Historically great fighters often take a trip north of their division to conquer new heights. Sometimes its to make a superfight, other times its to make history, or just money. I've noticed that in many threads when a great fighter moves up in weight and loses to a fellow great fighter, he's referred to as a blown up"____"weight. Light heavyweights have after conquering their respective divisions have tried to move up in weight to compete for the most prized possession in sports; the Heavyweight Title. Recently I've been watching Tomasz Adamek as he's moved up in weight. His ability to handle Chris Arreola (his best win at HW) suggests that blown up Light Heavy or not he does belong in the Heavyweight Division. Now Micheal Spinks, at LHW cleaned out a deep division (despite Body Head's claims ) and he beat Larry Holmes twice, Tangstad, Gerry Cooney before getting stopped by Mike Tyson who at the time was probably top 3 head to head. Spinks is a great fighter and he has a style that is suited for moving up in weight. I'm wondering, is it possible that Spinks was a much better Heavyweight than initially given credit for? And given the success of: Gene Tunney against Dempsey, Billy Conn against Joe Louis (proving that Conn belonged in the ring with Joe) Ezzard Charles against Joe Walcott, Louis and Marciano (gave Rocky a good scrap) Michael Moorer against Holyfield Roy Jones jr. against Ruiz (say what you want about Ruiz- he wasn't great but Jones beat him more decisively than anyone since Tua. Haye beat a washed up version btw) Adamek against Arreola (who at this point is a top 5 win for Vitaly) Is there really any credence to the "he was just a blown up light heavyweight" argument?
Erm, it has some credence but I agree with the premise. Spinks is an underrated HW. The Tyson blowout does him a disservice but it should do Tyson a service. Here's the thing, I think he never really would've done well against punchers. I think his size and durability would ultimately matter the most in these instances. Thus, you get the blown-light-HW talks. Is it fair, probably not. I know Spinks beat Cooney but he was way past it. I think the generally thought is that Spinks suffers badly against punchers and he matched up well with an aging, past it Holmes. And even then just squeaked by with victories. The Holmes win is good but he never really proved his dominance. And a lot of the people Tyson was cleaning up against would've provided tough opposition for Spinks. He could've been de-throned earlier. He was matched well.
He could have been dethroned earlier but the point of the thread is at what point do we stop calling them blown up lightheavy's?
maybe he's underrated but he's also unproven. he only had 5 fights at heavy. I don't think the guys who fought him btw were very good. holmes was obviously a force to be reckoned with but was badly faded. same with cooney. and I wouldn't put much behind tangsted either. To me Tyson proved that he doesn't belong with elite level
Holmes was indeed faded in '85, but for my money he was still of higher quality than the best opponents beaten by many top 20 Heavyweights.
Tyson proved that Spinks didn't belong in the ring with him but whether or not he belonged with the division's elite is a different story altogether. Holmes may have been on the decline but its safe to say that Holmes is 1985 was on par with Lewis in 2003. And Spinks was triumphant against Holmes.
I disagree. Prior to the Spinks bout, Holmes fought a novice fighter in Carl Williams, who gave him all he could handle. And just what happened to the Truth in his subsequent bout? He was starched early by an old shopworn Weaver. Lots of folks thought from 83 onwards, Holmes was ripe for the pickens. He just wasn't signing the contract for a lot of those fights. And Spinks himself went into that Holmes bout right after that Davis bout & he hardly looked like a world beater himself. So it wasn't exactly a match of 2 guys with all their tools in 1985. But no matter really. There was a new sheriff in town in Tyson and he was cleaning up a division that had needed cleaning up for a long time.
