Would you pick Tim Witherspoon to beat any all time greats?

i'm a witherspoon fan and think he's a very under-rated fighter.i'd put him in the top15 of all time,light years ahead of jim jeffries who feasted on middle-weights

 

Personaly I would see Witherspoon as falling into the ability bracket where he would be a threat to the absolute elite if his A game coincided with their off night.

Lets face it, if you were managing Joe Louis or Muhamad Ali in their prime, you would absolutely treat him as a threat and possibly steer clear of him if it could be done without an undue backlash.

To m ake a simple analogy, Joe Louis wins a wafer thin decision over Tommy Farr, in part due to an injured hand. If you put him in with Tim Witherspoon, and a similar set of circumstances unfold then it is not a foregone conclusion who is walking home with the title that night.

Now if we then put him up against the second or third teir of all time greats then all sorts of possibilities unflod.

 

I think that you fundamentaly don't understand Jeffries era or the fighters who fouight in it.

How many fighters do you really think could have beated the fighters that Jeffries beat under the same conditions?

 

a lot.from super middles up.

 

Witherpsoon was a notch below all time great status, but he did have great tools. He could have beaten Louis or Ali, but you just can;t say that.

Witherspoon at his best had a good jab, great defense, a powerful right hand, decent size, and a heck of a chin.

I'd pick 'Spoon over Charles, Walcott, Bear, and Patterson.

 

Preposterous.

If the size of Jeffries opposition is as much of a mark against him as you seem to think, then you would have to recogniose by the same logic that these "supermiddles" would have been steamrooled by a 200lb puncher like Gus Ruhlin.

How do you think these supermiddlews would have liked Hank Griffin (who beat Jack Johnson twice) for a pro debut?

How many fighters could have gone up against Joe Choynski in their first year even if he was only 170 lbs?

If you want to get technical about it the average size of Jeffries oponents is probably about equal to Rocky Marciano's, with the difference that he was thrown in against the best of them much earlier.

 

He has a great chance against Holmes for obvious reasons

 

Of course he could have ... he was not just very, very good at his best but he was a big fighter as well. 6' 3", long reach, very strong, terrific right hand .... excellent chin and terrific defense. He fell into the height of the fighters manipulated by DK and he lost it and simply gave up for many years ... no excuse, simply fact. From a size and skill set he is definetely a top 15 guy but very inconsistent ... he was capable of beating most of the top guys ..

 

watch it, now. and drink your kool-aid.

those middleweights were endowed with mystical powers giving them super human abilities.

 

witherspoon had a lot of atributes and was at least as good as Norton. talent wise there was not much a focused witherspoon could not do, to think he was that good without trying too hard proves he lacked all the ingredients however.
timmy underachieved because he could not get up for a fight because nobody scared him enough into giving it everything.
when you bet on a fighter you bet on what he can do and not on what he might do. tim was a "might do" his whole life. less talented fighters were never "might do" guys and thats realy the diference. so what if witherspoon might be good enough to beat great fighters if he felt like it. Tim was never great beacuse he never beat great fighters and was never GREAT for any leangth of time to dominate for even a fraction of an era.
ultimatly he never did deliver so no. he dont beat any great fighter. even if he is beter than norton.

 

Spoon is THE BEST of the "Inconsistant" heavies of all-time........... Had he been serious and consistant with a weight of 211 to 227 pounds throughout his career, he'd have been classified as great...... Spoon was like close to 211 for 'Snipes' in 1982 and 227 for 'Tubbs' in 1986.......... Above 227 pounds, Tim Spoon was slobbish and ineffective...... Had he been more serious, he'd be an ATG!!

MR.BILL

 

IMO, Witherspoon DID beat Holmes, who is a an ATG on my list.

Whether he could have done it consistently is another question.

 

On his performance against Holmes, I'd say he is capable of beating some of those all-time heavyweights.

The problem with Witherspoon was he had very few other fights that displayed anything close to the ability he showed on that best night.[/

 

The prime Spoon would have defeated most of them. His size, speed, power, chin and defense would have made him a terrible head to head match for most of the smaller guys ... he does not come close to matching many legacies but head to head he would do serious damage ...

 

Witherspoon lost to Pinklon Thomas and wasn't exactly setting the world on fire with his majority decision wins over grossly out of shape Page & Tubbs as well as a comeback KO over the always suspectible Frank Bruno.

I believe the Holmes fight remains his greatest ever performance against the best ever fighter he fought, despite only having fought 15 times at that point. I think, considering the circumstances, a seemingly green challenger who was actually at the peak of his abilities could have given trouble to many of the better heavyweight champions of the last century or so. Witherspoon showed up in that fight and arguably deserved the decision although I think he lost.