Micheal Spinks/Tunney: Heavyweight accolades

[Willie Pep 229]

Oh good! Another color line argument.

[joseph5620]

Oh good! Another color line argument.

It's not an argument. There's nothing to argue. It happened. It's factual history. Sorry if the truth hurts your little feelings.

[Slugfester]

Uh, he is neglected because he was not a great heavyweight. He was a great light heavyweight. He would be in the bottom half of heavyweight champs. Of course with his stationary style he could not beat the quick footed Tunney. It questionable whether he even beat Holmes. I don't think he could beat Patterson. Cooney was a drunk with fragile self-confidence. He can't beat Fitz, who weighed about the same as Spinks at his best.

Heavyweight champs who (in their primes) would probably beat Spinks without any question, in no order:

1 Fury
2 Wilder
3 Joshua
4 Ruiz
5 Big Klitscho
6 Little Klitscho
7 Norton
8 Holmes
9 Ali
10 Foreman
11 Norton
12 Dempsey
13 Tunney
14 Johnson
15 Douglas
16 Holyfield
17 Jefferies
18 Corbett
19 Braddock
20 Baer
21 Louis
22 Frazier
23 Fitz
24 Tyson
24 Charles
25 Walcott
26 Usyk

He will also probably lose to:

Shavers
Langford
Lyle
Schmeling Even fight
Sharkey Even fight
Patterson Even
Johannsen Even
Willard Even
Quarry

Spinks probably beats everyone else, unless I overlooked someone.

You can see that I don't think much of Spinks as a heavyweight, though beyond doubt he was a great light heavyweight. Still there are some light heavies he would not beat, or maybe breaks even with. Those are marked as such. He is greater than some who would beat him. For instance, he ranks higher than Loughran, who would run circles around him.

1 Loughran
2 Greb
3 Tunney
4 Moore
5 Foster
6 Jones Even
7 Beterbiev Even
8 Langford
9 Slapsie Maxie Even
10 Tarver Even
11 Charles
12 Conn Even
13 Bivol Even


Spinks cannot beat a good, elusive runner. He stands in one spot and pivots. He is #8 in who beats who among light heavies. Still an ATG, greater than some who might beat him.

[Slugfester]

I just watched Spinks/Braxton again. Spinks beat him more easily than the decision indicated. Of course Braxton fought completely the wrong fight. He claims he had a deviated septum before the fight and was too cautious because he greatly feared getting hit there. Spinks was knocked down 3 times in one round, the moronic referee only calling one. So what if they were not hard punches? Each time Spinks went down a landed punch directly preceded it. According to their ****** scorecards, proper refereeing would have made Braxton the winner. But I still don't think so. He won so few rounds.

Spinks was an ATG fighter, but had several flaws other ATGs would certainly take advantage of. He has the Joe Louis flaw worse than Joe ever did, at least in this fight. You think Tunney wouldn't notice that straightaway and use it to land rights, while Spinx tried to figure out what he was doing wrong? Spinks is awkward, probably because he may be a shade on the clumsy side for a world-classer and crosses his feet quite a bit for a world-classer. Despite that, his punch evasion is surprisingly good. If he really had to run faster in a fight, he would fall down a lot more from nothing punches, I can almost guarantee. He got real tired in the fight and became hittable. A great fighter with a good punch would have KOd him at that point. Braxton was not a great, just damned good, and not much of a tactician. Spinks's flawed jab return was there for the taking advantage of, but Braxton never did once. That jab was hurting him too.

As for great men, they both are. Braxton came from the worst environment possible, other than prison and he was there too, and rose to world prominence in very few fights. His brother killed his father, a brother died of an overdose. Spinks was a gentleman every time he was in the ring I know of. He admitted he cried in the dressing room before the fight over his wife. That takes men, I tell you, in my book of masculinity.

Note: Braxton may have been the king (percentage-wise.) of hitting opponents while they were already effectively down. Perhaps just over-exuberance, but that alone was not manly, Dwight.

Note: Anyone who knocks Spinx out had better do it before they are knocked out themselves. I would say he was an ATG puncher.

[Slugfester]

Here on this board, the infamous list makers (and boy there are a bunch of them) pretty much recognize . . .

Tunney
Charles
Moore
Spinks

. . . as the best LHWs. That seems praise enough for Spinks.

I personally think that the four names above, matched, would ALL be pick 'um fights.

That's a great list to be on. Spinks doesn't need to get kudos for beating a couple of past it HWs.

To address your question directly: the answer is Spinks got blown out by Tyson. It was a HW 'wet blanket' that dampened his career, public mind wise.

I gave you a like, but I disagree with several points. I think Foster is on that list too, maybe higher than Spinks.

Foster was blown out by several heavyweights and it doesn't seem to have injured his legacy at all. Why would Spinks's suffer so greatly for being KOd by one of the greatest punchers ever who was an extremely fast starter? Spinks was a natural light heavy, and a known slow starter.

A guy who is consistently ranked in the top five of his natural division on a boxing forum, is not overlooked there, IMO. I don't know of anyone who does not rank him a top light heavy AT. Who does?

I completely agree with (I guess this was in a different letter of yours): where you said Spinks doesn't need and should not have great accolades as a heavyweight. Kind of ridiculous that he ever would get such accolades to me, and he hasn't.

PS

Oh. I am an infamous list maker, Willie. Have a whole folder of them on my computer; everything from unsolved math problems to 20th century musicians in every style, to collective names for different animal species.

Now looky here, there is one now. It counts the number of rabbit punches Fullmer landed on Sugar Ray in their four fights. Only the ones he landed were counted. It was a lot of work and watching, and maybe you will appreciate it. Three rounds got left out (5, 8, 9,), because that was the only version of that fight I could find.

Fight # 1

Rd. 1—9

Rd. 2—15

Rd. 3—10

Rd. 4 —5

Rd. 5—12

Rd. 6—16

Rd. 7—6

Rd. 8—10

Rd. 9—4

Rd. 10—23

Rd. 11—7

Rd. 12—11

Rd. 13—15

Rd. 14—14

Rd. 15—+17

Total=174




Fight # 2

Rd. 1—5

Rd. 2—4

Rd. 3—3

Rd. 4—3

Rd. 5—2=


Total 16




Fight # 3, 18 ft. ring

Rd. 1—5

Rd. 2—16

Rd. 3—9

Rd. 4—6

Rd. 5—?

Rd. 6—2

Rd. 7—3

Rd. 8—?

Rd. 9—?

Rd. 10—6

Rd. 11—7

Rd. 12—1

Rd. 13—1

Rd. 14—1

Rd. 15—2

Total 58


Fight # 4

Rd 1—10

Rd 2—11

RD 3—1

Rd 4—2

Rd 5—10

Rd 6—12

Rd 7—3

Rd 8—13

Rd 9—7

Rd 10—13

Rd 11—11

Rd 12—10

Rd 13—16

Rd 14—5

Rd 15—12

Total 135

Grand Total

+174
+ 31
+ 58
+135

=383

[Willow The Wisp]

Oh good! Another color line argument.

Lol. The "Color Line argument" is not an "Elite" argument, and is therefore "Overrated".

But Gene Tunney fought and beat better fighters than Michael did. Is there an overused phrase for that?

[QueensburyRules]

Why does Micheal Spinks not get the same mention amongst heavyweight greats as Gene Tunney? Both beat great champions past their beat. Both are highly ranked all time great lightheavyweights. But I never see Spinks mentioned the same way I do Tunney.

Personally I don't think either deserve to be mentioned anywhere near say the top 20 ATG heavyweights, but for some reason you see Tunney's name on some lists because of his wins over Dempsey. Spinks in my opinion has at least as an impressive win with his win over Holmes who had/has the second longest consecutive title defenses of the heavyweight championship.

So why doesn't Spinks rank the same as Tunney in many cases?

- - Both are ranked highly at LH by IBRO. For some reason for Heavy they rate Tunney in the lower teens in spite of only two defenses that included the blown KO by the ref of the 2nd Dempsey fight.

Charles is ranked #1 at LH, made 9 or so defenses at Heavy and strangely below Tunney.

Spinks was stripped of his IBF single Tubby Lar belt and only had his Ring belt where he made 4 Defenses, whooping Cooney easy compared to Lar struggles with Cooney.

Spinks deserves to be in, so if the other LHs are are going to be ranked at Heavy, I'd have Ez/Spinks/Tunney in that order.

[Willow The Wisp]

- - Both are ranked highly at LH by IBRO. For some reason for Heavy they rate Tunney in the lower teens in spite of only two defenses that included the blown KO by the ref of the 2nd Dempsey fight.

Charles is ranked #1 at LH, made 9 or so defenses at Heavy and strangely below Tunney.

Spinks was stripped of his IBF single Tubby Lar belt and only had his Ring belt where he made 4 Defenses, whooping Cooney easy compared to Lar struggles with Cooney.

Spinks deserves to be in, so if the other LHs are are going to be ranked at Heavy, I'd have Ez/Spinks/Tunney in that order.

I'll speak on behalf of the Org.
Tunney makes easy work of either great at either weight; speaking to man who makes a champ outta Tate. (We rhyme at the Org.).

[them_apples]

Why does Micheal Spinks not get the same mention amongst heavyweight greats as Gene Tunney? Both beat great champions past their beat. Both are highly ranked all time great lightheavyweights. But I never see Spinks mentioned the same way I do Tunney.

Personally I don't think either deserve to be mentioned anywhere near say the top 20 ATG heavyweights, but for some reason you see Tunney's name on some lists because of his wins over Dempsey. Spinks in my opinion has at least as an impressive win with his win over Holmes who had/has the second longest consecutive title defenses of the heavyweight championship.

So why doesn't Spinks rank the same as Tunney in many cases?

Michael spinks is very underated considering who he beat the circumstances around them. He ranks higher than Tyson imo for sure.

[them_apples]

It's a good question, further abided by Spink's KO of alcohol dependent era Cooney, still a formidable obstacle.

I think that the conclusive nature of his title loss to Mike Tyson has a boatload to do with it.
Tunney was arguably the best fighter of the 1920s, arguably the pinnacle of the sport, and nobody ever blasted him out like that.

For sure, That one round 30 million dollar blow out (or whatever the purse was) against Tyson he took for a paycheque seemed to cement his legacy cause the whole world saw it. Not really fair though.

2 of Tysons biggest wins were guys they pulled off the couch on short notice and lured em in with big pay days. And when Tyson stopped Holmes they also seemed ever so eager to not let him get back up.