The revolving door that was the 1980s heavyweight scene gave us a couple of dominant ATGs in Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson and a lot of other ‘lost generation’ guys who mostly played hot-potato with the belts. I sometimes forget who fought who, and who beat who, out of this bunch. So I figured I’d tally it up to see what it looks like. Maybe it helps us make some sense out of that decade … or maybe it just leaves us scratching our heads. I don’t remember ever seeing such a compilation so I figured I’d try to put one together. If I missed some fight or got something wrong (I’ll be surprised if I didn’t as I’m a bit sleep-deprived while doing it), please let me know and I’ll update. I’m not using it to draw any conclusions — there’s no ‘point’ to this thread, but maybe the data will give us some things to kick around. And I didn’t try to parse any ‘well that one shouldn’t count’ standards. If they fought, I listed it. Obviously that doesn’t mean everyone fought in their primes, nor that there weren’t circumstances behind any two not fighting each other. So here it is: Larry Holmes (6-3) Mike Weaver W TKO 12, W TKO 6 Trevor Berbick W UD 15 Tim Witherspoon W SD 12 James Smith W TKO 12, W TKO 8 Michael Spinks L UD 15, L SD 15 Mike Tyson L TKO 4 Mike Tyson (7-0) Trevor Berbick TKO 2 James Smith W UD 12 Pinklon Thomas W TKO 6 Tony Tucker W UD 12 Tony Tubbs W TKO 2 Larry Holmes W TKO 4 Michael Spinks W KO 1 John Tate (1-2) Gerrie Coetzee W UD 15 Mike Weaver L KO 15 Trevor Berbick L KO 9 Mike Weaver (2-6-1) Larry Holmes L TKO 12, L TKO 6 John Tate W KO 15 Gerrie Coetzee W TKO 13 Michael Dokes L TKO 1, D MD 15 Pinklon Thomas L KO 8 James Smith L TKO 1, L UD 12 Michael Dokes (1-1-1) Mike Weaver W TKO 1, D MD 15 Gerrie Coetzee L KO 10 Gerrie Coetzee (1-3-1) John Tate L UD 15 Mike Wever L TKO 13 Michael Dokes W KO 10 Greg Page L KO 8 Pinklon Thomas D MD 10 Tim Witherspoon (3-4) Larry Holmes L SD 12 Greg Page W MD 12, L TKO 7 Pinklon Thomas L MD 12 James Smith W UD 12, L KO 1 Tony Tubbs W MD 15 Pinklon Thomas (2-2-1) Gerrie Coetzee D MD 10 Tim Witherspoon W MD 12 Mike Weaver W KO 8 Trevor Berbick L UD 12 Mike Tyson L TKO 6 Greg Page (3-4) Trevor Berbick L UD 10 Tim Witherspoon L MD 12, W TKO 7 Gerrie Coetzee W KO 8 Francesco Damiani L UD 10 Tony Tubbs L UD 15 James Smith W UD 10 Tony Tubbs (2-2) James Smith W UD 10 Greg Page W UD 15 Tim Witherspoon L MD 15 Mike Tyson L TKO 2 Michael Spinks (2-1) Larry Holmes W UD 15, W SD 15 Mike Tyson L KO 1 Trevor Berbick (3-2) John Tate W KO 9 Larry Holmes L UD 15 Greg Page W UD 10 Pinklon Thomas W UD 12 Mike Tyson L TKO 2 James Smith (3-6) Larry Holmes L TKO 12, L TKO 8 Tony Tubbs L UD 10 Tim Witherspoon L UD 12, W KO 1 Mike Weaver W TKO 1, W UD 12 Mike Tyson L UD 12 Greg Page L UD 10 Tony Tucker (0-1) Mike Tyson L UD 12 Francesco Damiani (1-0) Greg Page W UD 10 Of note, John Tate was only a champion in the 1980s for three months at the start of the decade before losing to Mike Weaver, and Francesco Damiani held the WBO belt (which at the time was not recognized, but I threw him in here anyway) for less than eight months at the end of the decade.
iron mike 7-0 from end of 86 - mid 1988 - IMPRESSIVE Holmes 4-3 from 1981-1988 - shows he avoided some. Second wins over Weaver and Bonecrusher meaningless = All were old
In my opinion the worst decade of heavyweight boxing since the early 30s, and, ironically, maybe had as much talent as the 70s or 90s. But they were mostly just a bunch of fat, lazy, drug-addicted guys who could not be bothered to take their careers seriously. Even when they fought, the fights were often stinkers. In a weird way, the bust of the 80s paved way for the 90s, because there was a massive host of former champs for good, young guys with better work ethics to cut their teeth on.
Couple of things that stood out to me: Tony Tucker basically wasn’t part of the decade. He managed to not mix with any of the champs save Tyson … either on the way up, while he was on or near the top, nor on the way down. Dokes likewise had little interaction. And two of his three fights vs. fellow 1980s champs (both vs. Weaver) were tainted — early stoppage and arguably a gift draw. He doesn’t have a single clean win over his belt-holding contemporaries.
Don’t really have the bandwidth or energy to look it all up, but many of these guys fought each other in the amateurs — often multiple times. (And that’s just fights recorded by boxrec, which for amateurs mostly has national tournaments and international bouts, so there’s likely more crossover head-to-heads among this bunch). Dokes, for instance, went 2-1 vs. Tate, 2-0 vs. Berbick, 1-0 vs. Page and 0-1 vs. Tubbs. Tubbs went 1-0 vs. Dokes, 0-1 vs. Tate and 0-3 vs. Page. Pretty sure Pinklon, Witherspoon and Smith had very limited amateur careers. Spinks was a middleweight amateur so he’d have missed these guys. Tucker, in keeping with his pro career where he seemed to skip the decade’s top guys, fought none of the future 1980s future heavyweight world champs.
Yes I've always said that about Tucker that's why I don't rate him that highly he missed out on the notable 80s Heavyweights like Page, Witherspoon, Thomas, etc. To be fair wasn't Tucker supposed to fight Spinks ? And Spinks didn't fancy it ?
