If he had the right frame of mind, and if the cruiserweight dvision was around when he started, would have been one of the great ones.
The right frame of mind issue is significant. Leon was Leon's toughest opponent. Beating Ali may have been the worst thing for him, too much too soon for someone unequiped to deal with the attention.
I give him credit for one thing. When he got his title chance, he went after Ali with everything he had, unlike more talented challengers like Norton, Lyle, Shavers and Young, who all tended to fight too cautiously when they had their chance for the crown. He was the only man to dethrone Ali and take his title from him. Not counting Frazier in FOTC, of course, since Frazier was the champion at the time.
Epic over achiever. He was lucky to meet one of the most depleted heavy champs in history.He would have been a flop at any weight.
Not so fast. He won the battle but lost the war. He took his opportunity to win a world title after only a handful of fights, similar to Davey Moore a few years later. This most likely stunted his development as a fighter. The smart thing for his overall career would have been to turn down a fight with Ali. Still, after losing the rematch to Ali, he still could have gone back to the drawing board and fought some low profile developmental fights for a few years then perhaps tackle the new Cruiserweight title in 1980. He was still undamaged goods at this point, as he really didn't take many significant punches from Ali. But, he was too big a name to do that and got thrown in with the much bigger and powerful Gerry Coetzee. In 80-81 Spinks did regroup rather well and won a few heavyweight fights over decent competition such as Mercado and Evangelista. But, he got matched with a near prime Larry Holmes and actually gave Holmes a pretty good tussle but was overpowered by the much bigger man. Then, he finally dropped down to Crusierweight (he only had to shed a few pounds as he was a very small Heavyweight). By then, the damage of two brutal KO defeats and a noted amount of partying had diminished his skills. I think if he had 15-20 developmental fights to start his carrer, and gone after the new Cruiserweight title in 1980 he could have been a Cruiserweight champ and perhaps made a few defenses. He certainly would have been better than what he was as a damaged goods Cruiserweight in 1982-83. I think it is a superficial ****ysis to just say he would have flopped no matter what. He had power, heart and strength to be a very dangerous Cruiserweight.
Bad hangover, mate ? Anyone who saw him win Olympic gold knew he was something special. But he never had the size for heavyweight and as soon as money rolled in he forgot to duck and say "no".
Stupid comment. He was hardly a flop, Olympic gold and world champion....................really disrespectful. atschatschatschatschatsch
He was an olympic gold medalist and a world heavyweight champion with the fewest number of fights. That's enough to say that he had a legacy. The Ali that he fought was beyond diminished but having so few fights and go a combined 30 rounds with him was still a good learning experience. He beat other halfway decent opponents like Alfio Righetti, Bernardo Mercado and Alfredo Evangelista. He lost a lot of fights and some of them to less than stellar opponents. But overall he did enough to say that he made it..
