Was Witherspoon avoided in the late 1980's/early 1990's?

Fantastic post. All true.

 

Thats not exactly true. Tim had two fights in 1987, one was against the highly touted mike Williams. A fancied prospect of 13-0. Tim was in really good shape for that one and still only won by only a split decision against the new hotshot. A good result. When the two next fought, Tim landed just one fight in 1988 against a nobody whereas Mike Williams won 3 more times then was destroyed by James Buster Douglas on a Tyson undercard which totally eclipsed Witherspoon’s SD win over Williams.

In 1989 Tim was again taken to another split decision. This time against Larry Alexander, an underrated big guy who had been holding his own for years without producing any colourful wins. Alexander, matched hard his whole life, nonetheless had still lost to guys like Page, Snipes, James Broad (who Witherspoon had already beat) And most recently knocked out in two rounds by Razor Ruddock. So As good as Alexander might have been, and he had wins over guys like Stallings, Jeff sims, scraping by on split decisions was not good publicity for Tim Witherspoon if he was to look any kind of threat to world supremacy.

Then just before fighting Truth Williams, Witherspoon beat José Ribalta who was on a 9 fight win streak since losing to Tyson..albeit by MD.

So I wouldn’t say beating Mike Williams, Larry Alexander And Jose Ribalta were exactly four wasted years. Tim did not prove he could decisively beat either of them.

 

I'm curious about the Mike Williams fight. I don't think I've ever seen it, or even read a report on it. I just did a search and see that it's on YouTube, so I need to give it a watch. It'll probably answer some of these questions. Was Witherspoon brought in as a stepping stone for the undefeated prospect Williams? The decision looks fishy - two judges give it to Tim by two and three points, but one judge (with the last name "Strange") gave it to Williams by six points. I wonder what the story is there?

Tim had a good year in 1995, ruining the heavyweight coming out party of Al Cole and destroying the arrogant Gonzalez. I recall the Witherspoon - Mercer fight being closer than the scorecards indicate and thought at the time that Tim pulled it out. I wonder if he would've continued his streak in 1996 if he'd got the decision. Mercer sure didn't capitalize on the win.

 

Beating those guys does little legacy wise and doesn't help him land big fights so yeah it seems like wasted time.

Wins over Ruddock, Douglas, etc would have been far more meaningful

 

If you compare Witherspoon with Douglas against the same opponent around the time in question I think it’s clear Douglas was the superior heavyweight at that time.

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I just watched the fight. Tim was in excellent shape. I think had mike Williams fought Tony Tubbs And Pinklon Thomas in place of Witherspoon and Buster Douglas mike would have got all the way to the title undefeated!

However, Witherspoon May have pipped a good opponent here but the fight was too, close, too difficult and too gruelling to really place Tim as a logical threat to the title at that time.

Tim spent the first 5 rounds trying to steal the fight on a knockout..just chucking bombs in the hope of blasting him out where as Williams was not always hurt and kept these rounds much closer than they could have been. Williams was busy. And game. By the time Tim thought about boxing himself seven rounds had already elapsed and he was tired from swinging. He still came through because he was always the better puncher. And stronger. But it was tough and close.

This was not the masterclass Witherspoon put out in his win over Bonecrusher Smith when he boxed really cleverly. I don’t think he was even quite as sharp as he had been against Frank Bruno. And that was quite a sloppy Witherspoon performance albeit an important win at the time.

This fight wasn’t that important. But it showed Witherspoon was still a keen and live performer when he wanted to be in shape.

 

so Holmes, who beat him in his prime avoided him but Tyson who had a whole career to fight him did not? Hypocrite!
Tim was a fat lazy turd who never got in shape. He deserved nothing.

 

Bull****. Holmes won 9-3. Even in the 9th when Tim hurt Larry, Holmes landed that right hand and Tim just stopped.
You don't know **** about boxing history.

 

Avoided a rematch as i clearly said. Holmes stated himself he wasn't going to give him one. Pretty simple really.

So you imply Tyson avoided him? As i said in my post the winner of the Witherspoon - Smith rematch was carved in stone to fight Tyson in the unification series. Witherspoon lost and therefore did not get the shot against Tyson. Smith took on Tyson in his very next fight.

It's not rocket science. Witherspoon had fell out with King and after being flattened in one round by Smith didn't have a decent win in all the time Tyson reigned.

Witherspoon was in shape for Holmes and he was also in shape for Thomas. I would agree he was often out of shape and uninspired.

 

Keep posting in yelow, you are nothing but a buffoon here.

 

Lmao what a ridiculous clown

 

Yeah he was in shape for Mike Williams during the reign of Tyson and could only scrape through by split decision. Witherspoon, even with his act together, was never really a world beater.

 

Very true. He was at his peak fighting weight for that one.

 

Thanks for the writeup on the Williams fight. It sounds like there was nothing fishy about Mr. Strange's scoring, but rather his view of Witherspoon's (and Williams') effectiveness was just different than the other two judges.

 

Someone is clown for scoring a fight correctly?