Michael Spinks Vs David Tua

Tua, despite what the official measurements say, was also around 5’8, similar to Qawi, also Qawi is much quicker and better technically than Tua allowing him to set punches up better and also close the distance and spring in quicker.

On top of that, Spinks would be more risk averse against Tua, he’s smart and would know to lower the volume.

He actually was letting his hands go and putting meat into the punches against Qawi and trying to do damage and you could tell that he wouldn’t have minded going for the stoppage at certain points.

It’s because he knew the threat from Qawi’s power and he’d realise the threat from Tua’s power and would box accordingly, he could afford to get hit against Qawi and he didn’t mind letting his hands go more, I know he was still boxing, but he wasn’t risk averse in that fight.

 

Spinks defuse 's the bomb .Spinks on points

 

This is incorrect. Byrd rose off the canvas twice to go the distance with Wladimir and that was when Wlad was a more aggressive puncher pre-Steward. A 36 year old Holmes who was never a big puncher and had lost most of his timing and accuracy by the Spinks fight had Michael noticeably hurt. What does all this have to do with anything ? Well just because Byrd went 12 and beat Tua doesn’t leave me with any indication that Michael could. As said earlier Byrd had demonstrable durability at heavy. Was in his prime at heavy. Was a fast handed south paw. Had knees that still worked for him. And beat a number of ranked fighters in that division and not just one who was past it.

 

Spinks was not nearly strong enough ... Tua by KO.

 

Yes, he got hit clean a few times against Klitschko, but not quite like how Spinks got hit against Tyson, that’s because Byrd was kind of in survival mode to an extent against Klitschko, (Yes Spinks was as well) but the difference is that Klitschko, while it was pre-Steward, was still nowhere near as risk taking as Mike Tyson, he didn’t mind staying on the outside and picking him off, whereas Tyson had to be aggressive against Spinks.

Him getting rocked against Holmes also isn’t much of a discredit to his chin, Holmes, while not in his prime, was still world class and he had a style that aged well, he wasn’t completely washed up, he had respectable power and set up the right hand well, and he absolutely also has the power to rock Chris Byrd if he hit him like that.

If it’s mainly the chin why you think Spinks wouldn’t be able to do what Byrd did, I see why you’d think that Spinks has a worse chin on the surface, but I think their chins are even, I think if Byrd took the punches that rocked or knocked out Spinks, that the same effect would take place on Byrd.

I do agree that the southpaw stance in itself can make a massive difference.

I think Spinks has a better defence than Byrd because it’s more useful, Byrd’s just looks better for highlights, Spinks wouldn’t put his head into positions where he has to be that slick, although Spinks could be slick when he needed to, he didn’t rely on that kind of stuff, he had a better management of distance and of knowing where he was in the ring and better decision making defensively than Byrd.

A more extreme example would be to say that Monzon had a better defence than Nunn (which could be wrong, but a case could be made for it) because he didn’t put his head in punching range where he had to be slick and he was always in a position where he could see punches coming, he may have got tagged more, but because of his awareness, he was mostly able to ride the punches and not take massive punches, Nunn may have gotten tagged less, but because he wasn’t always able to see the punches coming, he was vulnerable to taking a fight ending punch.

That’s just a more extreme example to explain what I’m trying to say, Spinks had a better defence than Monzon and Nunn and Byrd’s were similar both in quality and in how they defended, in a risky way where you didn’t take many punches, but were vulnerable to taking 1 big punch.

Spinks, Monzon, McCallum etc were always able to be in a position to see the punches coming and be smarter with the defence although a guy like Byrd’s may be better to watch, although, like I said, I do think Spinks could be slick when he needed to be, he had it in his locker.

 

Tua would orbit Spinks' mandible.

 

Spinks 12-0

 

Prime and undaunted Spinks wins the fight by unanimous decision, I think he would have gotten into Tua's head, he wasn't as intimidating as Tyson...

 

You would pick Tyson to stop Moore?

 

I think Tua wears him down and stops him after falling behind

People are forgetting that Michael Spinks didnt move well at heavyweight

I think he was wearing a knee brace in the Holmes fight

 

Yes and probably early, Moore was tricky defensively, but Tyson would close the ring off and give Moore nowhere to go, Moore can’t hold, Tyson would just shrug him off and he can’t pull away as he’d have nowhere to go and when he traps him, he’ll have no room to use his tricky defence, blocking then pulling away, giving the target and taking it away and making it difficult to time your movement, you need room to do these things, room Tyson wouldn’t give you, so you need to contend with Tyson physically at times, which is just something the light heavyweights can’t do, even the greatest of them.

I see this very similar fate for every light heavyweight against Tyson, they just don’t have the attributes to stand up to Tyson, which you needed to do at times, you need to match his strength at times as he’s too good at closing the ring off. You’ll have to contend with him physically as you can’t just stay away, and when he does trap you, he sets up devastating punches very well.

 

Exactly. While he still had some successes at 200 lbs he wasn’t Muhammad Ali. He was very hittable

 

I think Byrd only beat three Ring ranked fighters (Tua, Holyfield and Vitali) and one was via fluke injury and another influenced by a serious injury. Spinks had the better wins.

 

Not claiming Byrd was the better man between the two. Only that he beat Tua because of different attributes and circumstances that wouldn’t benefit Spinks .

 

If he could go about 35 rounds with Holmes for 30 of those and Cooney for the rest and leave with three wins and no knockdowns against him, I’m pretty sure he could stay away from Tua for 12.