The better win: Spinks over Holmes I or Duran over Barkley?

When you read a post, take off your blindfold first. Duran's losses to DeJesus, Leonard, Laing, Hearns, and Sims are not ignored or excused. The win against Barkley was incredible, partly because he had been nowhere for 5 years. Spinks's win over an aging Holmes was incredible as well, only in my opinion and in the opinion of many others, less so. If you cannot bring yourself to at least respect it, then simply learn to get over it.

 

Disagree. Larry badly wanted to best Marciano's undefeated record, and he was definitely motivated for the fight.

Anyway, Spinks over Holmes is by far the better win. It's not even close.

 

I am being objective. I do not see how Duran beating a guy like Barkley is close to Spinks beating a long time champion like Holmes. How is that possible? Apparently I am not the one wearing the blinders. Duran was not nowhere in those years after he lost to Hearns. He took a year off and came back in 1986 (I think in January) and started his comeback. He didn't beat Sims on that triple hitter card on June 23, 1986, and then kept fighting tuneups and got the Barkley fight just on sticking around. He didn't earn that fight by beating a contender. I knew the night they signed for Barkley that Duran would win. I promise you that I knew it. The style was all Durans. This was Iran Barkley. Before Hearns he was fighting on ESPN and was just a middleweight brawler and top 10 middleweight, but nothing special. A guy like Barkley who stood in front of Duran I knew Duran would love. Duran would have been easily beaten by Nunn at the time. How does that win help Duran's legacy much? Overrating Barkley to get Duran consideration again is putting Duran ahead of boxing and what is true. He couldn't beat Sims, and a few years before that he lost to Hearns and Benitez easily. That win is overrated just like many of Duran's fights. He is great, but not as great as people say if they rate him 5-10 ATG.

 

It is a much greater win than Duran over Barkley. I knew Duran would beat Barkley the moment they signed it. But Spinks over Holmes? I thought Holmes would stop Spinks early.

 

This, and many of the previous reasons listed for Duran's win, are impressive more on a personal level to Duran, and are relative only to him--not on an absolute top competition level like Holmes-Spinks.

 

Bottomline, even an old Holmes is a better fighter then Barkley. Spinks win is better IMO. Like someone said before, Barkley had 5 or 6 losses and in hindsight was never really that good. Stonehands you say Barkley did everything right that night and still lost...Perhaps it was moreso a case of Barkley not being that good, then Duran being that great that night.

 

Spinks was a pretty big LHW, didn't look terribly undersized next to Holmes in the ring. He was smaller, certainly. Michael was also near his peak, and I think Holmes turned in a passive performance.

Duran was way past his prime, up 4 divisions from his optimal weight taking on a reigning world champion who looked more like a Light Heavyweight. The clincher for me being, for lack of a better phrase, Barkley got all up in that ass. He brought the heat, as another poster said, he digged in those bodyshots like a mother****er and that left hook that made Duran do a 180. This is a hard hitting Middleweight doing that to a former Lightweight. Every time Duran was hit, he'd hit back harder, every time he was pushed to the ropes, he'd rattle a 3-4 punch combination and push Barkley back. Barkley was badly hurt twice in the fight, and down once. Michael Nunn couldn't do to Barkley what an ancient Duran did to Barkley.

On top of that, and I'm in the minority here, I felt Spinks/Holmes I decision was more debatable than Duran/Barkley. For all of those reasons, Duran gets the nod...from me. For people skimming through Boxrec, they couldn't possibly fathom the achievement here. Spellbinding. This is a blockbuster victory in context, almost as good as it gets. It was the way he did it, even if you only had a point in it, Duran had the balls to go toe to toe with Barkley and it was Iran doing a dance and hitting the canvas...remarkable.

 

exactly. The Barkley and Moore wins are overrated. It is great Duran won and he won titles 3 (Moore) and 4 (Barkley), and it adds to his legacy certainly, but the guys he beat were not great fighters at all. Any attempt to make them great looks more like overrating Duran's win. Good wins but not great. Beating Barkley will never be great. His claim to fame was Hearns, and without Hearns he is a one time champion who lost to most of the good fighters he fought.

 

Spinks' was the greater achievement even though Duran's was also remarkable.

Spinks went up in weight and beat THE MAN at heavyweight.He didn't rise up and beat a Thomas,Page or Witherspoon or whatever other alphabet titlist happened to hold a belt that day but the lineal,undefeated champion.Spinks beat one of the very best ever that day.

To better that Duran would've had to beat Nunn,who though not nearly the champion Holmes was,was still the consensus best middleweight out there.Barkley just wasn't in that class even though Duran beating him at his age and at his size disadvantage was absolutely an amazing effort as well.

Duran had a chance to at least match Spinks' achievement when he met Hagler in 83 but he fell a bit short but even then Hagler probably wasn't considered on Holmes' level yet in 83 either.

 

Exactly.
Barkley wasn't even a real world middleweight champion. Kalambay and Nunn were in front of him at the time.

It's not even close.
Spinks beating Holmes was a much bigger win. Duran's win over Barkley is just a remarkable comeback fight for one of the fan favourite's, not a massively significant historic win in terms of the status of the opponent.

 

I have no arguments with people crediting Spinks, I welcome the idea, but we should all respect each other's choices because we've gave you reasoning. I believe if Duran vs Barkley happened today in the same circumstances, the General Forum would be littered with threads petitioning the fight not to happen. Barkley wasn't a great fighter, but work it out, with Duran being ancient, blown-up, and looking iike **** for years, it's really not difficult to put the win in context. Amazing.

If Spinks had taken down a fired up, offensive Larry Holmes, like Duran did to Barkley, then I'd be more inclined to vote the other way. I love Spinks, it's well documented, but Holmes looked like **** in there. Passive as all hell. Doesn't deter from Spinks accomplishment but if I get the choice to either fight Barkley as Duran or Holmes as Spinks, knowing what I know now, I want to fill Spinks boots because Barkley brought the heat.

 

It was a great comeback by Duran, but Spinks was just as big an underdog as Duran was. Probably a bigger underdog.

 

Absolutely, but Larry's performance reminds me of Duran's performance against Benitez. If he just wanted it a little more, applied himself, then the fight would have been so much more competitive and the results might well have been different. Holmes applied himself in the rematch and you saw the difference, most people are unanimous in scoring that for Larry. Point is, Barkley fought how Holmes was supposed to fight - Barkley did everything physically possible to make that fight a living nightmare for small Roberto, the old man. Guess what? He ran into a brick wall who would not be deterred and he found himself reeling from time to time on way to a loss. I thought it was a pretty easy decision to make too. Duran was out-boxing Barkley for long periods, and when it came down to going toe to toe, he came out on top of that too. That's character.

 

Yeah, Barkley fought hard to defend his WBC title. But it wasn't the real world championship. Barkley was acknowledged universally as "the third man" behind Kalambay (who had beaten him) and Nunn.
And Barkley's not an ATG in Holmes' league by any stretch.
I recognize the win as a great late-career comeback win, but not as a real world championship fight.
Dick Tiger's win over Nino Benvenuti in a 10-rounder in 1969 is a bigger win. And there are other examples.
Duran's one of the biggest fan favourites on here, and the favouritism is demonstrated in this discussion. I really dont see how the Barkley win is better than Spinks winning the championship against a 48-0 Larry Holmes in his first outing north of 175 !

I think Spinks fought a superb fight against Holmes, who was no worse than he'd been in his last 3 fights. Holmes was good enough to force Spinks to have to perform as well as he did. The styles just dont make for something like Duran-Barkley. Middleweights look better than heavyweights.
I thought Barkley-Duran was closer in the scoring too, but that's all debatable, and hardly relevant.

 

It's debatable, as you say, and I think I'm exhausted with explaining my position. I find the argument that Holmes was an altogether better fighter than Barkley not to important considering Spinks was near his peak, and Duran had been fighting since like forever and was up at a weight he should never have been campaigning at in the first place.