Eddie lost 27 pounds in two months, and a few the day of the fight. He was neatly outboxing Spinks before the weight drama's and a terribly closed eye (may or may not have been the result of a legal blow) slowed him dramatically. Spinks tho often came on late, so with no drama's for Eddie it would have been interesting. His eye tho made it impossible to avoid blows the way he so brilliantly had been.
While i agree that Eddie would win if he's on top form, i do think Saad's technical skills are often underestimated. he was a very skilled boxer-puncher in his own right, but his problem was average defensive reflexes and tendency to get willingly drawn into wars. Gregory is never going to try and go to war so i expect this would be a pretty nice technical fight.
Hi Rock! I remember being so impressed with Eddie at that point then the knucklehead balloons to 200+ against Snipes??? He didn't make weight against Spinks until the final day and was more like a shriveled pear by then. Still, before the weight loss fatigue kicked in he was building a lead against Spinks and damn that closed eye. (thumb?) I've always hoped that I could meet Eddie some day. I would like to tell him that I've never seen a more complete fighter with all the tools. Boxer, upstairs puncher, downstairs puncher, defense, great set of whiskers (impossible to KO). Of course I'd lay off the negatives, I wouldn't want the big left hook crashing into my right ribcage. :yikes
Though I LOVE both of those guys, I cannot see it turning out any different than their original fight. Mustafa w by dec
So very true, folks forget that early in his career Matt really didn`t go to war as often as he did later on and preffered to box behind his long jab instead. On a sidenote I have the first four rounds of the Saad/Gregory fight and ironically it was Eddie who was the aggressor and Matt the counter-puncher in that one, and Matt dropped Eddie right onto the seat of his pants with a beauty of right hand. I wish I had the fight in full, the staredown between them was priceless as they stood literally nose to nose grinning at each other while exchanging all kinds of unpleasantries I`m sure, and then in the third round Eddie`s trunks started slipping off so in between rounds he had to put on another pair of trunks over the ones that were slipping. The crowd was very lively that night as well, must have been quite a night for those lucky enough to have been there to see it as by all accounts the decision was controversial as well, many felt that Saad should have the got the nod that night instead as he came on late after Eddie`s fast start tired him in the last two rounds.
At the time and under the assumption that both guys come in great shape I would favour Eddie he was amazing at his best.
I got the fight from the big dealer out of Minnesota (name escapes me now) and I only got 4 rounds. Is that the copy you've got? Remember Dunphy at the staredown? "Oh my!!!, Oh my!!!" Back to the Eddie-Spinks scrap for a moment. I remember reading in the paper the next day that the Associated Press had scored the fight a 146-146 draw.:think
Matthew would come on late after an early Eddie start, and floors him in the 14th round to seal up a close unanimous decision.