Eddie Mustafa Muhammed vs Glenn Johnson

As I always maintain..the Eddie Mustafa of the Marvin Johnson fight was an almost Jack Johnson-like reincarnation..when he was in shape, focused, he could look like a master vs these modern day guys...so what's another Johnson to him? He'd dominate and stop Glenn Johnson with the same dispatch he showed vs Marvin Johnson and Jerry Martin...a brutally focused, refined body attack as a diversion to bring Glenn's hands down and then a flash of power..Mustafa ko 9 Glenn Johnson.

 

Red Cobra, your opinions on his showing against Spinks? Was he troubled by the weight?

 

Yes..I don't think that Eddie was himself and it coulf have been troubles in making weight...that venture up to heavyweight fighting Snipes was sheer foolishness and coming back down to 175 was an ordeal for him...and though I know how graet a fighter Spinks was, I'm convinced that Mustafa, had he been all right would have beaten him. Mustafa was unfullfilled...a wasted talent...he showed what he was capable of when he whipped Johnson and Martin with such mastery..he had only himself to blame for not going on to bigger and better things...the championship version of Mustafa would have whipped Hopkins, Toney, and Jones IMO..

 

The early rounds of the Spinks fight where he was outboxinbg Michael was an indication of what he would have done throughout the fight had he been 100% IMO.

 

Spinks was out-boxed in the early goings in practically all of his fights.

 

And mostly by guys nowhere near the class of Mustafa.

 

As long as we agree that the early goings don't actually prove anything. I can't think of a slower starter than Michael Spinks.

 

Victor Galindez.

I seem to remember Spinks starting off fairly quickly against Qawi.

 

Yeah, probably one of the few exceptions.

Don't act dumb Sal, you know what I'm talking about and you know it's true. ****ing Yaqui Lopez won the early goings in there fight, as did Marvin Johnson, right before being sent to la-la land. Jim McDonald and David Sears, even those guys, were very successful early on.

Maybe Mustafa would have won had he been 100%, but the first four or five rounds of that fight don't indicate that, it just goes to show Michael tended to start very slowly.

 

True, he did.

 

Yes that's true.

 

Jeez. You take the Johnson who worked the jab very nicely against Jones, and who can still routinely throw 80 punches a round and pit him against the EMM who was sparing with his punch output, and I could see the Road Warrior stealing a close decision, in the same manner that he did against Tarver.

But since this match-up assumes the best of both men, I think that EMM of the Johnson fight wins in the manner very similar to Cloud..by landing cleaner and harder in a hard, hard fought fight and securing a close but clear decision as a result.