What made Tyson vs Spinks Interesting?

Spinks was seen as the linear champion, having twice defeated Larry Holmes.

He vacatated the IBF title to fight Cooney and Tyson beat the guy who won the vacant title - Tony Tucker.

It was felt that for Tyson to fully deserve Undisputed status, he had to beat Spinks.

That said, Tyson was the favorite.

But, nobody thought it would be as easy a fight as it turned out to be.

 

people probably thought spinks would at least test Tyson a bit

 

Nothing more than never losing.

I'm pretty sure most knew Tyson would win except the boxing experts like Bert Sugar...EXPERTS..lol

The event itself was the main draw more than Spinks ability to win.

 

There were definitely folks picking Spinks for the upset. Not a lot of folks thought a whole lot of Mike's title fight competition & thought an undefeated champ might provide some difficulties. Mainly because he was a cautious boxer type.

Every big fight is not always a back and forth struggle and tightly contested match. You do get blowouts and usually no rematches.

 

Sprinks was scarred senseless of tyson, most everyone else in the division was too.
Most people knew Tyson would destroy sprinks with ease, but a few people including mohhamed Ali believed sprinks would win, sprinks was a great champion, undefeated (all undefeated champions are assumed invincible) , beat Holmes (techncally) beat Cooney. Battle tested and awkward, good defence, but still stoop no chance against a absolute beast the likes of Tyson.
Berbick was scarred but put on a courageous fight.
Golotta was scarred out of his mind too.
Ruddock was low key scarred but was courageous enough to play through it.
Holmes and holyfield were never scarred of anyone it seemed, neither was lennox for that matter

 

Berbick didn't seem that scared ...and why even mention Golota lol

I don't think Ruddock was scared either and Lewis and Holyfield fought shot Tyson ... Especially Lewis ... And Lewis did seem freaked out around the time of the press conference brawl

 

This is a great answer.

 

I have the a Ring magazine with the fight being its main feature. The experts picks were nearly 50/50. Spinks was the ‘lineal’ champ, and I get the feeling many predicted him to win as they felt they had the knowledge and were able to call it, when the so called invincible one finally lost. A little similar to AJ and Fury today.

I still feel Tyson doesn’t get the credit for this blowout. Yeah I know, Spinks was a LHW, but he was undefeated, beat a faded top 5 of all time HW twice, knocked out a big punching giant of a HW in Cooney and had the backing of people who knew about boxing.

 

No other heavyweight champion had ever been absolutely destroyed the way Spinks was by Tyson. And Spinks was the last man in the division who was thought to have at least a chance.

On that night Tyson truly looked unbeatable.

 

2 undefeated champions who claim to be the real World Heavyweight Champion. First time since Frazier-Ali I.

The beginning promo "Now we'll see who's the champion..." was intense at the time.

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Lmao

 

I remember staying up all night watching this on TV in the UK. I guess the equivalent now would be similar to AJ walking through Fury in less than 2 minutes

 

He wasnt scared. If anything he was overconfident

 

Berbeck wasn't scared the bloke was complete nutter Didn't have the sense To be scared. When Tyson destroyed Spinks I couldn't believe it thats when Tyson looked unbeatable like some sort of monster. If Spinks hadn't Froze then he could given Mike a very tough fight he had the speed and movement great defense and that right hand .