Jess Willard vs Michael Spinks

Jess is much larger but Spinks was much better. Could the Spinks that beat Cooney get the W over Willard?

 

Cooney fight without the three or four competitive rounds.

 

I see Spinks outworking him to a decision.

 

If it's a 15-round fight, Spinx wins, and if it's 45, it's Willard

 

Spinks was much better but he doesn't have Dempsey's firepower to blow Willard up. I tend to agree with Ikrasevic. Over a normal distance Spinks keeps it together and outboxes him to a UD. Over the old-time distances of 45 rounds, fighting against such a big dude is eventually going to wear Spinks out. Willard was a crappy boxer but he had huge heart and was extremely strong and durable. He liked to maul and chop away in his ugly but persistent way. After enough rounds go by Spinks is probably going to start feeling the wear and tear and if he slows down enough Willard could sink him.

That said Spinks was a fantastic operator and it might also be that he boxes Willard up enough early on that Willard never really gets to impose his size and is reduced to lumbering after him. Poor Willard in that case.

 

You explained very well and extensively what I meant. And you're still a much better connoisseur of boxing than I am.

 

Imagine Spinks just teeing off on Willards face with those tiny little gloves.

 

I don't believe Spinks stops Jess Willard with a hammer, probably wins a UD over 15 rounds.. However ,Willard has the ability to knock Spinks cold so I give him a chance at a ko win, make Spinks a 3-1 favorite maybe. But a 45 round fight? I don't know

 

@Pat M why did you pick Spinks by KO

 

Spinks doesn't have that farm strength to hang with ol Jess. Jess used to carry calves around like it was nothing. Once he lifted a whole haystack Paul Bunyan style

 

Because M. Spinks was a trained boxer who competed at the top of both amateur and professional boxing. Willard was 28-30 years old when he left the farm and started boxing, his main attribute as a boxer was being big. Apparently that was enough in that era. There is no person I can think of who could start boxing at near 30 years old that I would favor to beat an active Michael Spinks.

Willard was big, but from video he was stiff, didn't move well, and looked more like a "Toughman" or "Rough and Rowdy" competitor than a world class fighter. That he was champion says a lot about the competition at the time. If, he walked off the farm at 28-30 years old and tried boxing in later eras, he'd probably start losing at the 4 round level and go back to the farm.

 

But he beat Jack Johnson

 

Ron Lyle & Willard are plausible choices, IMO.

 

According to Wikipedia, Ron Lyle had his first amateur fight in prison in 1964 at age 22-23. Lyle had a good amateur career, winning some national events and competing internationally, he had a good base for turning pro. He didn't walk off of a farm at nearly 30 and start boxing.

I haven't seen enough video of Jack Johnson to have an opinion about him. From the video I've seen of Willard he doesn't look good and if Johnson couldn't beat Willard? Age could be a factor though I don't know how old Johnson was at the time. I would pick the 50+ year old Larry Holmes that fought Butterbean to beat any version of Willard that I've seen on film.

 

Well I was going from when Lyle turned pro which was about 29 or 30, but point taken.