Tony Tucker vs Michael Spinks in 1987 who wins?

We know what he’d do whenever he faced someone decent: He’d either lose but go the distance or barely win.

 

The Tucker that beat Douglas may be able to nip a decision. Hard to say.

 

Tucker who beat Buster should be favoured. However, this would be competitive.

 

In the 80s I thought Tucker would beat Spinks & I still think that now. Spinks squeaked by an aging, creaking, tired Holmes. Tucker was decent, good athlete, decent boxer, with enough pop on his shots to trouble Spinks. A clear decision for Tucker the likely outcome, but it would not surprise me in the least if TNT stopped him.

 

Larry was the dominant champion of the era, so I think Spinks deserves to be recognised to have been good enough to be considered the best in the world at that point because he at least beat Larry once and took him close next time.

What on Earth Tony Tucker ever did to be considered a more legitimate contender than Stefan Tangstad and Gerry Cooney I do not know.

In 1987 For Tucker to have been placed favourite to beat Spinks would have been a shot in the dark.

There was absolutely nothing on his resume to guarantee Tucker was ready to move into that level. 2 fights in 1984. 3 fights in 1985. Four fights in 1986. Nobody knew who he was. Nobody knew who he beat. Dave Jako? James Broad? These were nonentities.

The only basis the IBF had to strip Spinks was that when they wanted him to, Spinks chose not to fight Tucker. And why should he? The guy had no real exposure. Tucker was not a name in the division. His ranking was bogus.

At the back end of 1986, There were more worthy contenders like Frank Bruno or recent Ex champions like Thomas, Witherspoon, Tubbs who would have made better opponents before we even mention rival champions Smith and Tyson.

Yet after stripping Spinks the IBF dismissed all of them in their selection of Douglas as a candidate to meet Tucker to decide who deserved to represent Spinks’ throne. Clearly the IBF decided not only was Douglas the next best in the world but that without fighting any of them Tucker was ahead of Tyson, Smith, Thomas, Witherspoon and Tubbs!

Now we know that Tucker wound up doing better against Tyson than Spinks did. But that is with hindsight. Spinks was truly awful in that fight anyway.

Spinks was of the level of a fading Larry Holmes. We know this. Tucker was of the level good enough to outpoint James Broad. He then beat Douglas...who we know had already lost to Stefan Tangstad... who Spinks smashed to smithereens.

In the total absence of Tucker beating known quantities in the real top ten of that time we will never know if Tucker ever really surpassed James broad/Stefan Tangstad level.

So whilst his effort against Tyson looks good, this only puts Tyson of that level too. Remember, even Tyson would lose to the guy Tucker beat. After all, There is a real argument that Tyson ripping through inactive challengers might actually flatter him. Tucker, Douglas And Tyson might be closer than we think.

Taking all of this into account, Tucker of the Holmes fights, fresh off his win over Tangstad I think Spinks can beat Tucker. Why not? Orlin Norris beat him twice.

 

Always so much agenda and cunning misinformation with you.

Douglas DREW!!!!!!!! (during which he was penalized 2 points) with Tangstad 4 years prior to Spinks beating Tangstad and 5 years prior to his fight with Tucker yet here you are sneakily and intentionally trying to make it look relevant and close to the same timeline as Spinks - Tangstad. It was Buster's 12th fight and early enough in his career to be an 8 rounder! On top of this we all know Douglas's history of lack of motivation and coming in out of shape which he certainly was on this occasion.

Douglas when he was on was a handful and he was the lightest he'd been in years against Tucker and was most certainly "on". Tucker hung in there nicely and wore him down mentally. It was quite a good win.

 

It would be another version of Tucker v Douglas . Spinks out pointing TT to begin with , then The Jinx slowing down ,his knee injury and his age catching up with him ,as does Tucker .

 

Yes I am a big fan of Douglas. That was clear and away Tuckers best win. But what else did he have? Absolutely nothing. Every other fight Tucker had with a decent fighter either could have went either way or he lost it.

Spinks has better wins at heavyweight. At least he was regarded as the best in the world at one point.

I cannot see any version of Tucker beating Larry Holmes.

 

Choklab… when you say that Spinks was regarded the best in the world after beating Holmes... do you see Spinks beating the following fighters in his next defense?: witherspoon, Carl Williams, Douglas or Pinky... you mentioned that Orlin Norris, who is among my favorite fighters, beat Tucker twice which many felt he was robbed... but this was after Tony's hiatus and drug fling..I think that Tucker is heavily diminished in skills and speed at this point .. Im still of the mind Tucker beats Spinks...he would have much faster reflexes that Holmes did not have when he fought Spinks... and this would play a huge factor in the fight... have a great day...

 

Tucker for me.

 

I wish these were the fights that Spinks was offered.

If it had been the 1950s Spinks would have been the world champion. Witherspoon and Berbick would have been the number one and number two. Bonecrusher and Thomas were the gate keepers. The next batch of young contenders were Tyson, Tucker, Biggs, Douglas And perhaps Bruno.

There would be no logical contender between Witherspoon,Berbick, Smith and Thomas. They certainly would have to fight each other in order to press for a challenge... or risk losing to an exciting youngster just to keep their ranking.

The youngsters would have been forced to fight one of their own number before tackling a gatekeeper. So Tyson or Douglas would have met Biggs or Tucker first. without doing this first they would risk falling in the rankings.Then they would have to have beaten either a Witherspoon or Berbick to get to Spinks.

We know Tyson beat Berbick then Thomas then Spinks.. but he didn’t first have to get past a single one of the other guys like Tucker or Douglas to get to that first position. Had he got Douglas in 1985 the whole thing could have been off. Likewise for Tucker. Was he going to beat Biggs or Bruno then beat Witherspoon or Berbick?

In the 1950s that was the only way to do it.

As it turned out bypassing one crossroads led to an unexpected failure later on.

So, getting back to your question, I think Witherspoon beats Berbick first. And Spinks gets the disillusioned version of Witherspoon that Bonecrusher fought. I think Spinks can beat that version.

Neither one of those guys were good enough to win two good fights in a row. So because each guy would have to beat one other decent guy each might be all out of decent wins in a row to do themselves justice against the champion. Take any one of them. Thomas drew with Coetzee has two good wins then flunked his next fight. Berbick beats Bey and Thomas back to back then was ready to flunk. Smith was ready to flunk. Same with Carl and Douglas. Two nice wins then toilet. They were all the same.

One thing is for sure, Spinks did not have that many fights left in him after Holmes, so after getting past maybe one of those guys even he flops against the next guy. Take your pick which way around he gets them. They are all the same. Spinks beats the first guy then blows his title to the very next one.

I have never regarded anyone but Larry Holmes, Micheal Spinks And Mike Tyson as the real champions of the 1980s. All the rest were mere contenders likely to lose to one another.

 

This

 

Frank Moran vs Tucker would also be competitive and you know it!!!!

 

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I agree with this post especially paragraph 1. There was more spin in Choklab's post than Shane Warne could ever muster.

This comment by Choklab "What on Earth Tony Tucker ever did to be considered a more legitimate contender than Stefan Tangstad and Gerry Cooney I do not know." A stunning level of ignorance (or at best Choklab being disingenuous) right there. If Choklab can't see that Tucker was on a higher level than Tangstad he can't know much about the Euro HW scene of the mid 1980's. Tangstad was not great even the Euro HW standards of those days - he was crushed by Anders Eklund & swallowed it in that fight, as he did against Spinks.

Spinks' HW resume is sooo skinny; 2 x a past it, tired, creaking Holmes (1 of which was a consensus loss), 1 x Tangstad, 1 against an inactive, high & drunk Cooney and Tyson.

Re Choklab's quote "Larry was the dominant champion of the era, so I think Spinks deserves to be recognised to have been good enough to be considered the best in the world at that point because he at least beat Larry once and took him close next time."

Holmes was not dominant by the time he fought Spinks, and was highly unlikely to have been the best HW in the world at that time; after the Witherspoon fight in '83 Holmes clearly had decided not to take on the division's best (a Witherspoon rematch, Thomas, Page et al) and carefully selected his subsequent opposition; Spinks' 1st win over Holmes should be judged accordingly, in that context. Holmes could hardly be called "dominant" after the Witherspoon fight.

In the early part of the 80s Holmes to my mind was clearly the best HW & was certainly the most consistent; by (& after the Witherspoon fight) he had clearly lost a step.

FWIW I believe that Thomas was likely the best HW circa 1984, but I also consider that there was no clearly dominant HW until the emergence of Tyson.

Holding the Orlin Norris loss against Tucker is hardly evidence - that loss was NINE YEARS after Tucker's win against Douglas & loss to Tyson.

Anyway, that's enough from me on this subject...

 

Fantastic post.