True. He might have more dynamite in each mitt than Avtandil, but that kind of pressure requires putting in a lot of sustained hard labor, and we haven't really seen Spike do that. He either bangs you out with his power, or scares you into running with his power (and thereby wins on points just by coming forward and having it his way) or, he gets handled.
I will take Douglass by stoppage, been almost 2 years since his KO loss, should be enough time to recover.
Something clicked with Spike, at last, this Summer. 33 now, he knows and admits he can't have another loss. Saunders was underestimated, and a big payday for Eubank took some of the motivation away. For the first time ever he's training properly and staying in the gym. Was evidenced in the Quigley fight where Spike showed a workrate higher than ever before - claims he could have kept going at that pace too. Weighed in today at his lowest in over 7 years, he is in great shape. In terms of the fight itself, I think the early rounds are crucial. Whoever grabs the momentum early will go on to win. Can equally see Spoke smothering Douglas from the off and give a prolonged beatdown before a mid rounds stoppage, or Douglas boxing smart and taking the sting out of Spike for a facile points win.
Didnt he do it in his very last fight - v that chap Quigley? How many punches per round did Spike throw up to the stoppage? He was a human buzzsaw. Averaged 497 per round I believe.....Made Avtandil look positively inative there for a while .... Could he have kept it up? He says he could......we shall see..
Win, Lose or Draw I want to see Sullivan take on Stevens and or Rosado afterwards. Those are FOTY/KOTY contenders waiting to happen.
Well, he started cleaning Antoine's clock in the 4th-6th, and finished him in the 7th. Oh well.... close enough.
Antoine was a good amateur do you think Khurtsize took his soul, or that a Sullivan type fighter would have always stopped him.
The latter, the kid doesn't deal well with pressure, high workrate from a heavy handed guy who can walk through his punches. Spike isn't bad at all, and it shouldn't be all that shocking he beat him, he lost to BJS and CEJ, and he even managed to rock Eubank a time or two, and in retrospect, losing to those two don't paint you as a bum. Also, like I pointed out in my post, when he got tagged, he did have a "Nam" flashback and remembered, oh ****, I remember what happened the last time I faced a guy like this, and he mentally shut down. But I think Spike would have been his original Khurtsidze regardless.
He did? I remember him having a pitiful performance against Eubank. Which is why I basically wrote him off. He just seemed like the type of guy who didn't take boxing seriously and was just showing up for paychecks.
Yeah, he caught him with a few good leaping left hooks that shook him up a little, but other than that it was pretty bad, but you have to take into consideration he got a busted eardrum half way through the fight with Eubank, which probably severely affected his performance.