Tim Witherspoon

Tim had the dream but not the drive.

The bones smith fight and his loss to thomas will show you all you need to know. He had it all, it was all there but he could just switch off.


mercer fight was great, gonzalez fight cool, the brien neilson fight was phoney.

 

Why would this " show us all we need to know"? Spoon had 15 fights with a short amateur career when he gave hell to one of the greatest champions of all time in Holmes.. He soundly beat James Smith in their first fight, while possibly taking a dive in the second.... He was a two time world champ who beat quality names in Tony Tubbs, Greg Page, Frank Bruno, James Tillis, James Smith, James Broad, Renaldo Snipes, Carl Williams, Jose Ribalta, Jorge Gonzalez, Alfred Cole and may have been robbed against Ray Mercer.... He was ranked in the ring's top 10 for 10 years. He suffered most of his losses post age 35. Regardles of crap conditioning and lazyness, He still made a mark on the sport and is my #24 greatest heavyweight of all time.

 

I've seen most of his fight with Holmes , Smith #2 , Bruno .
There is more 2 c , boxrec can tell but can't bring those fights online

 

And Witherspoon hit him very well while he was down ...

 

In the first smith fight Tim went through his whole box of tricks and was in shape. Its like his Cleveland Williams night. nobody beat smith better - and James was nobodies fool. witherspoon showed all his powers in this fight, what he was capable of - his full potential. This is what I meant by "all you need to know about witherspoon" in so far as his full capabilities.

The other fight I mentioned (the Thomas fight) represented the other side of the coin. Even though Tim was in good shape and against a very good fighter in my opinion Tim showed how he could lose focus even in shape. There were times where he was much better even in far worse shape but that Thomas fight demonstrates his actual temperament was not as strong as other great fighters even if he could match them on so many other levels.

In The Thomas fight witherspoon looked as good for two rounds as he was against smith - a lot better than Thomas - but then Thomas found a home for his jab and witherspoon lost focus and his fire petered out. Its an example of the same prime spoon underachieving - there are many examples of a disillusioned witherspoon showing flashes of class but in no shape to do himself justice and others where he wins but had made it so hard for himself because he was not prepared but I think the first smith fight and the Thomas fight will show everything about withetrspoons capability, flaws and focus. A short cut to seeing what he was about in the shortest number of fights - in shape.

 

Check out the Mike Williams fight. Williams then was an undefeated fighter.

 

I would say his biggest problem was Don King black balled him, and that made it hard for Witherpsoon to focus.

On his better nights when he was in shape, Witherpsoon had very good ability. I view him as the 3rd best heavyweight of the 1980's ( Behind Holmes and Tyson ), and one of the top 30 best head to head heavyweights of all time. I also feel Team Tyson did never wanted to fight Witherpsoon, as he not only had skills and power, he also had good defense, and a solid chin.

 

Very good fighter, its just too bad his two most significant wins (imo) were reversed getting stopped by Greg Page and Smith.

 

I thoroughly enjioyed the comprehensive **** slapping he gave Gonzales!

Gonzales was an arrogrant douchebag who got towelled up by Big Daddy after talking copious amounts of **** then got worse treatment from Terrible Tim at the Garden on a card which also featured the underrated classic between Lewis and Merciless Mercer! As a matter of fact, I will watch these now!

 

He was Kod by Binecrusher Smith, costing him his shot at Tyson. How do you possibly blame this on anyone but himself. And i always wanted him to beat Tyson, but that is the real fact of what cost him his chance to dominate.

 

I thought he beat Holmes.

Holmes would never re-match him when both were in their primes.

 

holmes
broad
tillis
1st bonecrusher
gonzales
cole
ecklund

 

And, many of Tyson's opponents were already beaten before they meet him in title fights too. Witherpsoon himself beat some of the guys Tyson gave title shots to.

Witherpsoon has the gifts, and skills to upset Tyson. Not saying he would, I am saying he could. There is a chance the Smith vs. Witherpsoon fight was not on the level. Witherspoon had a very good chin. For him to suffer a first round stoppage is a bit of a fluke. Witherpsoon had trouble with Don King. Didn't King control both fighters? I have seen this crap before. Not only did Witherpsoon lose in round one, his home was robbed on the night of the fight as well. A bit fishy if you ask me.

 

Holmes fight was Tim at his best.

 

True. He shut Smith out in that one.