Revisiting Gerry Cooney Vs Michael Spinks 1987

Also to add, say what u want about the results of the Holmes fights, prime Mike is his only official defeat at a weight not deemed his best. Still impressive even in defeat.

 

Spinks would probably have lost to Tucker. He looked good against Cooney because of Gerry s inactivity and health issues.
Tucker could possibly have stopped him, maybe similar to his fight with Buster.

 

Spinks had a very bad cut in that fight. Anyone else boxes him > that and gets the stoppage.

 

And the Douglas win has an asterisk - in so far as Douglas was doing very well (leading even?) when he began to gas badly and more or less elected to drop tools rather than fight it out to the very last of his legs.

I believe Buster’s father was very venomous toward him for his apparent surrender.

As for Spinks vs Cooney. Quite a brutal and ugly end - it seemed it would take more effort to miss Cooney then it did hitting him.

Not a particular fan of Cooney nor detractor of Spinks but a slightly unpleasant watch seeing Cooney belted out like that.

 

I agree with these comments, most of them. Spinks' knee was shot by 1987 and he did what any aging athlete trying to cash in (finally, bless him) should do; take the least risk for the most money. He'd have been an idiot to fight Tucker for less. AND he'd have lost to Tucker, too.

Which is why I still don't understand anyone giving Tyson much credit for beating that total shell of a once-great fighter. Spinks was nothing of the sort by 1988. And he was only ever great many pounds south of there anyway.

 

Well, you know Tyson fanatics. He beat the prime Spinks, prime Holmes, the best of Pinklon Thomas, ruled a great era but he was completely shot by the time he fought Douglas.

 

"LINEAR! LINEAR!"

 

I sometimes wonder if Spinks and his completely shot knee's by the time he fought Tyson are mostly an ESB creation that has gathered more and more momentum since a certain poster cruised around here preaching it years ago.

He had knee trouble for virtually his entire career. He skirted around the ring like a ballerina for 30 rounds against Larry Holmes. He fought less than 9 rounds post Holmes before fighting Tyson.

His bad knees had been mentioned in the press here and there for years but he was always just dandy in the ring. There was no talk in the press that i know of speculating his knees were any worse than on previous occasions and Spinks never put it forward an an excuse even years afterward (he's never offered any excuses at all) and actually stated how fast Tyson is to get on top of you and how quick his hands are. Eddie Futch never mentioned any knee drama and was quite vocal about how their game plan was going to involve movement and avoiding Tyson early on. He'd hardly be banging this out publicly if Spinks knees weren't good enough and he'd most certainly know if there was a problem during sparring rehearsals.

It was obvious Tyson was the worst thing he could ever step in the ring with given his problems whenever Holmes, a non banger who had lost his sharpness and timing with age hit him clean or even semi clean at times. Against a better trained slightly more lively Holmes he had to throw away the early rounds in order to negate the risks. He was never going to last long against a young fast starting two fisted bomber.

 

It’s a good possibility. Cooney of 1979-1981 attacked his opponents with a vengeance. Broke guy’s ribs. He actually could take a little punishment in those early days too as we saw in the Holmes fight.

 

Donald Westlake once said "Jackie Chan is Fred Astaire, and the world is Ginger Rogers."
Is that relevant to this thread? Well, let me answer that question from myself with another question. Are we all part of the world? And that is a question I clearly don't have to answer, do I?

 

I think that Tucker posed a far greater threat to Spinks than Cooney did.

I would go further, and say that this is an interesting "what if" of boxing history.

If Spinks wins then he puts clear water between himself and the rest of the division, and if Tucker wins then the lineage takes a different direction.

 

I can't sit here and say that he lost to Tyson simply because of a bum knee, that's silly, but he WAS wearing a brace for the Tyson fight y'know.....

 

Just to be clear i wasn't aiming the post at you, it's a common theme.

Knee braces are often a precautionary measure/aid and Spinks had worn one in his previous two fights while showing excellent leverage on all punches and fleetness of foot when called upon. Tom Brady has utilized a knee brace for almost an entire season not long back and I've lost count of the times others in the NFL have done similar. I've seen the likes of Federer and Osaka win matches in a knee brace. The examples in high end sport are endless.

 

That's pretty my point TBH look at Tuckers entire career, and name one stand out victory on his resume ? His best wins against McCall, Douglas, Norris, two of them were razor thin decisions with one being highly controversial. The other a come from behind win whilst being way behind on points.

There isn't a single convincing stand out win from Tucker, against any elite Heavyweight that I know of. And whilst he does deserve credit for going 12 against Lewis, Tyson. He was still well beaten convincingly in both fights.

In all honesty I was never overly impressed with Tony Tucker, he didn't really possess any stand out attributes. Apart from his height and toughness IMO.