Third best heavyweight of the 1980s.

Off the top of my head, with no thorough analysis, my gut feeling is that the answer is Tim Witherspoon.

 

Tim Witherspoon gets my vote.These guys had so much potential.The 1980s was a terrible waste
of waste of talent among the heavyweights.

 

Another vote for Witherspoon.

Beat Snipes coming up and then nearly beat Holmes.

Rebounded with 1 round destruction of Tillis and points win over Page for the title.

Lost to the talented Pinklon Thomas and then dominated Bonecrusher Smith, destroyed James Broad in 2 before beating undefeated Tony Tubbs for his 2nd World crown.

Travelled to London to knockout future champ, Bruno in 11 gruelling rounds.

Then the 1 round humiliating loss to Bonecrusher.

Still he cameback with a win over undefeated prospect Mike Williams, 1 round ko of dangerous Mark Willis (coming off 2 kos of Greg Page) and stunning one punch ko in the 1st of former EBU champ Anders Eklund.

A strong argument could be made that Pinklon, Tubbs and Dokes were more talented fighters but there peaks were too short and though they still scored some good wins or had good performances (Dokes vs Holyfield or Pinklon vs Tyson springs to mind) they not consistant enough against top flight opposition as Witherspoon.

 

Morning matey.
I'd say Spoon as well but it's a tough one.
Pinklon Thomas,Dokes, even weaver were all good at one time or another back then.

 

Witherspoon, I'd have Tucker at 4 but close competitor to Witherspoon, the thing is Tucker didn't have as much an elite resume than Witherspoon

 

I'd go with the general opinion on Witherspoon aswell.

He pushed a still very good Holmes to the brink losing a very close decision.

Wins over....

Bruno
Page
Tubbs
Bonecrusher
Tillis
Snipes
M.Williams

2 time world champion in the 80s with 3 world title wins.

I think Witherspoon has the most consistent record overall in the 80s apart from the obvious Holmes & Tyson.

I believe Witherspoon went 30-3 for the decade aswell.

 

Gotta go with Spoon as well. He had the best tool set besides Holmes. It was his discipline and desire that were the problem. A dedicated Spoon is a big problem for anyone.

 

What about Holyfield? He only had a few fights, but all of them were high-level.

 

Spinks or Witherspoon. I think Cooney was also pretty good

 

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I feel like the 1980s was the decade where we saw a shift begin in which so many of the guys that would have been great American heavyweights pop up instead as a power forward in the NBA or as a linebacker or a defensive end in the NFL.

Consider for a second if a guy like Dwayne Wade or a LeBron James, for example, was exposed to boxing every Saturday when he was growing up instead of NFL games or NBA games.

We had a model in the 1960s and 70s which maximized the amount of boxing that was regularly available to these kids that would eventually grow into NBA superstars or NFL stars.

In the 1980s, instead, we saw a shift to the Pay Per View model which restricted the amount og boxing readily available to these kids…while at the same time maximizing the exposure of basketball and football. So instead of young American kids aspiring to be a Muhammad Ali or a Joe Frazier like they had in the past. They instead aspired to be a Walter Payton, a Lawrence Taylor, a Scottie Pippen, Julius Peppers, an Amare Stoudamire, a Dwight Howard, a Ray Lewis, a JJ Watt, an Aaron Donald, a Myles Garrett.

 

Holyfield move up in 1988, so it's obviously him, unless he arguably could rate higher on ability

Legacy wise it's Witherspoon and Camp Tyson swerved that shows he was obviously a real danger