Does Michael Spinks get sold short cause of Tyson caning him

Alot of guys get sold short because of the way they lost to Tyson.

 

Probably as Mike is an undisputed top 5 atg lightheavy.

 

If you look closely at his career at lh, he really did not go through those tough hombres from the late 70's. They all went downhill quick and relatively close to each other. Lots of Diamond Jim McDonald type defenses.

Butch Lewis did a masterful job in opponent selection & especially so at heavyweight. Lots of grade B fighters and guys on the other side of the mountain. Tyson was the first guy in a long long time he faced that was A grade and coming off impressive performances. And all of a sudden it was a role reversal and Spinks was the old guy facing youth.

 

he is ATG LHW forsure, no matter how hard he fell to ATG HW tyson.

 

I think that's a little harsh Zak. He took on a top 5 fighter in Yaqui Lopez in his 14th pro fight. Two fights later he took on a top 5 contender in Marvin Johnson. He then won the title off Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. Wasajja was a top 10 fighter when they fought as was Sutherland as was Celestine. He then unified vs Braxton. He then fought top 10'er Oscar Rivadeneyra. Then came a top 5 fighter in Eddie Davis. David Sears was also a top 10'er.

We are on a run of 10 top 10 fighters fought in 13 fights. Johnny Davis may have even snuck into the top 10 when they fought as well. That is one hell of an effort. Even Jim McDonald ended up top 10 post Spinks.

The 70's guys were no longer valid and Braxton ruined the planned unification with Saad. Rematches with EMM and Qawi also fell thru at the last minute in no way due to Spinks.

Realistically he cleaned out the 175 ranks. There are no glaring omissions at all for me.

He then rolled the dice and went up against Larry Holmes as a huge underdog. I would agree Cooney and Tangstad were carefully picked.

 

Ranked top 10, but at the lower echelon. And most figured Johnson's best days were long over. And a style that suited Spinks anyway---I sure didn't know anyone backing old pops. Sears/Celestine/Mcdonald and so forth would have been easy fights for just about anyone. Look what Hill did after Spinks left the division & the run he had---the division got a whole lot easier to negotiate after those 70's names were gone. And Michael was not getting a lot of ko2 results against those guys. He should have dominated them and he should have got them out earlier. his skills were way beyond that competition.

That was a huge problem going into the Tyson fight, to me anyway. A diet of softies for years and the boring fight against Qawi. It was going to be a whole different ballgame against the youth and tenacity of Tyson. I sure didn't think he was up to the mark & would have to go back in time 6 or 7 years just to hang in there.

Spinks was 4-1 against Larry. Certainly more backers than previous opponents like Williams and Bey.

But that's the whole idea of a boxing forum anyway. It'd be boring if everyone agreed on the same things, wouldn't it?

 

Yeah, he absolutely gets overlooked. I don't know that a great fighter's reputation has so quickly evaporated in the space of one fight. Actually, I do - Duran's after No Mas. But Duran got it back by resurrecting his career twice. But the final image of Spinks' career is him on his back after 90 seconds against Tyson. It's incredibly harsh when you compare it with what had come before, but that's boxing.

 

For sure mate, and i respect your opinion but am throwing up some food for thought. I'll throw a bit more up.

Johnson may have been slowly waning but he actually won a belt 5 years after being defeated by Spinks. Whilst he didn't beat a top level opponent he could still beat good fighters and was relevant in the division.

Sears/Celestine/McDonald were sandwiched among top flight opponents. Holmes, Ali, Louis, they all had their fillers. In the big scheme of things Spinks didn't have much filler at all.

Michael wasn't one to dominate opponents and ko them early because he was lazy. He was a notoriously slow starter and it was an inside joke that he used to laze around until getting hit hard a bit, which would wake him and then he'd up the ante to a ko finish. The thing is that he was winning.

Spinks boring fight vs Qawi was exactly what the doctor ordered, the doctor being Eddie Futch. Futch devised an extremely detailed gameplan which Spinks carried out to utter perfection. Qawi felt Spinks immense power early and was unwilling to take too many risks thereafter. If Qawi went harder we would have seen a more exciting fight but Qawi may have been stopped too which is why it went the way it did.

Virgil Hill who i think may be a bit underrated would have done very very little in Spinks era. Guys like Spinks, Saad, Eddie Mustafa and Braxton/Qawi would have been a nightmare and a couple of others may have given him some curry as well. He didn't dominate an era anything like the one Spinks did.

Holmes was a 6-1 fave over Spinks i believe.

The huge problem going into the Tyson fight was that Tyson is 10 times the heavyweight Spinks ever was. He was at his peak and no-one imo would decimate ex light heavyweights as well as Tyson. Tyson cleaned out the division in no time and no ex 175 in history would have troubled him at all imo. No amount of activity or tough competition was going to make Spinks competitive. Tough competition may well have led to no Tyson - Spinks at all as Spinks was vulnerable at Heavy. He would be insane not to protect that insane money on offer.

Spinks wasn't much of a heavyweight. He snuck past a woeful version of Holmes and should have lost vs a more switched on but still struggling Holmes in the rematch. I don't rate the win over Cooney near as highly as a lot of others seem to.

We've hit upon the thread title. I don't hold the Tyson loss against Spinks much at all. Spinks achievements are all at 175 and then squeeking past a tired old Holmes, which was still a great effort for a light heavyweight. I can't hold not beating Tyson nor even being able to make him raise a sweat against Spinks much.

 

Yes he does a little bit. It's unfortunate that the last fight of his career he was blown out in 93 seconds. But if you look at the rest of his career from his Gold Medal win in the Olympics to his dominance of the light-heavyweight division, he's an ATG. Spinks mainly moved up to heavyweight because there was no one left for him at 175 to take on. The big money was at heavyweight and Larry Holmes was a bit past his prime. Spinks did think about moving down to cruiserweight after losing to Tyson, but decided not to because there was even less money there than at light-heavyweight.

 

Some very nice points.

 

QUOTE="zadfrak, post: 19008225, member: 26610"]If you look closely at his career at lh, he really did not go through those tough hombres from the late 70's. They all went downhill quick and relatively close to each other. Lots of Diamond Jim McDonald type defenses.

Butch Lewis did a masterful job in opponent selection & especially so at heavyweight. Lots of grade B fighters and guys on the other side of the mountain. Tyson was the first guy in a long long time he faced that was A grade and coming off impressive performances. And all of a sudden it was a role reversal and Spinks was the old guy facing youth.[/QUOTE]

It is true that his best wins before winning a 175 title were all against guys Saad Muhammad had already stopped more than once:

Marvin Johnson
Yaqui Lopez

It's also true he peaked when the division was weaker than it had been in the mid-late '70s.

And it's true most of his defenses were against mediocrities.

But, the title winning effort over Eddie Mustafa Muhammad was impressive (even though Eddie had jumped to HW briefly and may have been weakened losing weight, ala Roy Jones before barely edging Tarver) , as was the unification against Dwight Muhammad Qawi.

Bottom line: He never lost at 175 lbs and unified the title.

I am a huge Saad fan, and wish Spinks and Saad had fought in 1980-81, but I can't argue with Spinks being rated top 5 all time.

 

Yeah that's a fair comment. I for one, think he'd have done a lot better as a heavy in the era of cruiser sized heavies. Especially if he could beef up to 200+ pounds and retain his skill level more or less. I think he'd have done as well as say, Floyd Patterson.

And to be honest, you could at random pick an top 10 heavyweight contender between 1900-1970 and odds are, they wouldn't have any more luck against a 1988 Mike Tyson than did Michael Spinks. Even Spinks fellow light heavy champions that moved up to HW and had success, like Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, Floyd Patterson, Harold Johnson, Jimmy Bivins etc. They'd all likely fall like Spinks did vs a prime Tyson.

Now, that doesn't mean that they couldn't have beaten other heavies. Or that they wouldn't have done better against any other 200+ pound top heavies. Just that they wouldn't have any luck against a prime Tyson.

 

Intelligent, and great post, John. You nailed it as usual.

 

It is true that his best wins before winning a 175 title were all against guys Saad Muhammad had already stopped more than once:

Marvin Johnson
Yaqui Lopez

It's also true he peaked when the division was weaker than it had been in the mid-late '70s.

And it's true most of his defenses were against mediocrities.

But, the title winning effort over Eddie Mustafa Muhammad was impressive (even though Eddie had jumped to HW briefly and may have been weakened losing weight, ala Roy Jones before barely edging Tarver) , as was the unification against Dwight Muhammad Qawi.

Bottom line: He never lost at 175 lbs and unified the title.

I am a huge Saad fan, and wish Spinks and Saad had fought in 1980-81, but I can't argue with Spinks being rated top 5 all time.[/QUOTE]
Nice!!! A Saad Spinks matchup is mouthwatering.