Tyson-Spinks.

BUT being one of the Greatest Heavyweights of All-Time at that particular moment meant he was gonna roll through ANYBODY that night (maybe even Ali).

Gerry Cooney wrecked Ron Lyle and Ken Norton in similar fashion like Tyson did Spinks.
 
A couple of guys were beat before a punch was even thrown. If you look at the faces of spinks and Bruno in the ring walk/announcements, you can see that they dont believe they will win. That mindset in any combat sport will almost always end in a loss. The mental side of the game is enormous in boxing.
 
Wow, thats cool fact i didn't know, anybody know why he suddenly quit after 1 loss?

Confidence can play a huge factor in successful fighters. Naz was the same. He only had 1 more fight after Barrera but was smart enough to quit after that. He knew he was not the same fighter anymore. Losing that air of invincibility can be huge in a fighter, especially if it’s a big part of their persona.
 
Confidence can play a huge factor in successful fighters. Naz was the same. He only had 1 more fight after Barrera but was smart enough to quit after that. He knew he was not the same fighter anymore. Losing that air of invincibility can be huge in a fighter, especially if it’s a big part of their persona.
I agree with that but I think it was part of the reason he quit not the whole reason. I think he just didn't want to continue training really hard and working against adversity. His heart wasn't really in boxing. I remember him saying that he wouldn't want his kid to take up boxing because it was too hard. I think he knew if he was going to beat fighters of the calibre of Barrera that he'd have to train harder and smarter than he'd ever done in his life but he wasn't willing to sacrifice himself enough to do that. You can see some of that in the video of the build up to the Barrera fight when in camp he was more interested in playing playstation with his mates than training hard.
 
A couple of guys were beat before a punch was even thrown. If you look at the faces of spinks and Bruno in the ring walk/announcements, you can see that they dont believe they will win. That mindset in any combat sport will almost always end in a loss. The mental side of the game is enormous in boxing.

In the rematch against Tyson, Big Frank set a new world record for the most signs of the cross during a walkout.

I agree with that but I think it was part of the reason he quit not the whole reason. I think he just didn't want to continue training really hard and working against adversity. His heart wasn't really in boxing. I remember him saying that he wouldn't want his kid to take up boxing because it was too hard. I think he knew if he was going to beat fighters of the calibre of Barrera that he'd have to train harder and smarter than he'd ever done in his life but he wasn't willing to sacrifice himself enough to do that. You can see some of that in the video of the build up to the Barrera fight when in camp he was more interested in playing playstation with his mates than training hard.

The no more working and training then really showed as Naz just said, "Fuck it", to all that and just became enormous after. That's always funny when he comes to events.
 
great small man against a naturally greater talent who was bigger, what's the surprise. Spinks was slow of foot and hand, never really packed a punch at heavyweight and hadn't shown he could absorb a heavyweights punishment. Holmes really should have never lost to him in the first place but Larry took him for granted the first time, talked enough shit to lose a close decision the next. anyone remember?

Tyson only had like 6 pounds on him (Tyson 218-Spinks 212) and is 5'10" while Spinx is 6'2". Sure Tyson was a little thicker, but it's not some David vs Goliath comparison. They were both small HW's that had contrasting body styles
 
I remember watching this fight live. It's nice to see in this thread some people remembering just how good Spinks was. It was impressive the way he beat Holmes, which was no small feat at the time. I thought he would have a chance against Tyson, but in the ring it seemed he was beaten before the bell rang.
 
Why was Tyson able to beat Spinks so quickly? Was it because Spinks was afraid, or was Tyson just a bad style match-up for him?

I honestly don't know if it would haven been much different if Spinks weren't afraid. Tyson was bigger and stronger than him.

Spinks didn't want to come out of the locker room to begin with. He just wanted the paycheck. I don't even think he got hurt in the fight.
 
are we still beating this dead horse?

if only you knew...

Michael Spinks has always been one of my favorite boxers for what he accomplished as an Olympian, his amazing LHW run and his added succes at HW. I often bring up Spinks when talking boxing with people, this loss is often all they remember. Funny how things have a way of coming full circle, since a lot of folks mostly remember Tyson's career lows at this point as well: the Buster loss and eargate.

it's because tyson dominated an era mostly devoid of talent. the holmes win was arguably his best, and holmes was more than a decade past prime. once hw saw a lot of talented boxers appear, tyson was noticeably lesser. of course, the prison hiatus can always bring this into question, but tyson had nothing for holyfield. holyfield, bowe, moorer, lennox, etc were noticeably above tyson. even foreman may have been, too.

also, i mean... getting your ass kicked to the point of biting someone's ear off is pretty damn memorable.
 
i would never discount Tyson, he was bad, but that win meant nothing.
I've always considered the Spinks victory to be the highlight of Tyson's career. The level of opposition and the way in which Mike disposed of him puts it over the top for me.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that Spinks was a blown-up LHW and did most of his best work while in that division. He did manage to go 30 well-contested rounds with Holmes though, and he blew Cooney's doors off in the end.

What am I getting at? If you respect Tyson but feel as though the Spinks win "Meant nothing," what fight would you consider to be his finest moment? I don't think any other fight comes close honestly.
 
if only you knew...



it's because tyson dominated an era mostly devoid of talent. the holmes win was arguably his best, and holmes was more than a decade past prime. once hw saw a lot of talented boxers appear, tyson was noticeably lesser. of course, the prison hiatus can always bring this into question, but tyson had nothing for holyfield. holyfield, bowe, moorer, lennox, etc were noticeably above tyson. even foreman may have been, too.

also, i mean... getting your ass kicked to the point of biting someone's ear off is pretty damn memorable.
You really feel as though Moorer was "noticeably" above Tyson? Prime Tyson would make for a bad night for Moorer imo.
 
I remember the build-up well. Most experts were saying Spinks would be Tyson's most difficult challenge to date. I was no expert, but I completely disagreed. I felt Spinks was far too small and slow to survive past the first round. Larry merchant was saying how difficult it'd be for Tyson and I just thought he was talking nonsense.
Well I was right on this occasion.
However, I'd thought Carl the truth Williams and Tyrell Biggs would have a good chance of out-boxing Tyson. Was wrong there.
 
I've always considered the Spinks victory to be the highlight of Tyson's career. The level of opposition and the way in which Mike disposed of him puts it over the top for me.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that Spinks was a blown-up LHW and did most of his best work while in that division. He did manage to go 30 well-contested rounds with Holmes though, and he blew Cooney's doors off in the end.

What am I getting at? If you respect Tyson but feel as though the Spinks win "Meant nothing," what fight would you consider to be his finest moment? I don't think any other fight comes close honestly.
matter of styles, spinks should be able to match a boxer like an old holmes but a killer with real advantages, like a tyson, a foreman or a frazier would kill him. 175 pounds? 6-3? that's pretty lanky. If Tyson could have been shrunk down to dwight quawi's size then spinks would have had a chance but Mike was built, a fast starter, much faster than the smaller man, just a thing of styles. Spinks had an awkward, ugly style and killers like tyson (or foreman who beat the hell out of the similarly awkward Norton) don't play their game like boxers do. awkward fighters get into a mans head and frustrate them and they are thinking so hard about all the bullshit that the awkward fighter does that they don't do enough fighting.
 
matter of styles, spinks should be able to match a boxer like an old holmes but a killer with real advantages, like a tyson, a foreman or a frazier would kill him. 175 pounds? 6-3? that's pretty lanky. If Tyson could have been shrunk down to dwight quawi's size then spinks would have had a chance but Mike was built, a fast starter, much faster than the smaller man, just a thing of styles. Spinks had an awkward, ugly style and killers like tyson (or foreman who beat the hell out of the similarly awkward Norton) don't play their game like boxers do. awkward fighters get into a mans head and frustrate them and they are thinking so hard about all the bullshit that the awkward fighter does that they don't do enough fighting.
Which brings me back to the question: What Tyson performance do you consider to be his best? Looking at his resume, the Spinks victory stands out to me. Of all of Tyson’s fight, which one do you feel stands above the rest?
 
Which brings me back to the question: What Tyson performance do you consider to be his best? Looking at his resume, the Spinks victory stands out to me. Of all of Tyson’s fight, which one do you feel stands above the rest?
Several of his defenses could be said to be about the same level of prime Tyson, Holmes, Biggs, Thomas, I favor fights that go more than one round. one or two round blowouts only proves a guy can punch, their is so much more to the game and one round blow outs have ruined many fighters like Tyson because they think they can do it anytime and no one can. the first and second round kayos may have been disquising the fact that he was losing his skills too, remember, he had the carl williams fight, the tony tubbs fight and the frank bruno fight, he won those but we couldn't see how he was falling apart at the time. Bruno lasted long enough to show us that he was losing his skills, it was a great fight but he wasn't the same, then the williams fight and he just stopped training for douglas at all. Also, in some ways, he may have been best as a prospect (like many fighters are in a certain way) that's when his skills were near perfect, his balance, power, speed, conditioning, even though he wasn't ready for the title. Camacho was like that, he had his best string of wins when he was fighting ranked contenders who were full of potential like him and he wrecked a string of them, then, he won the titles, got some money and was never the same.
 
Just watched this:



... Though I disagree with him on the 1970s. Obviously it wasn't my time, but from what I know the "Rumble in the Jungle" had a bigger impact than the 1st fight between Ali and Frazier.
Also I'm not sure about the 1980s - maybe @mozfonky can help out... was Tyson vs. Spinks really bigger than Holmes vs. Cooney?

As far as the 90s goes - I think most agree with him here, Douglas pulling off the upset had by far the biggest impact of all 90s heavyweight fights.
But he says that George pulling off the upset against Michael Moorer is a close 2nd, and this I just don't see... Holyfield beating Tyson in 1996 was a vastly bigger jawdropper.
 
Also not sure about the 60s... I always had the impression that a young Cassius Clay taking the belt from Sonny Liston was the biggest heavyweight event of the decade.
 
Lol He looked like a man walking to the gallows in his ringwalk for the 2nd fight
what's crazy about that is that in the first fight Bruno fought his ass off, the kayo must have traumatized him. Even Nigel Benn who was with Bruno and was a legit tough guy, even he was intimidated by the whole aura of Tyson and his camp.
 
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