"Pink Thomas-Tim Spoon" was a 1984 snoozer WBC title fight in my book...

don’t you think spoon started well and that without the resistance Thomas gave him after round2 Tim might have looked as good as he did against bonecrusher in their first fight? witherspoon looked trim and was getting his moves down, his shots home then Thomas just got his jab going and Tim totally lost his way. spoon just got so confused in that fight but he started so well. Spoon never started that fight like a zombie, Thomas turned him into one. That said, I felt if Tim had of woke up again he should have beat pinklon, it was not like Thomas was doing anything that clever.

 

witherspoon v bonecrusher II was like something from the x-files. It did stink. King had wheels in motion that did not include tim in his plans. Don King wanted rid of witherspoon -he didnt really draw, didnt help himself, was outspoken, could be useful but could also ruin the new era King wanted to promote.

 

Yes it wasnt a tank job but everything was heavily loaded against Tim. No doubt his camp was delibratly disrupted. Tim was led to believe the Tubbs fight was on then off then on ..all the while smith was honing himself in secret for a chance of a lifetime. Smith came in well prepared and spoon was not, I even read Tim didnt think the fight was on until that morning. King played the whole thing out the way he wanted it with bones smith getting the upperhand.

 

Around 1990, I watched Witherspoon take on a veteran named Jeff Simms on USA cable network. Before the fight, Sean O'Grady interviewed him and the Smith fight was mentioned. Spoon told O'Grady that within days prior to rematching Smith, King called him over the phone and Said, " you WILL lose this fight, or you WILL test positive for drugs." Spoon claimed that he threw the fight, and afterwards, tested positive anyway. Years later on a radio show, I was listening to Tim speak once again about the Smith loss. His story had changed a bit. He now claimed that he PURPOSELY threw the fight, because in his mind it was the only way to break free of Don KIng and make a fresh start. In both instances, Spoon claimed that he threw the match, weather it be via King influence or his own judgement. One of the reasons I think the story changed slightly, was because following his first claim in 1990, Spoon and King settled out of court, and Tim was awarded 1 million dollars for lost earnings in the Frank Bruno fight, plus some other contractile discrepencies. Therefore, I think part of the settlement may have involved a gag order on Spoon to cease making any defaming claims towards King, resulting in Tim's new positon of " I threw the fight myself. "

In any case, the fight was extremely fishy and reaked as much or more like a dive as any match that ever was in boxing.

 

Didn't Tim mention in that book about Don King that he had some serious issues with King, and that he felt the judges would be against him or something like that.

 

Berbick-Thomas was surprisingly good, but then again Berbick always did try to make a decent fight of it.

 

IIRC, Thomas threw too many shots early on and didn't have the conditioning to go 12 properly, and so Berbick (who was slow but had good stamina for a big man) wore him down to a close but clear decision.

The mid-1980s was a period with a lot of snoozers at the top in the heavyweight division, though. Another terrible period was 2000-2007, during which we had Wlad-Iggy, the Ruiz-Oldyfield trilogy, Byrd-Oquendo, Ruiz-Oquendo, Ruiz-Johnson and Rahman-Barrett. Also, though it wasn't a title fight, the awful letdown of Danny Williams vs. Audley Harrison I occurred during that period.

 

The fight wasnt that bad. ive seen much worse heavyweight title fights from the 1980s (tubbs-page, witherspoon-tubbs, tyson-smith).
at least Thomas and even witherspoon turned up to the fight in shape !

 

its on youtube .....
uploaded by fightfilms1

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw82owInuD0[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OykE6eqsE5s&feature=related[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zktTgLWXcQ&feature=related[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP-Bq_3hZuI&feature=related[/ame]

 

What all the clowns who have been ripping Holmes as of late either choose to ignore or are truly ignorant to the fact of is that the Page/Witherspoon, Witherspoon/Thomas, Page/Tubbs era of title fights, all on either national TV or HBO, were received as terrible, boring, flat fights. It was one after another of the most poorly received title fights in history. The announcers could barely contain their disgust. Flabby, poorly conditioned and/or simply boring as hell. At the time they were considered one of the darkest periods in boxing history. Al the more reason no one took them seriously and all considered Holmes the champion. There was zero fan demand or following for any of these under achievers.