Who ranks higher P4P Michael spinks or Mike Tyson?

Tyson at his best was the p4p number one in the world. Spinks at his best was not

 

Tyson stopped him in 91 seconds. Knocked him dead. It was very clear who was the better fighter.

 

Tyson is 5'10 and was better at HW than 6'2 Spinks was at LHW. Who he duly retired. That's where this discussion should end.

 

H2H, resume, or what?

Via P4P resume Spinks wins in a canter. He had a fine reign at 175 in a top ear and beat some elite level guys.

H2H, well Spinks beat a higher level of opponent in EMM and Qawi that Tyson ever did. The big point is that i would favor maybe 1 or 2 light heavyweights over Spinks. I'd definitely favor a bit more Tyson at heavyweight than Spinks at 175. It's speculatory but Spinks did not show chinks in his armor at 175.

Even H2H P4P vs each other it's blurry. Spinks had incredible power at 175, power to match Tyson quite frankly. He had one punch power in both mitts. Tyson has multiple more early KO's because he was a blitz fighter, he came out and tried to knock people out in the first couple of rounds and his style and assets supported that. P4P H2H Spinks would have the power to fend him off, the power to knock him out too. He was a totally different fighter. He also had ATG uppercuts on both sides, excellent lateral movement either way when needed and a brilliant chin at 175. The guy was a beast. He was a good heavyweight, he had great defense, could counter, had "respectable" power but he was also vulnerable and didn't take a punch very well. This is clearly seen by how many times a tired and aged Holmes, who had lost quite a lot of snap, hurt him. He was never going to take big punches at the weight. Did Cooney even land anything proper? Also Spinks hit Cooney with a ridiculous amount of clean punches in a very short space of time and Cooney was still stopped on his feet. At 175 he'd have knocked him out 4 or 5 times by that point and he sure wouldn't have been upright. I am in the camo that Spinks was a lamb being led to the slaughter that night. I don't think he had the belief. A 175 pound Spinks not giving away such advantages would have been far more confident ad composed.

So for me P4P resume it's Spinks by miles. Besides his 175 reign he beat the lineal champ in Holmes moving straight up from 175.

H2H P4P vs the table it's still Spinks for me. More heavyweights would beat Tyson than light heavyweights would beat Spinks IMO.

H2H P4P vs each other i favor Spinks tho the margin is less than the above two categories.

Obviously vs each other at heavyweight as they were Tyson kills Spinks every time out. I'd back 96 Tyson to whoop Spinks let alone 1988/89 era Tyson. He's a light heavyweights ultimate nightmare. His speed of foot moving forward allied to his bobbing, weaving and counters is murder for the smaller guy. Then you have the fact that he is probably faster of hand than pretty much all of them as well. Spinks was shocked at how fast he was.

 

Spinks is my top 30 p4p of all time. That last doesn't go past 50, Tyson isn't on it, he isn’t on McGrain's top 100, either.

I have Spinks higher all time at LHW than I do Tyson at HW, and then Spinks accomplishments at HW boost his p4p rankings further.

Spinks is the greater p4p fighter and I don't consider it particularly close.

 

Some of the comments on this thread are so irrational I don't want to address them. I'll just allude to them like a snarky hoe.

 

I pointed to Spinks.

For some reason, he's considered by many to be the No. 1 lightweight heavyweight, while Tyson is rarely in the top 10. The days of debating whether he would beat Ali and which of them deserved the No. 1 spot are long gone. And although I usually rank him higher than the average boxing fan and some experts, I can't ignore this trend, which, according to him, sees Tyson falling lower year after year. Spinks is still top three in his division.

What's more, Michael, even in his short heavyweight career, has a better win than Tyson in 15 years, because he defeated Holmes 85 , not Tyson's 88. Was he a better heavyweight? I think any Spinks-Tyson fight from 1987-88 would have gone the same way as the one that took place, but considering the criteria, I can't give Tyson the win over Spinks. Even though I believe he was the better boxer both in the boxing match and in the heavyweight division, the facts remain the facts, and by common boxing criteria, Spinks is better in every respect. Which is quite strange.

 

Spinks pretty clearly. Light heavy run was better than Tyson's heavyweight run, and on top of that he moved up and dethroned an ATG, albeit faded, Larry Holmes. Sure he lost to Tyson in extremely one sided fashion, but he wasn't really a heavyweight to begin with. Tyson in what should have been his prime year's lost to Douglas and Holyfield x2.

 

I don't agree with the premise that Spinks is a top 3 light heavy.
Beyond that, he lasted 91 seconds with Tyson. How does 'p4p' even enter into this? Spinks would win if they were lightweights? You can extrapolate any nonsense you choose if you are nimble linguistically but, at the end of the day, the fight lasted 91 seconds and Spinks didn't land a punch. He was enough of a heavyweight to beat Holmes twice; most of you would pick Holmes to beat Tyson and will argue that Tyson only beat Holmes because he was rusty. He had been at that weight for 5 years.
And keep in mind- when they got into the ring that night Spinks would clearly have rather been entering an arena to face a bunch of lions than to face Tyson. The biggest test of his career and he failed to perform yet nobody gives him grief for showing up to get paid with no intention of trying to win that fight.

 

You'd probably be in the minority. At any rate many would have him a minimum of top 5, both H2H and resume based i think. Certainly more than would have Tyson top 5.

P4P isn't that complex, even if it is . You simply measure them against their peers in that division, skill and effectiveness wise. Spinks had ATG power among his peers at 175. He also had a fantastic chin at 175. Ay heavyweight his power was average at best. He belted Holmes with a number of punches that would have hurt light heavyweights badly, stopped them potentially. Holmes barely blinked, and Holmes could be hurt by mid level punches at times. Obviously not much of Spinks vaunted power carried to heavyweight. Spinks also took a number of clean punches from Eddie Mustafa without much worry. Eddie had elite level power at 175. An old tired Holmes hurt him a number of times and Holmes had nowhere near Mustafa's power comparative to their divisions. Spinks excellent chin at 175 wasn't excellent at heavyweight. Instead of being the feared puncher at heavyweight who people had to be careful against, it was he who had to tread warily. Hell, even against Holmes in the rematch he gave away almost all of the first 5 rounds (purposely) waiting until Holmes lost some snap in his punches. He'd never dream of doing that at 175.

Lets find some context, Holmes had been declining noticeably for a couple of years. He wasn't remotely the boxer he had been around 1980. No-one would be picking Holmes of Spinks 1 to beat Tyson, not on your life. Also no-one should be thinking Tyson beat Holmes due to rust, the excuse was that he allegedly received late notice and would have given a better account of himself with more time based on later performances. anyone saying he would have beaten Tyson with more prep either hates Tyson or DKSAB.

Spinks had no chance of beating peak Holmes. The Holmes of Spinks had no chance of beating Tyson. Holmes was heavier than he'd even been vs Tyson. He used to aim for 212-213 peak. Post Witherspoon he let his weight go out to low 220's due to age - sweating down to 212 was detrimental by that stage as determined by Futch.

I agree Spinks was crapping himself. A lot don't. Spinks himself said he wasn't sure if he could win but went in to give it a go. To state he didn't try would be impossible to prove tho. Personally i think he froze a bit but that's just an opinion.

On a P4P footing Spinks would be much more confident. He'd still be facing a beast but he'd be facing a beast his own division. He'd have the power to slay that beast, if all went well. He also had the power to slow the beast and make him pick his moments.

P4P H2H is the slimmest for me, maybe Tyson would still win. It'd be a vastly different setup tho. Spinks is the one that lost almost all of his 175 pound advantages moving up to heavy. The only thing he retained was skill and he also gained some speed/elusiveness vs the field.

 

Spinks is a greater LHW historically than Tyson is at HW. Then Spinks went on to become the legit HW champ…deservedly too, as the decision in the first Holmes fight was fair. He was the first LHW champ to do this in what, a century?

He got his ass kicked by Tyson in dominating fashion, but no one is going to question who is the better HW.

I don’t look that much into the whole p4p thing, but Spinks will generally be ranked on higher all-time lists for his LHW career and his win over Holmes.

 

Spinks was the first, and to date only, lineal LHW champion to win the HW crown. Fitzsimmons won the LHW title after being HW champion.

I agree with all points in your excellent post, btw.

 

That's why you should be on the boxing forum, because you can learn something.
I'll pay attention the next time I get into an argument with you

 

So you haven't paid attention in any or our previous "arguments"?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!


Ha!!! All good mate. Not a problem. That's what many of us are here for, to learn and enjoy.