Micheal Spinks Resume Audit

Alpha_trooper818 · Jun 10, 2024

JohnThomas1 said: ↑

Mustafa's excuse probably holds some weight factually. We can see that when he fought Snipes he was 201 3/4 and about 8 weeks later he had to make 175 vs Spinks. That's a loss of more than 3 pounds a week over the full duration so i can understand some difficulty. Did he slack a bit? I have no idea i wasn't in his camp. It's plain to see however that Eddie controlled the first half of the fight before the weight drain set in and he visibly run out of gas. He also had an eye that shut rapidly from what was likely an elbow from memory. The flipside is Spinks was customarily a slow starter but Eddie did pay for that weight loss. The win cannot be taken away from Spinks tho because he won on the night and anything else is conjecture. Qawi's claim carries more conjecture and for me the win isn't tainted at all.

The rematch scenario was also somewhat interesting. Mustafa actually predicted Spinks, who usually came in a couple of pounds under would be bang on the limit and lo and behold he was right. Eddie weighed in at 177 1/2.

Rather than bang on about it myself i'll give you something from The Irish Times.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tipping-the-scales-of-boxing-justice-1.504997

All of which put us in mind of another weigh-in, almost a quarter of a century ago in Washington, DC. Although Eddie Mustafa Muhammad was the reigning light-heavyweight champion, the bout was being promoted by challenger Michael Spinks's man, Butch Lewis.

Mustafa was convinced that Lewis and the District of Colombia Boxing Commission, with whom the flamboyant promoter still had some juice in the spring of 1981, were plotting to lift his title by manipulating the scale.

On the afternoon of the weigh-in, Michael (Wolf Man) Katz and I visited Eddie Mustafa in his suite, where he predicted that the scales had been rigged in Spinks's favour. "You watch," Mustafa presciently forecast. "Spinks is always in the 172-173 range, but he'll be exactly 175. And I weighed myself at on a hospital scales last night, but I'll be overweight."

He was dead right. When Spinks, after being announced at 175, stepped off the scales, a handler was standing by with a bowl of stew and a bottle of juice mounted on a tray. Spinks was defiantly slurping away by the time Eddie stepped on the scale and weighed in two pounds over the limit.

Moments after that weigh-in, Bert Randolph Sugar, the boxing historian, plagiarist, and at the time, editor of The Ring magazine, dashed out to a nearby supermarket and bought a 20lb sack of - naturally - sugar, which he brought back and weighed on the same device. It weighed 22 lbs on the DC commission scale. Sugar then took the sugar down the street to the United States Bureau of Weights and Measures, which certified that it was within an ounce or two of its advertised weight.

At the end of the day tho i give Spinks absolute credit for both wins. What a great light heavyweight he was.
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Excellent Discussion fellas, I lift my glass of Cherry Coke to you. I kind of made this whole discussion because I personally just hate excuses, it taints the minds of those who dig deeper in the tale of the tape. Micheal is undoubtedly top 3 material at light heavyweight but those types of excuses make you wonder, keeps these interesting I suppose? I personally don't really take excuses all into account that much. This is mostly based on the Dempsey-Tunney Series and Lyle vs Shavers. Dempsey claimed that the reason he lost in his first fight with Tunney is because of food poisoning with olive oil, yet the rematch looked like a Carbon repeat of the first. In Lyle vs Shavers, Ernie claimed that the reason why Lyle beat the count was because a fan held up Lyle on the Ropes, yet in the official footage we have, no such thing happened. Shaver actually went as far and reporting these claims to the Colorado Commission. So safe to say, excuse perhaps as I mentioned, are simply excuses.

JohnThomas1 · Jun 11, 2024

Alpha_trooper818 said: ↑

Excellent Discussion fellas, I lift my glass of Cherry Coke to you. I kind of made this whole discussion because I personally just hate excuses, it taints the minds of those who dig deeper in the tale of the tape. Micheal is undoubtedly top 3 material at light heavyweight but those types of excuses make you wonder, keeps these interesting I suppose? I personally don't really take excuses all into account that much. This is mostly based on the Dempsey-Tunney Series and Lyle vs Shavers. Dempsey claimed that the reason he lost in his first fight with Tunney is because of food poisoning with olive oil, yet the rematch looked like a Carbon repeat of the first. In Lyle vs Shavers, Ernie claimed that the reason why Lyle beat the count was because a fan held up Lyle on the Ropes, yet in the official footage we have, no such thing happened. Shaver actually went as far and reporting these claims to the Colorado Commission. So safe to say, excuse perhaps as I mentioned, are simply excuses.
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I think 90% or so, to throw out a real guess of a figure, might be meaningful. Of course this doesn't mean said fighter would have won the fight anyway.

tragedy · Jun 11, 2024

JohnThomas1 said: ↑

Mustafa's excuse probably holds some weight factually. We can see that when he fought Snipes he was 201 3/4 and about 8 weeks later he had to make 175 vs Spinks. That's a loss of more than 3 pounds a week over the full duration so i can understand some difficulty. Did he slack a bit? I have no idea i wasn't in his camp. It's plain to see however that Eddie controlled the first half of the fight before the weight drain set in and he visibly run out of gas. He also had an eye that shut rapidly from what was likely an elbow from memory. The flipside is Spinks was customarily a slow starter but Eddie did pay for that weight loss. The win cannot be taken away from Spinks tho because he won on the night and anything else is conjecture. Qawi's claim carries more conjecture and for me the win isn't tainted at all.

The rematch scenario was also somewhat interesting. Mustafa actually predicted Spinks, who usually came in a couple of pounds under would be bang on the limit and lo and behold he was right. Eddie weighed in at 177 1/2.

Rather than bang on about it myself i'll give you something from The Irish Times.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tipping-the-scales-of-boxing-justice-1.504997

All of which put us in mind of another weigh-in, almost a quarter of a century ago in Washington, DC. Although Eddie Mustafa Muhammad was the reigning light-heavyweight champion, the bout was being promoted by challenger Michael Spinks's man, Butch Lewis.

Mustafa was convinced that Lewis and the District of Colombia Boxing Commission, with whom the flamboyant promoter still had some juice in the spring of 1981, were plotting to lift his title by manipulating the scale.

On the afternoon of the weigh-in, Michael (Wolf Man) Katz and I visited Eddie Mustafa in his suite, where he predicted that the scales had been rigged in Spinks's favour. "You watch," Mustafa presciently forecast. "Spinks is always in the 172-173 range, but he'll be exactly 175. And I weighed myself at on a hospital scales last night, but I'll be overweight."

He was dead right. When Spinks, after being announced at 175, stepped off the scales, a handler was standing by with a bowl of stew and a bottle of juice mounted on a tray. Spinks was defiantly slurping away by the time Eddie stepped on the scale and weighed in two pounds over the limit.

Moments after that weigh-in, Bert Randolph Sugar, the boxing historian, plagiarist, and at the time, editor of The Ring magazine, dashed out to a nearby supermarket and bought a 20lb sack of - naturally - sugar, which he brought back and weighed on the same device. It weighed 22 lbs on the DC commission scale. Sugar then took the sugar down the street to the United States Bureau of Weights and Measures, which certified that it was within an ounce or two of its advertised weight.

At the end of the day tho i give Spinks absolute credit for both wins. What a great light heavyweight he was.
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201 vs Snipes tells me he just showed up at his walk around weight. Thats not an uncommon weight for a Light Heavyweight to walk around at. 8 weeks to go from your walk around weight to Light Heavyweight will be ample, considering he will then cut water weight to make weight, not lose 3 pounds a week which you incorrectly implied he'd have to do.

JohnThomas1 · Jun 11, 2024

tragedy said: ↑

201 vs Snipes tells me he just showed up at his walk around weight. Thats not an uncommon weight for a Light Heavyweight to walk around at. 8 weeks to go from your walk around weight to Light Heavyweight will be ample, considering he will then cut water weight to make weight, not lose 3 pounds a week which you incorrectly implied he'd have to do.
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This is same day weigh in era. At any rate 3 pounds a week is (less than) what he had to actually lose whether it's water or what. On top of this he was plainly fat in there and if that was his walk around weight he'd be running a lot more body fat than most boxers in that stage. Perhaps he thought he had to add weight to compete with the big boys like almost everyone does.

To show up at ones walk around weight at the end of a training camp tells us that substantial extra calories would have had to be consumed and who knows when he started training in earnest. I'd be shocked if he started directly after losing in his tilt at the Heavyweights.

tragedy · Jun 11, 2024

JohnThomas1 said: ↑

This is same day weigh in era. At any rate 3 pounds a week is (less than) what he had to actually lose whether it's water or what. On top of this he was plainly fat in there and if that was his walk around weight he'd be running a lot more body fat than most boxers in that stage. Perhaps he thought he had to add weight to compete with the big boys like almost everyone does.

To show up at ones walk around weight at the end of a training camp tells us that substantial extra calories would have had to be consumed and who knows when he started training in earnest. I'd be shocked if he started directly after losing in his tilt at the Heavyweights.
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I would argue that Eddie probably walked around at 201 and went down to Light Heavy often and that wasn't really something new to him. That isn't an unusual walk around weight for a Light Heavyweight. That would also explain why he looked so listless against Snipes I.E. he just showed up at his walk around weight, not at his fighting weight. He was also one of those Larry Holmes type guys that just always looked pudgy at any weight he was. To cut anywhere from 6-10 pounds water weight the same day to make weight, he would have just needed to lose 2.5-2 pounds a week over 8 weeks. Thats doable. Experts consider losing 2 pounds a week very safe to do for regular people, let alone a world class boxer.

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