Who was your favorite 80s LHW?

Donny LaLonde

 

Prince Charles Williams

 

Same. Superb skills matched with intelligent intensity, and he had personality and charisma to boot.

 

Marvin Johnson !
Incredible warrior, a lot of unforgettable fights.

 

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. For mine he was the most talented of a hugely talented bunch. One of the smoothest boxer punchers you will ever see. Big puncher too with some real old school moves and a great body attack.

 

Michael Spinks

Honorable Mention Jeff Harding, mainly for being a scavenger on the beaches of Australia who somehow won a world light heavyweight title.

 

Virgil Hill. Did alot with basically a jab and movement.
I liked Lalonde always looked so easy to beat but had that huge right hand.
Leaslie Stewart fought everyone and usually gave them a good fight.
Saad Muhammad how many wars I lost count.
Marvin Johnson left it all on the table.

 

Never heard of the second one and Maske was '90s

 

Braxton and Saad.
Saad just about the toughest fighter there was and Braxton had those mad skills at 5'6 unreal

 

I bet you are the life of the party.

 

I liked Eddie too

 

Every word true. It should be a no-brainer but ...

I love Michael Spinks. Terrific fighter and a real kookie character. I love the head to head with Saad after Spinks kayoed Marvin Johnson. 'Beautiful, baby. Beautiful.'

Michael had a pretty heartbreaking story of his own with his girlfriend dying and having to tell their daughter before he fought Qawi. And winning. And Lord knows babysitting Leon can't have been easy.

And in his interviews, whether in victory after Holmes or in defeat after Tyson, he was polite, personable and decent. A real genuine class act. The interview after Larry's 'jockstrap' comment is on youtube and has a wonderful moment where Spinks, suffering from a cold, seems to lose his voice and then it returns in a mad falsetto. Hilarious. As so many of Michael's interviews were wont to be.

I just realised that my four favourite fighters are (sort of) LHWs. Ezzard, Floyd Patterson, Michael Spinks and Saad.
Absolutely fascinating stuff. There you go, anyone struggling with insomnia tonight. Read it and we.., erm, sleep

 

Per bolded part - yes that was some great thrash talking between the two after the Spinks/Johnson fight. Howard Cosell was right there between them.

They should have fought right after that.

Instead, Saad fought Murray Sutherland and Spinks fought Eddie Mustafa Muhammad for the WBA title.

Saad fought Sutherland on CBS, so maybe he had a contractual obligation to CBS.

He did switch to ABC afterwards but then Spinks had a title so it would have had to have been a Unification fight, which were hard to make back then.

It would have been a great fight. Spinks probably would have won but it would not have been easy.

 

Jesse Lanton. Because he bought me a beer at the bar earlier today. Ask me tomorrow and the answer will be Dennis Andries