Michael Spinks v James Toney

Yup. This bascially sums it up perfectly.

Spinks is ARGUABLY the best ever at 175. Toney isn't even the best ever at 168.

To suggest Toney wins is an insult to Spinks, and something you'd expect to here on the general forum.

Spinks would have him in a defensive shell all night long.

Forget Spinks, Toney would lose to Qawi, and Mustafa Muhammed as well.

 

You'll notice I picked Spinks to win.. But I don't necessarily think he'd look pretty in doing it.

 

I can see the validity in pointing out his showings against Griffin and Tiberi. But the other three guys you mentioned were p4p top 10 when he fought them, and he beat two out of the three. I would also pick Spinks to beat Toney. But I'm not sure that the above statement is the argument I'd use for making that pick.

 

This is very true, and I'm a fan of both fighters as well.

Spinks was a better fighter, AND a tough style matchup for Toney.

Toney is one of the toughest fighters to ever lace them up as far as I'm concerned, he isn't getting stopped. But he'll have absolute hell with Spinks's jab, which is one of the all-time great jabs. And Spinks was good at using movement and adding some variety to his jab. Throwing it several times, following with a left hook or right hand after the jab, jabbing and moving.

It would very much disrupt Toney's rhythm.

 

Even going behind the fact that Spinks was just a plain better fighter than JT, stylewise he's a NIGHTMARE for Toney. In fact, I can't think of a worse style matchup for Toney, than Spinks.

JT was about 4 inches shorter than Spinks, far less reach, and was a natural counterpuncher.

If you think about, there's virtually NO advantage Toney has over Spinks. Not power, not speed, no skills, not stamina, not brains, really, nothing.

Spinks was a better fighter in every way, and would win by a wide margin.

Spinks power would put Toney in a Hell. Spinks power put Qawi in a shell, and Qawi was a BEAST who did nothing BUT pressure.

 

Perhaps..

 

Yes, but Nunn was a middleweight, Roy Jones Jr was coming up from middleweight to 168, McCallum was a middleweight (in fact Mike was still a junior middle when he was 30). Spinks was AS GOOD or better than them, but was BIGGER.
Spinks beat guys at 175lbs who'd certainly beat Nunn and McCallum, and Toney too.

Basically, I'm saying Toney would have to beat those guys far more convincingly at middleweight or super-middle to have a chance against a bigger fighter of same or better quality.
I could have just listed his actual achievements/performances at 175 and 190 but I felt like being generous to him.

 

I agree Spinks would win. But I guess I just wanted to point out that he was regularly mingling with super star level opponents and generally coming up with pretty good results.

 

Exactly.
It's not a fair match-up.

 

I think Michael Spinks handles James in a rough battle but clear UD win for MS ...talent size and skills edge to MS but Toney never easy