Do we underate Micheal Spinks?

[crold1]

His resume at 175 is probably top 3 of all times. He didn't really beat Holmes imo, it was a robbery, especially the 2nd fight. Then he got KOd brutally.

But he's definitely and atg LHW.

No beef with the decision in their first; that rematch was 10-5 at the least with a 10-8 no KD round late. Holmes almost had him out and Spinks did next to nothing for much of the night. One of the worst decisions in a significant Heavy title fight I ever saw.

[billeau2]

michael spinks is a legend and all time great. i'll tell u like this, back in the day, marvin johnson and saad muhammad, after beating the crap outta the best of the division, well they then literally beat the crap out of each other for one of the 2 world belts while mike rossman and victor galindez beat the crap out of eachother for the other belt. marvin johnson beat the crap outta galindez for that other belt then got destroyed by eddie mustafa muhammad for that belt. same time mighty dwight pounded the spirit out of saad in 2 fights. spinks beat mustafa muhammad then takes dwight on points and alng the way spinks beats the list of names ray corso gave. spinks is the prevailinchamp of the greatest crew of 175lbcontenders ever. slim never lost at 175. roy jones is phenomenal and if they were to fight in a fantasy its possible spinks cant land the jinx on roy but if he did, he'd make u forget alll about the 2nd tarver n the glencoffe fight. hell jones would forget everything for an hour or so. also, what if spinks jabbed n awkwardly circled jones like he did qawi? what if jones started to reach and ate the jinx cross? well i done told u what wouldhappen. spinx resume at 175 beats jones resume easy. hall? gonzales? erick harding? the only 175 opponent roy ever fought who coulda maybe hung with spinks is tarver.

I tend to think of it like this: Jone's chin being what it was at that time & weight....Could he avoid being hit by Spinks? Doubtful. Jones was a phenom but Spinks had such great movement and so many weapons.

If he hits Jones then you get a situation that we know about thanks to Tarver and Glencoff. Spinks footspeed was so much better than either Tarver (a decent fighter) and Glencoff J (an inspiration but limited physically). An argument could he made that Johnson's pressure tactics were sublime and that is why he got to Jones...I mean if Johnson got a few more decisions that he deserved he would be in a discussion about great fighters, me thinks! But at any rate Jones would not outmanuveur Spinks, HELL NO! if we are talking about a 15 rounder!

[Daddy T]

He was undefeated as a lhw.
Beat Larry Holmes although somewhat with some controversy
Your thoughts please

absolutely, he was one of the best light heavys ever ... getting Ko'd by the best ever version of Mike Tyson seems to have destroyed his credentials in the eyes of many, but it really shouldn't ... you could name on one hand the fighters that would have hung with mike that night

[Cardinal Buck]

At 34 years old, you could've hardly blamed Roy for losing against Tarver because of the fact that he was aging and his style didn't have the makings of one you could have a particularly long career with. Add in the fact that Roy had to lose those 20lbs of muscle, though, and he was never going to be the same again.

As I said, his style just didn't allow to him to lose that split second of a physical speed advantage he held over everyone else and it's showed in every single fight since the move back down from Heavyweight. Even in the first Tarver fight he was getting hit and didn't look good. Roy would've dominated Tarver, had he been in a position to challenge Roy around the turn of the millennium when he was probably at the peak of his powers.

Don't get me wrong, Spinks was fast and he could swat, but his speed (hand or foot) just wasn't on the same level as a prime Roy Jones. I'm not sure he was as mentally sharp either. Roy could box and move and hit Michael at angles that he didn't even know existed.

Show me where Roy lost 20 pounds of muscle.

[Scott9945]

Show me where Roy lost 20 pounds of muscle.

That seems to be a very popular myth among Jones fans. IMO, Roy was juiced up for the Ruiz fight. Other great lightheavies of the past have fought at heavyweight and then returned without needing any excuses.

[CHEECH]

to b fair to jones n jones fans, i think he went into the ring v ruiz near 200lb something like that n i've experienced this myself where u start messing with weights and gain some weight and then later go back to train down to for me, 60 kilos n u then have some 5-7 pounds that r a struggle to get rid of, maybe end up at 139/141 or dry the weight off n force barf pre weigh in all of which r ok if u only going the 6 minutes (3x2min) but for pros? eddie gregory mustafa muhamad said the same thing when he fought renaldo snipes at like 200lb then defended v spinks. cutting the weight was the problem so its possible it did affect jones in that grueling first fight with tarver

[Scott9945]

to b fair to jones n jones fans, i think he went into the ring v ruiz near 200lb something like that n i've experienced this myself where u start messing with weights and gain some weight and then later go back to train down to for me, 60 kilos n u then have some 5-7 pounds that r a struggle to get rid of, maybe end up at 139/141 or dry the weight off n force barf pre weigh in all of which r ok if u only going the 6 minutes (3x2min) but for pros? eddie gregory mustafa muhamad said the same thing when he fought renaldo snipes at like 200lb then defended v spinks. cutting the weight was the problem so its possible it did affect jones in that grueling first fight with tarver

You make a good example with Eddie Mustapha Muhammad. But the difference is that he fought Snipes at 201 on 5/17/81, then had to defend against Spinks at 175 on 7/18/81. That's a lot of weight to drop that quickly. Jones had over 8 months to drop less weight.

[Cardinal Buck]

to b fair to jones n jones fans, i think he went into the ring v ruiz near 200lb something like that n i've experienced this myself where u start messing with weights and gain some weight and then later go back to train down to for me, 60 kilos n u then have some 5-7 pounds that r a struggle to get rid of, maybe end up at 139/141 or dry the weight off n force barf pre weigh in all of which r ok if u only going the 6 minutes (3x2min) but for pros? eddie gregory mustafa muhamad said the same thing when he fought renaldo snipes at like 200lb then defended v spinks. cutting the weight was the problem so its possible it did affect jones in that grueling first fight with tarver

Even if this were the case in the first fight, his big problem was in the second fight. Jones was taking risks early to establish dominance that he hadn't in the first fight (same as with Griffin), only he got countered perfectly with a shot that would've knocked most people out. I don't think Jones' conditioning or reflexes even came into play much in the second fight.

[CHEECH]

scot n card, both good points, well taken. like i said earlier, tarver's the best lightheavy roy ever fought n we dont really know what woulda happened if he had fought roy a few years earlier. entirely possible that the outcome woulda been the same anyway. still roy was a phenomenally gifted fighter

[CHEECH]

forgot to say, great avatar scott. eye candy is a good thing