heavyweights with a 'light' portfolio...

I think Gene Tunney is one of the heavyweight champions with a "light portfolio" at heavyweight but we know enough about him to say he's got a lot of great attributes. He's be up there with the rest of them, IMO.

 

I think Lewis's losses are pretty bad because he got KO'd while he was champion.
I think Ali's loss to Leon Spinks is a blemish too, for sure, but many people ignore it totally. I mean, when a fighter enters the ring as world champion I think he's fair game to be judged on how he performs, past his prime or not. Of course, let's make allowances, but it's not right to just write the incident off as if it didn't happen.

What happens to these fighters after they are champion or at the top of the game is another matter though. I dont put much stock in Tyson losing to McBride, or Ezzard Charles losing to a load of bums late in his career.

I think losses to great or very good fighters get a bit overplayed too. Joe Frazier gets the worst of it in that case, he only lost to Ali (who he beat 1st time) and to Foreman, who was a brutal puncher and a terrible style for him to cope with. I think Holyfield gets too much criticism for "losing the trilogy" against Bowe, when Bowe was actually a very good fighter and if Holyfield had been more like Larry Holmes (who ducked tough fights when he started getting old), he would have never have given Bowe a chance of a 3rd fight.
A lot of the old-time fighters fought the best opponents three, four, five, six times or more. And they picked up losses accordingly. If someone goes 1-5 and 0-3 against great fighters it doesn't necessarily mean they weren't great in their own right.

 

I really don't see how Muhammad Ali's loss to Leon Spinks has any bearing on anything. He was 36 years of age, and may very well have been in the early stages of a disabling illness. I can certainly see his defeats to Frazier and Norton being weighed into the equation, but pretty much anything he did post Thrilla in Manilla means little.

 

It means something because he was still champion of the world, one of the greatest of all, 55-2, and he managed to lose to a 6-0-1 novice.

That's a blemish.

 

Perhaps,

When comparing Ali to other ATG's, few ever mention it.. I know that I certainly don't.

 

It's true no one mentions it. I dont think it weighs heavy at all in the overall picture of Ali, but I do think it is indicative of one of his flaws as a fighter : He was often lazy and untrained and underperformed against men of far lower ability/experience, 1970 onwards.

The Leon Spinks fight by itself isn't much harm, but it's not good, and taken with several other of his 1970s performances (many pre-Manila) it does indicated that particular flaw. But of course, that's judging him by the very highest standards, as we should. And I'd say Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano, to name just two examples, dont have quite the same flaw to the same degree. Arguably, Ali beats them in other areas regarding ATG comparisons, but that doesn't mean we should ignore or fail to measure Ali's own shortcomings.

 

My point, is that the Leon Spinks loss was meaningless... Ali was so far over the hill by that point, he was practically burried under it. And to this day, there is still speculation that Ali chose Spinks as a last opponent, because he knew that he'd be an easy rematch, ( you fill in the blanks. )

people rate Ali's loss to Spinks in about the same context as Holyfield's loss to someone like Larry Donald.....No one cares.

 

Good choice ,Tunneys resume at heavy is rather thin.

 

Since the construction of this thread, someone else has started a whole new one on Ali's rivalry with Norton and the question of how it effects his legacy.. You'll probably get better answers there.

 

Holyfield entered the Donald fight on the back of a year's layoff following a bad loss to James Toney, a fight that finished his claim to being a real contender. The Toney loss itself came a year after the one-sided loss to Chris Byrd.
And Larry Donald was an experienced fighter, and a fairly good one.

Ali entered the Spinks fight as heavyweight champion of the world, and had defeated one of the leading contenders just 5 or 6 months earlier.
And Leon Spinks was a rank novice, 7 fights as a pro, a draw with Scott LeDoux.
Considering that Ali is one of the greatest heavyweights of all-time he should not have lost the title to Leon Spinks, or even struggled to beat him.
If Ali was TOTALLY SHOT after Manila, then Jimmy Young (who fought an even worsely conditioned Ali than Spinks did) and Earnie Shavers must have been ****. I dont think they were great, but I doubt they were ****.

I think Leon Spinks should get a bit of credit for beating Muhammad Ali.
And Ali should catch a bit of flak for losing to Leon Spinks.

 

You can talk to me all you want about the circumstances of Holyfield's fights with Donald, Toney and Ruiz, but my general sentiments still stand.. The actual VALUE of those fights are basically congruent with that of Ali's loss to Spinks. As for your comments about Ali's recent bouts going into the Spinks fight, the only respectable opponents that he had fought within the previous 3 years were Young, Norton and Shavers - with at least two out of the three being called robberies by most.. Everyone else that he fought during that time frame, ie. Coopman, Evangelista, Dunn were basically ****...

The one thing that I will agree with you on, is that Leon does deserve some credit for going 15 rounds with a far more experienced opponent, and with only 7 bouts behind him... But, let's not pretend that the man he beat was truly " the greatest ", and no I don't think that this bout hurts Ali's legacy....