Was Tyson-Spinks fixed?

I agree that economics is what truly delayed the fight. But fact is that while Spinks was only fighting about once a year and being a tough negotiator, Tyson was fighting several times a year, perhaps for less for the one fight, but staying sharp and active, prime, fit, and ready such that when he fought Spinks he was a lot sharper than a 31-year old who had been sitting on the shelf for one year. So from a financial perspective Spinks was smart not to fight so much and wait until he got the most for the fight he humanly could, but from a competitive standpoint, I think he gave himself less of a chance to win the Tyson fight by being so inactive.

 

That may be true but again, it wasnt Spinks' decision to wait that year. In fact the most recent interview of Spinks' Ive seen he alludes to the layoff and how they kept him waiting and how it hurt his performance. Its true he could have been active but he was placed in a bad position by HBO and Tyson's people. When he left the tournament HBO and Tyson's people effectively blackballed him. HBO was the only place that could afford to pay him what he was worth and they made it clear that if he was going to fight for them his next fight would be against Tyson. At that point so its not like he could drop down and fight on network TV for $50,000 thats just unrealistic when you are winding down your career. You fight for the big purses to pad your retirement, not the small ones to pad your record. Essentially Spinks was in a position where he could only fight on HBO, HBO wouldnt let him fight anyone but Tyson, and Tyson wasnt going to fight him until he or his managers were good and ready. Thus Spinks was forced to wait. He was just damn lucky that the public was only interested in seeing Tyson fight him and that was the fight on everyone's lips or else he could have easily faded away. But to characterize all of that as Spinks being an unworthy, overmatched, scared, hype job as some have above is simply historically unfounded. At the time this was a very intriguing matchup with a lot of possible outcomes and really captured peoples imagination. Its only because of the abbreviated nature of the contest that some, who werent there at the time likely, have chosen to downplay its importance or seeming competitiveness and just how good of a win that was on Tyson's resume. As some have mentioned above almost every HW champion from the greats to the also rans have at least one LHW on their resume. How many of those LHWs were as great as Spinks and how many suffered the kind of conclusive defeat that Spinks did?

 

This just supports what I said.
IF the pound-for-pound ratings are just reflections of a fighter's past career and accomplishments, rather than ACTUAL ABILITY AT CURRENT FIGHTING WEIGHT, then they say nothing about Spinks's actual ability at heavyweight and are irrelevant to his being a threat to Tyson.

Spinks WAS "built up" as a Tyson opponent between 1987 and 1988.
Simply, the fight became much bigger in 1988 than it would have been as final of the original scheduled HBO tournament that would have taken place around June 1987.
This has a lot to do with what Tyson was doing, of course.

 

I learned some good stuff here, thanks guys.

Though about the fear-given that most all have & deal with some fear. And looks can be deceptive, interpretations may be pure projection or fantasy. And Spiinks could have tried to get Tyson's respect etc...

But I am unconvinced the fear quote is fabricated. Though yes, some quotes gain common currency & have no verifiable provenance, they are fakes folks accept. Was this British writer also fooled?

[url]http://www.boxing-monthly.co.uk/content/0002/one.htm[/url]

 

Michael Spinks had a total of FOUR heavyweight fights (against just three opponents) in his career before facing Tyson, and overall there's not exactly much reason in those fights to make him into a big threat to Tyson.

The only really credibly ranked heavyweight he'd beaten was Holmes, who had barely beaten Carl Williams in his previous fight and looked even more stale against Spinks, and who actually probably deserved to win the rematch when he was in better shape. It was an amazing achievement for Spinks to beat Holmes, not least because he wasn't a genuine heavyweight at that time.

Objectively speaking, and with the benefit of distance, Spinks didn't have the heavyweight credentials to be a true threat to Tyson.
Therefore, the hype was the hype.

 

..and hype it was!!

 

There's no contradiction to say that Spinks was hyped and inflated as a threat to Tyson AND also that the fight captured the people's imagination and intrigued them.

Isn't that the whole point of hype ?

I remember the fight at the time, and I too fell for the hype and overestimated Spinks' chances ... and in doing so I was wilfully and blatantly IGNORING the numerous naysayers who were quite rightly pointly out that Spinks had never beaten any young ranked heavyweight, had done well to avoid them, nevermind one of Tyson's ability.

I was still a teenager in 1988 and far less cynical and "wise" to the way the boxing media hypes and sells its product.

Anyway, it was a "must see" fight. But so was Carpentier-Dempsey. It's great that boxing can produce such interest and personalities.
There's no harm in looking back at it with a bit more objectivity though.

1. I was around at the time and avidly interested. As I've pointed out, re-treading the way we might have felt about the fight at the time is not necessarily the way to objectively assess the fight itself.
All we need to do is look at the actual proven abilities and records of the two fighters at that weight at that point.
When we do that, I cannot help but wonder why I gave Spinks much of a chance at all.

2. It was a VERY GOOD win on Tyson's resume. It's hard to argue with a 1st round KO !

 

As for the thread question, I certainly don't think the fight was fixed.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see a decent replay of the final punch landing. The camera angles all seem to obscure the point of impact. That might be where a rumour that Spinks took a dive originates.

 

People saying that Spinks looked scared or whatever are hilarious. Have these people ever seen Spinks before the Tyson fight? Spinks always looked like a straight up fruit loop. He had some rather, eh, unmasculine mannerisms, if you catch my drift.

 

Spinks actually looked quite calm before the fight. Maybe too calm, he looked like he just woke up and he didn't look like he had a bead of sweat on his body. Only he could tell you whether whether he felt really afraid or not and was just trying his best to hide it.

 

I do not think so. Tyson was in his absolute prime. Sprinks was a smallish natural light heavyweight whos best wins at heavy were two close decisions over a faded Larry Holmes, who he fought at just the right time, and a KO of a largely inactive Gerry Gooney. I watched the Tyson-Spinks fight on closed circuit TV on a big outdoor screen at Charlestown Horse Racetrack in WV. Pay per view was just becoming the norm. I remember I drove 2 hrs to get there with my buddy and watched a bunch of ****py horseracing and sat through a big undercard. All for less than one minute of action. Also, Spinks was visibly scared before the opening bell. I watched a lot of Spinks fights and he never looked as nervous as he did against Tyson.

 

and your best post would be when you start to shut up your mouth.

In every Tyson thread you little troll came up with ****. Go and seek a wife, or gf or a job or something else, poor boy

 

Who rattled ze Germans cage???

No get facts right, in every Tyson thread I own little nuthuggers like yourself and put them in their place.

I've got 2 out of 3 thanks, now go back to what folk like you are, Looser......

 

I agree with this. Spinks was a very good light heavyweight who fought Larry Holmes at the right time, then fought a no-name in a title defense.

He needed a big pay day to meet Tyson, because deep down I think he new the odds were against him.

I felt Tyson was going to destroy him, and he did. After the Tyson fight, Spinks called it quits.

I do think Spinks was a class act outside the ring.

 

:yep dumb like a pig