Earnie Shavers from the Muhammad Ali fight vs Leon Spinks 1978.

Shavers has been both beaten and stopped my much more miserable fighters than Spinks. On the other hand, Coetzee proved that Spinks could be stopped early if caught in his tendency to start fast. If Leon starts fast and Shavers doesn't, I have Leon stopping Shavers in 1-5 rounds of a barnstormer. If both start fast, it just all depends on who lands the big one first. Leon was a much busier puncher and more accurate, but if Shavers timed Leon and concentrated on landing the big KO punch, it might be "Good night, Spinks!" 60/40 in Leon's favor.

 

My pick would also be Leon. He was brilliant in the first Ali fight.

 

Shavers would have knocked Leon cross-eyed and toothless.

Oh, wait....

 

what?

 

I could honestly see it going either way. I could see Shavers catching Leon but I could also see Leon running over him like Quarry did. Shavers and Spinks were both so inconsistent for different reasons.

 

Yes, actually. Whoever loses goes down a couple times. Leon might get knocked down and get up to floor Shavers and stop him. That's fairly probable since Shavers floored nearly everyone who beat him.

 

Right. Ali was too tough to go down, and Quarry got to Shavers before he could have been floored. But Shavers has floored at least four men who beat him.

 

I really don't see Leon having the punch to tko Shavers. He wasn't a Quarry or Lyle, punching wise. He was also prone to coming in really wild, the perfect set up for Shavers. And if Leon got stopped by Coetzee...I mean, Coetzee could be seen as a better finisher than Shavers, but he was not in the same league in terms of punching power imo (though Gerrie had a very good punch).

 

LOL!

 

Nah, half the time I'm just goin' along with the joke Richard. Everybody loves a good fight with knockdowns all over the place, cuz there uncommon. But there are plenty of damn good fights without anything close to a knockdown in them.