Is there something off there? Obviously it done him no harm but doesnt look like he has very good technique on the end of his shots. :think
When Michael was "on top", some of his opponents said Spinks had a great "follow-through" elbow too..
You are probably seeing his penchant to elbow. He's woeful at times and it does make some of his punches look a little odd. Great leverage and technique tho on his serious shots, incredible power in both hands. I think it was the left hybrid (uppercut/hook) that poleaxed Johnson that was described as sounding like a shotgun went off at ringside. Very compact blow too.
This for me...Spinks had a strange gumby like flexibility of the upper body...given that he could really put torque into his power shots.
Pretty much everything Spinks did was wrong. It did have the advantage of befuddling his opponents. Larry Holmes said it was hard to anticipate what he was going to do next. But it worked for him and you can't argue with results.
If you're landing with the knuckle part of the glove and hurting or KOing opponents, and not getting countered often, then the technique is good.
Kind of like Vitali Klitschko. His top half does not do what his footwork and bottom half is doing, like other fighters. And he can fight going forwards/backwards/ or circling. How many others can keep any degree of effectiveness doing all 3? Very confusing to opponents & both guys used that skill to its maximium. They'd bend and lean all over the place at the waist and throw every punch in the book. Even better, they'd save their A#1 shot until a perfect opening. Then it might be Spinks landing a perfect left uppercut on Johnson. How many other conventional guys have the balance to throw that punch? Or fire a stright right hand down the pipe after throwing wide or looping shots. And with that style and technique, could pick an opponent apart with counters. Or if necessary, fire off a right hand over a jab in a nano second. Very very tough style to deal with and don't forget the added value of snap with both hands. Throughout a fight even. A good jab when needed and sometimes not used as anything more than a distance keeper or range finder. It takes a lot of discipline to pull off a style like that and a lot of ringsmarts to not make a wrong move himself. Horrible for opposing trainers for pre-fight preperations because who is going to spar like that? Everything is un conventional.
Spinks was awkward as a hwt but less so as a LT heavy. What you see especially with that terrific left uppercut that fell Johnson was great follow through and body torque which amplifies his power.
The shotgun blast description was actually applied (I believe maybe in KO Magazine, perhaps by Steve Farhood), to his right uppercut off the ropes nearly sending Jerry Celestine's head into orbit. Michael's power was a matter of genetic biomechanical engineering. He may have looked like a string marionette in his movements, but he reminded me more of an Erector Set I had when I was a kid. He seemed to me as though he was how Archimedes might have constructed a boxer for delivering leverage behind his blows. Arguello did a lot of placement and precision punching. Some leverage punchers like Cuevas just winged away aggressively. But Michael was a counter puncher who baited traps with fine skills and caught aggressors coming in or making mistakes. Michael was just the sort of opportunistic trapper to exploit an opponent's single error into a bout ending goof. Vonzell Johnson broke from a clinch with his hands down and got laid out by a Jinx cross. (Vonzell also berated himself for screwing up so stupidly in no uncertain terms afterwards.) He was one of the slowest starting one punch knockout ATGs boxing ever produced. Tyson did what he did best, what Gerry was expected to do by many previously, not give Spinks a chance to get warmed up and out the gate. It's amazing how many hard punchers of the era hardly ever produced an opening round knockout or knockdown (excluding Ron Lyle, who was development oriented and always used the opening round to feel an opponent out by choice). Even Frazier displayed fast starts with Machen (1st round KD), Ramos (only the ropes prevented Manuel from dropping in the first), Ziggy (KD 13 seconds in), Daniels (opening round KD), and JQ I. (64 opening round punches, but Joe lost the first three minutes to Jerry's unsustainable 93 punch pace. Conversely, the supposedly stamina challenged Shavers produced three tenth round knockouts, and won round 14 on all three cards against Ali. Foreman would not produce a knockdown beyond round five until his late 1980's comeback). Charley Goldman emphasized in developing Marciano that the closer Rocky's elbows were to his body, the more power and leverage he could get into his shots. Tony Galento actually trained wearing elbow pads in sparring. Yes, Two-Ton was a practicing cheat, but there is a correlation between quickness, power and follow-through with the elbow which is integral to punching technique. (Louis tended to keep his left elbow and upper arm glued to his body on his short hook counters, as if he was keeping a newspaper tucked under his left arm the way he did with Retzlaff. Jack Sharkey's knockdown of Carnera in their first bout offers an excellent example of this technique coming forward, and Michael Spinks was exemplary in punching as an expression of body torque, elbows included. We see it when multiple hooks turn Wassaja into a bobblehead doll.)
Cheers, i reckon you are right. Spinks bouts at 175 sometimes followed a predictable pattern. Spinks comes out slow. Opponent at some point lands some heavy shots. Spinks wakes up out of his slumber. Spinks ko's opponent.
Right, and while Michael could take a tremendous shot, it's often the punch one doesn't see coming which does the job. Gerry was slow enough, and his hook to the body was predictable enough that Spinks could be ready for it, although he did get hurt. With Tyson, he never had a chance to know what hit him. Does anybody know if Michael credited Tyson as having the fastest hands of all that the Jinx squared off with? (I also wonder if he could compare Gerry's power with Tyson's, assuming he recalls enough about Tyson. Holmes was impressed with the power of Gerry's hook, but does seem to rate Tyson only second to Shavers in power, as does Mike and Earnie's other common opponent, Quick Tillis.)
I like it. Spinks wasn't heavy handed, he just had a way of generating extra snap from his unusual upper body flexibility.