Question, CH: Whenya boil it all down, would Spinks survive the Suzy Q 'n would the Rock shake-off the Spinks Jinks?
I think a theoretical Peak '83 Spinks properly bulked up to 185lbs with intense conditioning could give Marciano an awkward, difficult fight with his very cagey boxing skills, great ring intelligence (with Futch in corner), plus blistering speed, pinpoint accuracy, great timing & spectacular combinations. It all depends how well Michael could carry 185lbs. Outcome: Marciano late KO (while maybe a bit behind on cards), he slowly grinds down Spinks with vicious body punches throughout the fight & eventually stops him in rounds 8-15.
Marciano, behind on all three scorecards stops spinks in the mid rounds. Spinks awkward and busy style gives him the early advantage but Marciano is simply too strong for him. When spinks slows down, he will be caught.
Imagine if the only rated heavyweight rocky ever beat was old joe louis and it went the distance. thats micheal spinks heavyweight resume right there.
atsch That's a terrible analysis, Louis was Shot against Marciano, whereas the ageing Holmes was of '85 was 3 years Past-Prime, but still a very good quality 48-0 undefeated boxer. Christ, even the very Old Holmes of '95 who beat McCall (with correct scoring), was better than the Shot Louis that Rocky beat. As for using "went the distance" against Spinks, he was coming up from Light Heavy, to fight an Iron-Chinned undefeated savvy Heavyweight Champion, who had legendary powers of recuperation & survival...
perhaps I could find a beter analysis, but until then it shal do for now. Louis was beating rated contenders- lee savold among them who held a claim to a lightly regarded "world" title for beating bruce woodcock- had that been the 1980s there would have been a sactioning fee from that fight going to either the ibf, wba or wbc uprating a marcianos pts win over Louis to something not too far away from what spinks acheived against Holmes. Louis was 37 years old, 66-2, unbeaten in his last 9 and had a 19 pound weight advantage over marciano. Holmes was 36 years old, indeed 48-0 and had a 18 pound advantage over spinks.
Love this point .. the Louis of the Marciano bout matched up as comparable with the Holmes of the Spinks fights ... this says it all ... :yep ... of course it shall do for now ...
old holmes wud indeed smoke old louis, it is the warm hard truth 4 the old-time , fanboyz . spinks wud b an excellent fighter w/ 1 excellent style 2 beat rocky w/ , imo .
Old Holmes would beat old louis, it was not the win of marciano's career. IMAGINE if marciano could not knock out old man louis though? Sure Holmes was beter but did spinks even beat Holmes? he did not exchange or fight with Holmes, he tricked him, he got by, nobody got beat up. where is the evidence spinks could have knocked out old Louis? After all Spinks never knocked out ANY or even fought ANY rated contenders. How many of these guys could micheal spinks beat who he could of fought to get that crack at Holmes? Thomas tucker tubbs witherspoon page weaver coetzee truth wiliams bruno terel biggs
Spinks may have been the weakest of the bunch mentioned above, although I like him over Biggs and possibly Bruno and it depends which Page showed up, also Tubbs he should be able to beat...funny but why did Holmes not fight these men....Pre-Marciano,Walcott,Charles,Moore and even a pre-Marciano- Layne that beat Satterfeild would beat Spinks IMO
. People knock holmes and would like the rest of the world to believe that the best contenders were tied up to alternative belts and Holmes got away without fighting them but its not the truth. Almost from the start of his run as a champion to the end of his title days the first real alternative champion and the last were both Kayoed by Holmes. The ones in the middle just kept losing. when he was retired he could argue he beat all three of the remaining champions smith, berbick and spinks. Totaly with you on this one. I beleive kid mathews is a 50-50 fight for spinks since he had about the same number of fights at HW.