It's a myth that Spinks was scared

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I don't see it. Spinks tried to fight back. After he got up from the first knockdown, he tried to throw a lead right hand, but Tyson started to slip the punch. Because of his experience, Spinks knew if he missed the punch, he'd be countered with a left hook. So he abandoned throwing the punch and preemptively ducked. You see the left hook go over his head, but Tyson immediately followed it with a right uppercut that Spinks never saw coming.

Any light heavyweight moving north would have fell to that version of Tyson. A 1988 Mike Tyson was probably the ATG destroyer of light heavyweights moving to heavyweight and that's all there was to it.

 

Spinks was really tight. If he wasn't afraid, he was thinking very hard about something and it was probably Mike Tyson. After the knockdown Spinks threw the right hand and got countered with a right hand; Spinks was trying to put the right hand out there and get his head way over to the left and he got caught. Spinks didn't throw one punch in that fight that had anything on it, he just pushed them out there.

 

One of the teachings of Cus D’Amato is that every good and reasonable fighter is afraid … it’s what you do about it. His fighters, Tyson included, acknowledged their fear and were taught how to try to cope with it.

Other trainers don’t acknowledge it or talk about it as much, which is fine — the psychoanalysis can work for some guys and not for others — but Cus also taught that fear is like fire. Properly controlled it can work for you — fire can cook your food and keep you warm at night. Uncontrolled, fire can burn down your house and kill you.

Likewise, fear is what keeps you from stepping in front of a moving bus. But it can also paralyze you. Or make you act rashly and attack with abandon and run into punches out of carelessness.

I think Michael became paralyzed by his fear. Maybe he was afraid going into the ring or maybe he wasn’t (or at least wasn’t beyond normal for any fighter), but there’s a point in that round where Mike misses a punch when Michael is on the ropes — I think it’s a hook but it could have been a right — that kind of whizzes over his head or right in front of his face, and I swear Spinks’ eyes rolled up in his head a little. I think it’s right before he took a knee from a body shot, which I think was a reset to try to cope with the game moving WAY too fast for him.

The one thing that I consider absolute fact is that by this point he had no knees — against an older Holmes it mattered little, but against a fast-advancing Tyson coming out of the gates like he’s been shot out of a cannon it was a major factor.

(This doesn’t mean D’Amato fighters were never overcome by their fears, only that he tried to master a mind-over-matter way of controlling their fears.)

 

I think Mike Spinks did basically admit to being overwhelmed by fear.

The prospect of fighting Tyson made Spinks question the risk of it all and conclude that it wasn’t worth risking serious injury or death in the ring.

I don’t judge him for it but it did appear that fear took over and paralysed him somewhat.

By the same token, and it might seem a bit
paradoxical, but I don’t think that Spinks would’ve lasted that much longer than he did at any rate.

 

Bingo. If he came in with all the confidence in the world, is that Spinks really doing much against Mike Tyson at his best?

 

I don't think he could've done anything to win, I think at some level he knew that and got caught early in a fight where he likely would've tried spoiling to the finish line. Tyson was unlike any HW ever and that was his "effect" on guys, I don't think any pro is "scared" I think he was "tight" as you say because he had no plan he didn't figure out what Holmes and Douglas did and neither did any of the other guys he "scared" they just didn't have an answer.

 

D'mato talked about having a fighter with no fear the jist of it he said the fighter got his head bashed in, in sparring that he was careless and didn't have the nature to be evasive.

 

Fear or not, he got into that ring with Mike Tyson., Thats much more than any of us can say!

 

He was an absolute picture of confidence, calm, looseness, manic determination and dependability. Those who bet on Spinks would have been ecstatic.

 

I'd get in that ring too for $25 million, I'd pull a Bruce Seldon and go down whether Tyson's first punch connected or missed!

 

Thats kind of true too but still.

 

I think he was ok until Tyson was in the ring. Honestly think he knew he didnt belong in there once Tyson was snorting fire in front of him.

 

Wouldn't have mattered if Spinks was fearful in there,it was still going to end that way.

 

"fear was knocking at my door big time." - Michael Spinks

 

Don’t think Spinks was scared but once the fight started he was shocked by how fast Tyson was. Up to then every heavyweight that Spinks fought since moving up was slower than him both in hand a foot speed but right from the start whatever plan futch came up for the fight went out the window . Not only was Tyson beating him to the punch but that he was also easily evading any punch that Spinks was hoping to catch him with as he was coming in. You just knew within less than a minute that it was only a matter of time