If Leon Spinks had been disciplined and well-managed...

He still would have had a glass jaw, so no.

 

i like the style of leon, he was aggressive, a fast starter, simply he did not have the best chin and he was a cruiser facing hws, and he did nit have great hitting power, but i really like his dinamic aggressive style, doe snot matter if he won or lost , he was nice to watch

 

Let's not forget that he absolutely blitzed a prime Bernardo Mercado circa 1980. Mercado was limited, but above the Evangelista/Ledoux/Righetti level. Leon's chin held up just fine and Mercado could lay the wood.

 

It was indeed the absolute very best prepared version of Mercado to ever set foot in the ring. People forget that Leon very legitimately earned his shot at Holmes.

Leon-Mercado needs to be looked at very carefully when assessing Leon's heavyweight potential. By far his biggest stoppage win as a HW.

Timmers is right. Without the parasites, other hangers on, and a first rate training camp for the rematch, Leon could have decisioned a well prepared Ali a second straight time. No amount of training and conditioning would have been able to undo the neurologically inflicted motor coordination damage Shavers had inflicted on Muhammad.

Could a disciplined, focused and well trained Leon have defeated Norton however?

Don't forget people, that there was not yet a cruiserweight division when he upset Ali, and Mercado suggests he may not have needed one to be a viable contender for years, as Patterson was after Liston II.

Great? No. Holmes utterly dismantled the best version of Leon we ever saw.

As a CW? Again, this always would have been a step down for Leon after winning the big prize. Even in 1985, that division was so insignificant that brother Michael leapfrogged it completely to challenge Holmes.

 

Anubis, I was very surprised that Spinks held up against Mercado and seemingly was not the least phased by his strength or punching power. I would've bet big on Mercado. I remember Spinks looking like he had a fun time in the ring that night and thought he had a fair shot against Holmes as a result.

 

I too thought Mercado would kill him, and wonder how Leon would have done if he'd fought smartly against Coetzee instead of publicly broadcasting in interviews that he would attempt a quick knockout over Gerrie.

KO Magazine also predicted an upset SD win for Leon over Larry.

He really had his head in the game for Holmes. When the bell prematurely rang to end round two, Larry relaxed and dropped his hands. Leon, knowing that this ringing was an error and that the round remained in progress, seized upon the opportunity to steal the round, one of the very few times Holmes lost an early round during the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, this incensed Larry, who promptly marched out for round three and crushed Leon.

At times, I thought Leon could have evolved into a two fisted, two eyed Frazier with his best freaky deaky hustle, natural hand speed and a well cultivated and dedicated bob and weave. But Joe originally entered a boxing gym to lose weight, and had to train like the dickens to shed over 45 pounds of body fat. [He competed in Tokyo at 196, and originally aspired to stay under 200 pounds as a professional.] Frazier was short, but naturally far heavier than Leon as a young man, and with much better skills.

Stopping the lethal Sixto Soria in Montreal was one thing. Defeating Stevenson in Montreal would have required an entirely different level of quality.

Leon did not impress against LeDoux or Righetti leading up to Ali I. Nor did he later impress against Eddie Lopez [who would have beaten him if not for a flagrantly deliberate retaliatory head butt attempt after a truly accidental clash from Leon], or Jesse Burnett [who clearly won and was flagrantly robbed of the decision, but at least did get rewarded for his performance with a WBC CW shot at S.T. Gordon]. Evangelista nearly stopped him in round two before Leon rallied to take him out.

Zak has a good point. While first rate conditioning can certainly enhance punch resistance and resilience in many cases, there was still a ceiling on how well Leon could take a punch.

Could he have become an ATG at 195? Jesse Burnett was aging at 37 while Leon was still 29. Leon also outweighed Burnett by over 16 pounds. Nobody I knew who watched that one thought Leon even came close to winning. Leon was still 29 when he went from the spurious decision over Burnett to a sixth round stoppage loss against DeLeon. He was a terrific natural athlete with good hand speed and decent power, but the skills just were never there. He could fight smartly when following directions, as when Sam Solomon instructed him to hammer Ali's biceps and split his gloves with uppercuts to counteract the rope-a-dope [a huge reason why Muhammad conditioned himself to keep their rematch in mid ring], but the punch resistance against Mercado was the exception, not the rule.

No, I don't think he ever could have been an ATG in a CW division with a weight limit of 190 or 195, if that classification had been in place when he turned professional. I think this would have been a division that guys like Galindez and Yaqui Lopez might have moved up to during the late 1970s. How would Leon have done against those veteran warriors? There's almost nothing to suggest Leon might have won a world title at CW during the late 1970s when looking at Burnett and DeLeon. [I don't count Qawi against him, as he was aging and weight drained at 190 by then. Burnett and DeLeon are critical though in assessing his CW potential.] Ocasio was the first CW Champion of consequence, and I think he would have outboxed Leon pretty handily at that weight.

 

Very Strong Words.

 

if leon spinks had been disciplined he wouldn't be leon spinks, maybe he'd be a lawyer or summat.

 

Leon was really a cruiser although right on the edge ... if he trained for condition and improved to the height of his abilities he could have been a champ of sorts in the alphabet era or a top contender ... he had a lot of speed, decent power and terrific stamina ... his chin was solid enough at 195 .. he simply was too small for heavyweight with his poor training and lack of discipline ..

 

...If the Queen had balls she'd be the king

 

Basically

:good