Leon Spinks

Leon has tremendous athletic gifts genetically. He could run at a full out sprint and not be breathing hard afterwards. Good handspeed and punching power.

If he had taken care of business, he might have been the second coming of Joe Frazier. At his best, he was a swarmer with tremendous heart. He was perfectly capable of playing with the big boys, as he demonstrated in qualifying for his title shot with Holmes, by stopping the murderous punching and then hot contender Bernado Mercado in nine.

KO Magazine actually predicted that Leon would regain the title against Holmes, but he never recovered from the beating Larry gave him.

When I looked at his rematch with Ali, I was convinced that he could have won the rematch if he applied himself, the way Muhammad was misfiring.

Leon hated the training process which his brother stoically accepted as part of the job.

Now, was Leon the very worst undisputed heavyweight champion in terms of career achievement? Possibly. But he did have the potential to be far better than he was.

 

Nice job selling ol' Neon, Mercado was indeed a banger as Berbick found out, but Tate and Weaver had already shown Marcado's limitations at World Class. But I will concede the Berbick and Shavers wins meant Leon was very much the underdog going in, and put in arguably a career best performance... And no, I have not forgot the first Ali fight.

 

Thanks. Yeah, Mercado's limitations were substantial, but he was peaking, coming off a 12 round stoppage win against Prater, and had to be tremendously motivated at the prospect of challenging Holmes. Granted, Tom Prater was hardly a world beater, but Mercado's endurance was suspect at times, so coming off such a late round win meant he should have been as primed as possible for a title shot.

For my money however, the best instant of Leon's ring career was his knockout of Evangelista. Granted, Tomato wasn't much of a title challenger, but the combination Leon used to put him down for the count was as superb as any combination I've seen a heavyweight produce since Ali's heyday.