Mediocre Fighters Who Were Unstoppable One Night

Two years after the Ali win, Leon literally stopped the #1 contender Bernardo Mercado on the Holmes-Ali undercard.

So Leon not only won the World Heavyweight title beating the best heavyweight of the 1970s, he literally stopped one of the first #1 contenders of the 1980s. (Not a fringe contender. The #1 contender.)

Anyone who watches the first Leon Spinks-Muhammad Ali fight knows exactly what William is talking about. I watched it live and couldn't go to sleep that night.

That night, Leon Spinks was the best heavyweight in the world. Nobody else was. Nobody else had a claim to it.

And his performance was incredible. He only had SIX WINS ... and he went 15 hard rounds punching nearly non-stop the entire time. He brutally attacked Ali's body. Bloodied Ali's lip. At the post-fight press conference, Ali was beaten up. And even when Ali turned it on in the later rounds, assuming he'd get a stoppage, Leon kept punching with him. The 15th round won Round of the Year.

Nobody thought Leon could go 15. Heavyweights with six fights didn't go 15. Experienced heavyweights had problems with 15 rounders. Ali nearly stopped Shavers in the 15th round like four months earlier.

Like Buster Douglas in Tokyo, on that one night Leon was his absolute best and he would've tore up a lot of fighters who had gotten in the ring with him on that evening, because there weren't many who could've handled that pace over 15 rounds. Sadly, he was never even close to being that good ever again, not even when he stopped Mercado. (But there were flashes of it that night, too.)

But that was an amazing night and performance.

 

I think about that fight sometimes. It really gets overshadowed because it was buried on a PPV undercard. But that was a monster upset. The sport was SO HIGH on Junior Jones at that time. It was shocking.

And John Michael Johnson didn't turn out to be anything, really.

 

Mike Rossman looked like Superman the night he beat Galindez.

Unfortunately his fights with his father/manager and other stuff eroded that form almost overnight. He was slated for a rematch and they were at the arena and started introductions and Victor refused to come to the ring. Galindez should have lost his ranking status then and there, but instead they just force a second date for the rematch — Rossman broke his hand in that fight and wasn’t the same.

After that he was just aimless. A star in the making, he could have been right up there with the Matthew Saad Muhammad/Marvin Johnson/Eddie Mustafa Muhammad/James Scott/John Conteh/etc. crowd of the same era but it wasn’t to be.

 

I not sure you would describe him as mediocre although in some fights he certainly was but Honeyghan beating Curry springs to mind.

 

That's a good one. Looking back, it's shocking Rossman beat Galindez like he did.

 

They were treating him as a mini version of Tommy Hearns, a future HOF'er. I remember him on the cover of Ring. And he had already beat JMJ earlier in his career. This was the definition of a keep active/keep in front of people fight. And JMJ just threw beautiful short shots inside Jones' wider shots and put him on Bambi legs.

Johnson got stopped in the first round of his only defense, then racked up some wins against nobodies and got one more shot at a legit strap only to lose.

 

He had a fight as recently as 2-3 years ago.
Good guy. When I was thinking of relocating to San Antonio a few years ago he told me that I could stay with him until I found a place to live.
It was in 2019.

 

I'll offer a name from the past: James J. Braddock, the night he won the coveted Lineal Heavyweight Championship from Max Baer. June 13th, 1935. He was unstoppable that night!

 

No he wasnt. He barely won that fight against a clearly unmotivated Baer who did next to nothing and might have thrown the fight. There were several fighters at HW and LHW who would have beat the breaks off of him that night.

 

They might but Leon that night ... on Feb. 15, 1978, to the exclusion of any other night that's ever appeared on a calendar in the history of the world ... would've made it very difficult for anyone. Yes Ali was diminished, but Leon was pretty frickin' stout, and focused and pumped both physically and emotionally, on that one particular night in history. Then of course he pissed it all away ...

 

Get serious please ... Leon was flattened in under a round by Coetzee and never beat another real heavyweight contender ... I agree the Mercado win was fun but Mercado was pure alphabet soup ... he outlasted a shot Shavers but did have a decent win over a young Berbick although never managed to see it .. Leon Spinks was never the best heavyweight in the world ... he would have been flasnnened by Norton, Shavers , Coetzee and many others .. he simply met a terribly deteriorated Ali ..

 

Muhammad Ali was the world heavyweight champion. Bernardo Mercado was the #1 contender.

You can say "please" all you like. It's true.

Yes, Leon got flattened in one round by Coetzee. But this thread IS NOT about identifying the best fighter ever.

IT IS about "mediocre" fighters who were unstoppable for one night.

If you can find a boxer who ended up being more mediocre than Leon Spinks ... who, on his best night, beat arguably the best heavyweight ever ...delivered an amazing performance ... and became the World Heavyweight Champion himself (not a paper champ, the World Champ) ... name that person.

No one is stopping you.

 

Leon Spinks was the best heavyweight in the world the night he beat Muhammad Ali. There were no split titles. No one else had a claim.

And Earnie Shavers fought Ali four months earlier, and not only lost but barely survived getting stopped in the last round. If Ali was so deteriorated, Earnie couldn't do anything about it.

Nobody attacked Ali non-stop over 15 rounds like Leon did. It was a relentless, and highly effective, all-out assault. Leon deserves nothing but praise for that performance, especially given he had six measly wins going in.

How many wins did Shavers have before his fight with Ali - 54? And Earnie was terrified he wouldn't be able to go 15 rounds. Leon only had six wins, and he just went for it. Never stopped throwing.