Classic Forum Chat: Size isn't the only factor.

I was referring to Spinks avoiding real contenders, post-Holmes.

Betting underdogs win boxing matches all the time.

Betting odds do not a contender make. In the case of Spinks/Cooney, they just meant there were more people prepared to lose money on Cooney and less people with faith in Spinks. (And, it's not like Cooney was hugely favored, either.)

Many Heavyweights, of all shapes and sizes, ran into Tyson. A lot of them fared much better than Spinks - Tony Tucker, for one.

 

Perhaps, but his career is still good enough for him to be in the top 20.
H2H, he's top 10 with ease for me, he even challenges for top 5.

 

I picked him to win based on power more than size and bc Usyk looked average since Gassiev. It wasn’t a major upset.

 

The odds reflected [for once], how close this fight actually was.Several pundits were picking Usyk, Teddy Atlas being one of them

 

Well - when you refer to Spinks as having "just ran into Tyson", it seems to imply that Tyson's presence was just an unfortunate happenstance for Spinks. By the same token you want to overlook the manner of his loss.

Would Spinks have ever had a chance of getting past the first round against Tyson?

Could Tyson have beaten Dougals on another night?
Did Lewis beat McCall on another night?
Might've Wlad turned the tables on Sanders on another night?

More importantly, did Spinks have anything like the body of work at Heavyweight of Tyson, Lewis or Wlad to offset a rare loss?

When you want to pass Spinks off as a genuine Heavyweight talent, which it seems you do, and do so on the strength of his one clear win against Holmes (Spinks didn't deserve the nod, in the rematch), being the underdog against a spent Cooney and his loss to Tyson being routine for any heavyweight of the times, these questions matter.

 

I seem to recall, not all that long ago, you doing just that, as well as rating Tyson's first-round KO of Spinks as something special.

 

And what I've been saying is that's nobody here really makes that argument. It's a bit of a strawman.

The real argument is and always has been over whether size would make a difference, given the specific attributes of the two fighters (skills, speed, defensive abilities, durability, chin, whether the bigger fighter uses his size well, etc.). This varies from matchup to matchup.