How bad was the version of Spinks V Tyson?

He was more or less done...He actually looked pretty bad against Cooney IMO but Gerry just looked a hell of lot worse and the gulf in skill was always significant..even in regards to a better version of Cooney.

The knee was shot to ****.

He came in heavy, was intimidated and just happen to be in with a monster H2H heavyweight in his prime.

Ballsy move Spinks...mad respect for him actually taking a fight like that.

 

Not taking anything away from Tyson, but ........ "bad" doesn't even start to describe how awful Spinks was

 

Not just how 'bad' he was but he was clearly **** scared of Tyson. Coupled with the fact he was in there with possibly THE H2H beast of the Heavys......no chance.

 

By 1987-1988, Michael Spink's interest in boxing had been reduced to just showing up for big paydays. He had tackled just about every mountain that there was to climb, leaving the one last task of facing Tyson - a match that asside from the vast financial gain, he didn't want.

In addition to being past his best as some have already mentioned, he was also a very poor fit for Tyson Stylistically. Even in the Stephen Tangstad bout, he was slow to get started and took his time feeling out his opposition, whereas Tyson was an extremely fast and aggressive starter early. I really don't see anyway that Michael could have won that fight, and frankly I don't think that he did either.

 

I have always had similar thoughts on this as well, though I shutter to think of Michael losing early to a man like Frank Bruno or Tony Tucker. But my suspician still stands that his ability to be competitve had diminished significantly, and for all we know, he may not have been well suited to compete as an elite heavyweight to begin with. I think part of his actual performance against Tyson may have had something to do with the intimidation factor, a problem that I don't see him having against most of the other top fighters of the late 80's. But in either case, his career as a fighter was over with... I think the mindset was their after the Holmes fights.








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I also think Spinks was never that much at heavyweight to begin with. Don't get me wrong, i consider him to be one of the best lightheavyweights ever, but he just had to compete with such big animals at HW... ones that Moore, Charles, Tunney, etc, didn't have to compete with. And we all know how much success Foster enjoyed there.


Although it is a tremendous accomplishment, i think it must be said that Holmes was vastly out of shape during the first Spinks fight, as well as aging, and should've won the rematch when he was in top condition.

No doubt Tyson was under much pressure and he did all you could ask of him, but i honestly believe the Holmes win to be more valuable for him, especially if you consider what he did later to an undefeated Mercer...

 

Agreed,

As much respect as I have for Spinks making the step up, I concur that his true ability to be competitive at that weight was always in question. The Holmes fights only told half the story while the Cooney and Tangstad bouts meant virtually nothing. I don't know how well Spinks would have done against say Tucker, Witherspoon, Tubbs,etc...

 

Spinks was n't at his best for that fight,yet Tyson was always going to be a bad match up for him. Even at his heavyweight best Spinks was n't going to be in there too long.

 

Probably Spinks didn't in his own mind believe he'd beat Tyson, so that's about as bad a version of a fighter you could find. That takes nothing away from Tyson though, just goes to show how good he'd shown himself to be.

As for Spinks as a heavyweight : The fact that Spinks beat Holmes pretty much made his credentials as a top heavyweight of '85 to '88. Apart from Tyson, the competition out there wasn't much.
It's not as if Tony Tucker was beating up a load of the other top heavyweights either. Not many of the 1980s heavyweight were actually fighting each other fight after fight, year in, year out.

And while Tangstad and Cooney might not have been much, Spinks did beat the crap out of both of them in a manner that any of the others (Witherspoon, Thomas, Tucker, Berbick etc.) would have be given much praise for. Let's face it, Larry Holmes himself faced a few men who were like Tangstad and failed a couple of times to do a job on them as impressive as Spinks did. And if Cooney in 1987 was less than half the fighter he'd been against Holmes, Spinks did okay by taking him out in less than half the time.

 

It wouldn't matter what Spinks turned up, Tyson would **** him.

 

Hell he barely got past an out of shape past it complacent Holmes, and was outfought in the rematch. Tyson is the ultimate killer of light heavies.

 

Spinks was a fairly solid 212 pounds. And almost 6'3 too.
Tyson destroyed several career-long heavyweights of about that size too.

 

Two hundred and twelve pounds was not an ideal weight for Michael Spinks though. In fact, he almost looked somewhat deconditioned against Tyson. Couple this with his low level of activity, lack of quality opposition, and lack of confidence, and you basically had a mismatch before the contract was even signed...

 

Physically he looked okay. He was certainly a genuine 200 pounder from '85/'86 onwards. And looked strong and genuinely built-up at 208 against Cooney and even against Tyson. Not to the extent Holyfield was later, but Spinks never had that muscularity even at 175.
Holyfield was a bulked up light-heavy who beat Tyson.
I think it's wrong to call it a mismatch because of size. Spinks was a decent size heavyweight,

Your points are all true though. I just think the "light-heavy" thing gets over-emphasized. Tyson was bulldozing genuine heavyweights and Spinks was one of them. Not a particularly big one, nor a particularly strong or powerful one, but a man who'd built himself into a decent heavyweight, and 6'3 fighter who had packed on good muscle weight.

I think it was a mismatch in hindsight more than anything.
I mean, apart from size, I thought Tony Tucker and Frank Bruno were disadvantaged in many of the same ways you mention and expected less of them going in than I expected of Spinks going in. And I wasn't the only one.