Greatness is mostly about achievements, so the answer is no. Mike had the potential to be the greatest ever, but poor choices in life (drugs, alcohol, women and Don King) prevented him from achieving that. To be fair though, he deserves the benefit of the doubt. He had an extremely harsh childhood an those who cared for him (Cus D'Amato, Jim Jacobs) died too soon, so he didn't really have anyone that could guide him and help him deal with the newly acquired fame and fortune. So to sum this up, no, he's not the GOAT, but he's still top 10 all time. And in his prime he was close to unbeatable.
Didn't the legendary Eddie Futch prepared Mike Spinks very well pyschologically to fight , with an excellent fight plan to beat Tyson, my friend? Because this is what i heard. Spinks was according to some, before the fight in an incredible shape for the battle.
Spinks prime was early 80's he fought Tyson in what 88? His knees were shot by then and his best fighting weight was 175. This information is easily found my man
Michael could have stayed at light heavy and quite possibly been the greatest light heavy ever. It is impressive that he beat the undefeated Holmes (the way he beat him wasn't so impressive, but still), winning the heavy as a former light heavy was no joke. But I mourn that he didn't stay at the lighter weight and rule the division for longer, he was a favorite of mine at that weight.
Agreed. He probably could have stayed unbeaten in that division until at least 1989-1990 and defeated guys like Hill, Williams, Andries, Hearns, Harding, Lalonde, etc.
I'm with you! I imagine Michael would have stopped Lalonde and Hearns for sure. Hill would have been verrrry interesting!
THAT'S a great idea, I'm amazed I didn't think of that. Trying to picture something like that, the Qawi-battling Holy against the Mustafa Muhammad-beating Spinks.
Absolutely but he would have been about 15mil+ short of where he ended up. It may have stopped him going close to being the GOAT at 175 but he earned an absolute fortune. It's crazy that he and Qawi got $1.2m each which were the biggest purses ever to that point at 175 yet Spinks gets $1m for Tangstad.