Why did Spinks put on 25lb to fight Holmes?

I see where you are at, let me expand.

Spinks was a better more effective fighter at 200 vs 175 however fighting at 200 meant he had to fight opponents myriads harder to beat due to their weight and size adavantages.

The extra difficulty of these opponents far outweighed the small advantages Spinks gained in weighing more.

So he never spent most of his career fighting at 200 as he was no-where near as good a heavyweight as he was light heavyweight. The opposition was simply infinitely more difficult.

Truth be told imo he ambushed Holmes. Holmes was a 6-1 favorite and i reckon the rematch tells us Holmes was all sorts of overconfident. Spinks used all his wily underrated skills in going from 175 pound assassin to heavyweight cutie, and cutie understates it as he was pretty much pitter patter tho he landed the odd full shot.

Holmes was woeful in the initial match, but came into the second in great shape and beat Spinks comfortably.

The only decent blow Holmes landed in the first bout near put Spinks down. If he fought at heavyweight he would have had nightmares with Witherspoon, Page, Dokes, Coetzee and all the rest of them. He may have snuck in the odd decision victory (they were a very inconsistent bunch on the whole) but every minute of every round would have represented danger time as all of them would have been knockout threats.

Prime Holmes would have beaten Spinks with enormous ease.

 

Again, it's just the opposition for Spinks to fight at heavy. Night and day. It's perhaps the biggest jump one can make weight wise, especially once the common weight was closer to 220 or whatever one picks out.

Gomez was a bit unfortunate to cop two such great fighters in his attempt to move up. Sanchez was amazing and was also very very hard for Gomez stylistically.

Nelson was in the midst of a 7 year undefeated streak and is imo an absolute great. I also think Gomez, despite not even being 30 was well into decline when he fought Azumah.

 

You'd really have to watch a 200 pound Spinks vs light heavyweights to judge empirically i think. He was never going to be anything like the fighter he was at 175 fighting the big boys.

 

Maybe some of us aren't on the same wavelength.

Do you think the 200 pound Spinks that beat Holmes would be as effective or more so against his 175 opponents than the 175 version?

Noway on mother earth would i claim Spinks was a better P4P fighter at heavyweight than he was at 175. He was one of the greatest light heavyweights ever but was never going to come close to that at Heavy.

 

We are all on the same page now i reckon, phew

 

Stupidest question ever.

 

Who do you think wins?

A 147 pound Hearns vs a 175 pound Hearns?

A 122 pound Pacquiao vs a 145 pound Pacquiao?

A 175 pound Spinks vs a 200 pound Spinks?

A 130 pound Mayweather vs a 147 pound Mayweather?

The answer to a lot of questions like this is the bigger version of the same man would probably beat the smaller version of the same man. Despite the fact that the smaller versions of the same men are better in a p4p sense than the bigger versions.

Weight alone is enough to make you a better fighter in an absolute sense, but not a relative sense. And since boxing (besides HW) is a weight handicap sport what matters is how good you are relative to guys you're own size (pound for pound).

 

Agreed I also think guys cut weight because if bulk up beyond your natural size you fight guys who are naturally bigger than you. And despite the weight being the same you're not really "bigger".