Watching the Spinks vs Taangstad fight and Spinks looked impressive in that fight. If Spinks fought Tyson like that, he may have won.
Wrong to guage results when guys dominate the B grade heavies. They get the results they were supposed to is all. And just how well do you think Taangstad would have looked in a Tyson bout back then?
He got the title shot because he was EBU champ. At that time the EBU and Commonwealth champs often got title shots which they almost always lost. Tangstad beat Lucien Rodriguez, Evangelista and Bugner. On one hand these were all competitive decisions on the other hand these were the 3 best EBU champs of his era and he beat them all. You'd think Evangelista and Bugner were really old when Tangstad fought them in the mid 80s but they were only 31 and 33. He doesn't have a long resume but H2H hes got to be a top 5 European HW for the 2nd half of the 20th century. Per boxing rec his 8 round draw with Buster Douglas would have been a loss if not for point deductions. Douglas was the only noteworthy US HW Tangstad fought other than Spinks. His only loss before Spinks was to Eklund who was nearly 6 ft 7 but the guys he did beat have better resumes than Eklund. He had a short career but for a European HW in the 80s who didn't fight long thats honestly a great CV. He doesn't belong in "worst fighters to get a title shot" threads which I've seen him mentioned in and think hes being punsihed for Spinks getting beaten by Tyson so easily.
