Do you think Spinks took a dive? I've heard some people say that he did. Personally, I say no. Look at Spinks after the second knockdown. You can clearly see his eyes were rolled back into his head. I don't think that's something that can easily be faked. I do, however, think that he knew he was ****ed, and didn't get up when he could have.
spinks was terrified of Tyson, clearly. He just thought, no way jose and buckled for the retirement pay cheque.
That's what I've always thought. I don't think anyone approached him and formally told him to lay down... I just think he went into that bout with the mentality that it was going to be a short night and performed accordingly.
The fix was in that both Spinks and the referee knew that Tyson will not be penalized for his usual cheating.
absolutely the fear was strong in mike that night. no surprise, he was facing a man who had singlehandedly just out of his teens torn apart all the baddest men on the planet. noone had done that since, well ali and to a lesser degree Louis, Demps and perhaps Johnson. If you project that kind of post-teen ability up to a further devleoped 22/23 year old who had developed further since then, spinks must have thought he was in the ring with the 2nd coming of ali. spinks had never faced anyone close to being able to achieve this, and spinksy was no spring chicken at this stage, he must have felt it was tysons time.
Tyson's best win was against a pumped up Light Heavyweight who was beaten before the fight started, mightily impressive.....
yep it was a fix, timed perfectly. they specifically asked that Spinks go down after Tyson pounded the life out of him, the fact Spinks was unconscious for a short time made it even more convincing but I wasn't fooled personally.
Nice revisionist history there. Those of us who were actually alive and not sucking on our mama's teet at the time remember it being one of the first times in history that two HWs were at or near the top of the P4P list, undefeated, champions, and facing off in an interesting contrast of styles and personalities. Nevermind that Spinks had just beaten Holmes twice and kicked the holy hell out of Gerry ****ey (a huge guy with a monster punch). The idea that Spinks was so terrified is laughable. He didnt look or act any different against Tyson than he did against anyone else. Lets also not forget that nobody came close to doing to Spinks what Tyson did. He was just that damn good at that point. Fixed... :rofl Yeah, just like Louis-Schmeling 2 and innumerable other one sided blitzes in HW history.
I don't think so. I think he was scared and took quite a few minutes for him to look at Tyson. He was caught on the ropes by a perfect left uppercut and never recovered. It was Tyson's best night ever, the peak of his prime.
I've gotta agree with this. He was just caught early hard. That young focused Tyson would have give any previous heavy a nightmare and that includes Ali at any point in his career.
Yes the only fear being they might not perform well or be shown up. Michael Spinks was a great fighter.
If that fight fixed no one told Tyson, and Spinks did not understand the concept, he took some hellacious punches.
^This is basically it. 91 seconds. Tyson-Spinks, the biggest heavyweight bout of the 80's, followed by Holmes-Coooney.
I remember a quote from Spinks when asked if he was scared for that fight, he said he wasn't but when he looked over at Tyson he wondered what he was doing there as Mike looked like a tree trunk or something like that. In other words it sounded like he knew he was in trouble, but I'd agree he wasn't scared, just he knew he was over matched. He went out there and traded with Tyson even when he got whacked, which turned out to be his undoing. As Merchant said, he did what warriors do, fought back but in this case paid for it. When you take yourself back there it was a great moment in boxing, you felt this Tyson guy was something special and it brought excitement. Shame how it turned out, but Mike's always got that time to reflect on when he was untouchable, more than you can say for most boxers.