Mike Weaver vs Leon Spinks

Same, should be a fun fight though.

 

Depends on which Leon shows up. The Leon that fought Righetti, Evangalista, Lopez, Mercado and Ali beats Weaver down. Leon's addiction issues make a prediction difficult. With both at their best, I'll take Leon.

 

I'm going to take Weaver to beat any version of Spinks. Spinks at his best was an average heavyweight. He should have spent his career at the cruiserweight division.

 

Weaver pretty quick 1-5

 

Weaver by KO. Spinks might have won early rounds with better work rate. But Weaver's power would catch up to him at some point.

 

I'm not much on fantasy fights that involve fighters from different eras, nor do I much like matching fighters from different times, i.e. Mike Weaver of June 1979 vs. Leon Spinks of February 1978. I do, however, enjoy pitting guys who fought during the same time period together in my imagination.

Let's play the somewhat dangerous game of Common Opponents -

Bernardo Mercado: Weaver TKO 5, 1978. Spinks TKO 9, 1980
Scott LeDoux: Weaver W 12, 1979. Spinks D 10, 1977
Larry Holmes: Weaver TKOby 12, 1979. Spinks TKOby 3, 1981
Gerrie Coetzee: Weaver KO 13, 1980. Spinks TKOby 1, 1979

Weaver wins the common opponents game, hands down, but as we know it's not a good way to pick a winner.
I pick Spinks, with much hesitation, in 1977, early 1978, and late 1980.
Any other time I pick Weaver.

 

Spinks will not absorb that left hook to the body and to the head either. And he is just not that big of a hitter. more power and snap and Weaver would have to be worried.

 

I’ll take Leon to win this one by workrate, taking an early lead and weathering a bit of a storm. Weaver could be complacent at times and Leon was anything but.

 

Prime Leon UD. any other mid round kayo.

 

This pretty much sums it up. I think these two could have battled for a bit and made it a good fight. But I can’t see any rendition of Leon Spinks beating the man who stopped John Tate, Gerrie Coetzee and gave Holmes fits

 

Spinks roughs him up for a few rounds before Weaver wrecks him with one punch.

 

Weaver would hammer him. Weaver's biggest problem is sitting back to much and lazing. He can't do this with the aggression Neon is renowned for and would be forced to deploy his bombs on a consistent basis. At some point this spells doom. Lets say around the 5th.

 

Bingo.

 

This is a case where both fighters were actually peers and could've fought on many different occasions.

In 1977 or 1978, I'd say Spinks wins easily. Maybe stops Weaver. Weaver was the definition of "ordinary" throughout the 1970s. The Holmes fight in 1979 gave him new life. Spinks, during his first two years as a pro, was very good. I doubt there were many heavyweights in history who could've gone 15 rounds at the pace Spinks did in the first Ali fight in 1978.

In 1980, after Weaver defeated Spinks' Olympic teammate Tate and Coetzee, and Spinks beat Evangelista and Mercado, it's a toss-up.

And a fight between Weaver and Spinks in 1980 or 1981 for the WBA title might have been epic.

From 1983 on, Weaver is a big favorite, as Spinks slips into addiction and a general lack of caring about anything. (Although, with Joey Curtis as ref, Spinks could've done the same thing Dokes did to Weaver in 82. Spinks started all his fights like Dokes did that night.)

But from 1977 to 1982, those five years, that would've been a helluva matchup. I wish they would've fought a couple times.

Weaver-Spinks for the WBA belt in 1980/81 would've been something.