Disagree with your evaluations. Spinks was certainly the youthful fighter in those matchups. He turned pro > 76 olympics. The rest of those guys, aside from qawi, were at a minimum 10 round fighters fighting top 10 competition. And Qawi learned the hard way in Rahway but sure didn't have a Futch type to polish that diamond for that early pro development. Lots of guys look fantastic when they have all the advantages in reflexes in those early matchups. Spinks never fought the role reversal bouts the way long established champs do. You disagree, fine. Some folks give Spinks a get out of jail free card for the Tyson bout. That's fine too. I do not. I look at all bouts and that includes bouts where it's going to be a tough fight to win. That's kind of where that term great comes into play, though. I'm certainly not saying the guy wasn't much & we haven't seen a better light heavy since. But did you actually know anyone picking Marvin Johnson to win that fight? Or Lopez? Jim McDonald? Now there's a name you don't hear mentioned often. It was easy for me to see anyway, and I don't know if you saw it, was the guy's knees were simply not going to hold up for long. And once all of a sudden a guy is 33 and not 25, that kind of thing becomes a huge factor in fights.
It was a left, sort of a half-hook half-uppercut. Similar to the kinds Razor Ruddock used to throw. Very shocking to see Johnson taken out that way.
Yeah, that's right! That was impressive. I remember Ruddock throwing that now too and I think McGuigan used to throw a similar punch.
So what if he was tho? He was fighting many of these guys before he hit his peak, including EMM. It's not like these guys were on their last legs, as stated to you Johnson was good enough to come back and win the title well later. I can't follow your last sentence. Qawi was peaking and Spinks beat him well. I rate Qawi ENORMOUSLY. Spinks did it all in his 175 career except hang around forever. The division was cleaned out and he then went looking for greater challenges and honors. An incredibly harsh assessment and platform to judge from IMO. As i said i never ever considered Spinks a bonafide heavyweight, and here he was fighting a guy that would almost certainly be the greatest cleaner of 175 pound clocks in history. Tyson would have done bad bad things to other 175 pound champs thoughout history, including Tunney, Charles and Moore. To judge Spinks so heavily on his exploits and no exploits at a weight he never belonged to is completely unfair. He is being penalised for going completely out of his comfort zone and having a go where he really did not belong. He was a hyena among lions. No-one claims him to be a great heavyweight, but his defeat of Holmes does indeed add a fantastic string to his bow. You are also selectively ignoring your own criteria here. Spinks did win the big one in your books here And that big one was Holmes. Few gave Spinks any sort of chance, and last i looked he was 7-1. No 175 pound champ had ever won the heavyweight title. Yet Spinks did. This was history. One can say Holmes was old etc etc but the odds and barriers tell the story and Holmes kept retaining his title long after his best was gone. Until Spinks. Such is the price of being so good. How about we add the names of Qawi and Holmes to the list? Do we know anyone picking Qawi? You betcha we do, loads of em. Spinks was a very slim favourite. Do we know people picking Holmes? Well, the question there is do we know anyone picking Spinks! Looking better already. This is all speculation. Would his knee's have troubled him so much if he stayed at 175? Really, with his power and canniness (as well as Futch) would it have really mattered? The challenges and money were gone at 175 and Spinks made a dramatic and brave move that he knew meant shortening his career. Noway can i hold his foray into the Heavies against him.
This is the final time and you can think whatever you wish. Boxing is all about a guy's form going into a bout. Not their name. Not what they did 4 years prior. Their most recent form going into fights. Qawi looked terrific against Rossman and Saad. Problem was his recent form going into the Spinks bout was Martin and Davis. The earlier efforts are A+. The latter are not. Perhaps a B. Holmes form going into the Spinks bout was Smith and Williams. Not the guy from 1978. And I guess if some choose to ignore the Tyson bout, lets subtract the Qawi victory Spinks had because Qawi always maintained he was far from 100% going in. You want to be fair, right? And just where were those A+ results anyway? Great fighters do have them afterall. I sure don't see a Foreman/Frazier type result. The bouts I saw were decision bouts and nothing particularly devastating against Qawi/Muhammad/Holmes. And you claim Spinks, among others, had no chance against Tyson. It sure wouldn't be going out on a limb to expect them to last longer than 90 seconds tho. But that's were--to me anyway--those bad knees came into play. I think bad knees come into play the older he got and youth like Hill/Moorer/and another youthful up and comer by the name of Holyfield. Spinks never had that type of challenge and how many other top lh didn't ever face those challenges in their career?
I'd like to see which fighters you do rate zadfrak, so I can pull apart their resumes the way you have done to Spinks'. Spinks is possibly the greatest 175-lber of all-time, and if not in the top 5. 'Nuff said, the fact Tyson intimidated a two-weight undefeated World champ and blew him away in less than a round is testement to Kid Dynamite's awesome skill.
Spinks may not have names like Foster, Charles or Moore in his win column, but he did manage to beat every available noteworthy opponent during his day. Eddie Mustafa, Marvin Johnson, Dwight Braxton Qawi, and a number of others were all in reasonably good form when Spinks defeated them, and did so in convincing fashion. Frankly, I don't know that a buy this claim that Qawi was not prime or at his optimal best. He was barely 30 years old and still over a decade away from the end of his career. He would also move up in weight to cature a belt at cruiserweight. Also, his becoming the first light heavyweight champion to capture the heavyweight crown deserves respect. Yes, Holmes was declining, but he had yet to lose in 48 fights, and lets not forget that this was Michael's first outing at 200 lbs.
Cool. Not at all. Trying telling that to Marvin Hagler (SRL) and any one of hundreds of others. This is why we have the term "upset". Regardless, here are the 6 names Braxton/Qawi had beaten in succession, Mike Rossman, James Scott, Saad, Jerry Martin, Saad and Eddie Davis. What a great streak! Contrary to what you seem to think, many of Spinks victims weren't ready for the retirement village. As said, Johnson was still good enough to win a title afterwards. What he did was beat two difficult victims which made for a total of 6 in a row. Spinks was a bit sloppy and impatient the bout before trying to put Johnny away too, so lets not forget that. For starters, if you go back to the actual original thread topic the selfkill is asking about Spinks as alight heavyweight, not a heavyweight, so what has Tyson got to do with that ? Secondly how on earth can anyone put his fight at 175 with Qawi beside the Tyson bout in any way shape or form? I've already gone at length to explain what heavyweight and Tyson is to Spinks beside the topic not asking of either. Subtracting the win over a peak Qawi because Qawi laid forth the almost mandatory excuses for a big fight loss is ludicrous. Maybe he wasn't at his best, maybe he was, but should we discount most big fights in history because the loser comes up with the usual excuses? Spinks was inactive and not fully fit fighting Tyson, hell lets just give him a win let alone excuse him. Well if you don't find much in any of those three wins things are resoundingly clear. I'm not even going to waste my time going into specifics as 95% of posters will already "get it" and therefore i don't need to. And there'in lay the greatness of the monster that was peak Tyson. It sure wouldn't be going out on a limb, but people sure weren't lasting very long on the whole. You seem to have a fixation with Spinks knee's. He sure got around the ring alright in his two late career bouts vs Holmes, and that was at heavyweight! And he moved plenty. If he stayed at 175 who knows? He sure didn't need to move at 175 like he did at Heavyweight. Maybe they are fine. For a long time. You might even be clutching at straws For heavens sakes. Who's your fave light heavyweight? (and you obviously have one going by all this) I'll see what sort of job i can do tearing apart their career from start to finish. Very few will be oblivious.