Spinks had been a natural LHW, he would still have packed on as much mass as possible.

I understand that he gave away some speed, but you couldn't have expected anyone at 175 pounds, to have fought Larry at HW who was 45-50 pounds heavier.


:good

 

http://www.si.com/vault/1985/10/07/620972/a-champ-with-strange-ideas

:good

 

Spinks hired a nutritionist and worked hard to build his body up. So you see ( Seamus and others ) a 175 pounder can bulk up to 200 and perform well.

Spinks stamina in the first Holmes fight was excellent.

Holmes should have picked a less skilled and speedy opponent to tie Marciano as he was slowing down and almost lost to Carl Williams.

 

Thanks!

What's described there is modern training more or less. Probably methods Olympic athletes had been using for some time. The interval training and nutrion is more of less standard stuff today, I'd guess. It's using weight that's still a bit controversial.

Dundee really comes off as a dinosaur there, but he expressed the mainstream thinking in boxing at the time. It's a bit ironic that his most famous adept went from 175 lbs straight to a fully fledged HW (for the time) at 192 lbs.

 

Totally agree. Spinks' cutting edge training (at the time) enabled him to win the title. Indeed, Dundee comes across as a dinosaur, firmly rooted in the past.

 

Because he wanted to achieve ATG status by winning a title in another weight class.

 

I guess he wanted to actually be a heavyweight. If he gained less he would have been a cruiserweight.

Also, he needed the muscle so he woldn't be thrown around the ring/ruffed up by Holmes in the clinches.

He worked with Macky Shilstone (spelling?), who still works with Serena Williams.

I remember interviews with Shilstone at the time. He was confident his methods would greatly helps Spinks.