Michael Spinks vs Muhammad Ali

Cooney vs M.Spinks

• Spinks was stripped of the IBF heavyweight title in February of 1987 for refusing to fight Tony Tucker, the #1 IBF contender. Don King won the right to promote a Spinks-Tucker title fight with a purse bid of $711,000. In the case of a purse bid, the purse is divided 75 percent to 25 percent in favor of the champion. That would mean $533,250 for Spinks. Instead of fighting Tucker, Spinks fought Cooney for a guaranteed purse of $4 million. Cooney was guaranteed #2.5 million.
• Spinks was still the lineal
  This content is protected
  and his bout with Cooney was recognized as a world title fight by 18 states and The Ring Magazine.
• Cooney had been out of the ring for 13 months and had fought just three times since losing to Larry Holmes in June of 1982.
• Spinks was an 8 to 5 underdog.
• Cooney was down twice in round five.

 

Wow! I was thinking the same thing ,,,Patterson!