BoxRec

Being a Hall of Famer doesn't make you an all-time great. See Ken Norton.

Hall of Fame aside, he clearly would have made it there, I don't see the argument that Ali by '67 didn't have the resume of an all time great. He beat two Heavyweight champions who are considered greats, one of whom is usually regarded as one of the ten or eleven best Heavyweights of all time, he was the second youngest Heavyweight champion of all time at that point, he had beaten the established contenders in the division and he had nine defenses, only Louis and Burns had defended the title more times to that point, he was undefeated and he had unified the titles. That is the resume of an all time great, forgetting that he had his career cut short at 25.

I Feel Fine wrote:Qawi knocked Spinks down, and it hardly matters that Spinks only had one knockdown at Light Heavyweight because he was at Light Heavyweight, this proves nothing in terms of his having a better chin than Patterson as a Heavyweight, and even if Spinksdid have a better chin Patterson was superior in other fields. If Patterson had stayed at Light Heavyweight he would have had at least as dominant a run as Spinks, instead he fought most of his career at Heavyweight against bigger men while Spinks spent most of his career at 175 against smaller men. Trying to say that Spinks is a better Heavyweight than Patterson is such incredible stupidity, even you don't believe this when you suggest it.

- The difference the class of Spinks as a championship fighter verse the glass of Patterson need not be proven since it's self evident to all but the braying donkey class of boxing fan as you've proven to be.

Here's a brief summary of the man whose stellar career you can only attempt to weakly undercut. Don't recall any KD of Spinks in Qawi dustup and the wiki summation supports me:

By 1981, Spinks was already a top ranked contender, and after beating former and future world Light Heavyweight champion Marvin Johnson by a knockout in four rounds, the WBA made Spinks their number one challenger, and so, on July 18 of that year, he met WBA's Light Heavyweight champion Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, once again in Las Vegas. Spinks dropped Mustafa Muhammad in round 12 and went on to become world Light Heavyweight champion with a 15 round decision win. He defended the title once in '81, beating Vonzell Johnson by a knockout in seven.
After four successful defenses in 1982, including a knockout win in eight in a rematch with Sutherland, Spinks had become a superstar, at least in the boxing world. He began appearing on the covers of boxing magazines and boxing fans started clamoring for a unification fight with WBC world champion Dwight Muhammad Qawi. Tragedy struck his life, however, when in January 1983, his 24-year old wife died in a car crash, leaving Spinks the single parent of his two-year-old daughter.
Meanwhile, the fight all the fans wanted was being asked for by boxing critics and magazine editors, too. On March 18, two months after his wife's death, Spinks and Qawi met in a boxing ring. The fight was broadcast by HBO World Championship Boxing, and, according to the book The Ring: Boxing the 20th Century, Spinks had a very tough moment to overcome before it even started: His daughter asked him, while he was in his dressing room, if her mother would come to watch the fight. Spinks almost broke into tears, but soon had to recover and get into the ring, where he and Qawi fought to unify the crown. Spinks was nearly floored in round eight, but he stayed upright and won a 15 round unanimous decision to become the undisputed world Light Heavyweight champion. He defended the title one more time before the end of the year, against Oscar Rivadeneira in Alaska, whom he beat by a ten round knockout.
Spinks fought only once in 1984, retaining his crown with a twelve-round majority decision over Eddie Davis. He and Qawi were only a couple of weeks away from fighting a rematch in September of that year, but that fight got called off when Qawi was injured during training.
In 1985, Spinks beat David Sears and Jim McDonald, both by knockout, in title defenses, before challenging Larry Holmes for the world's Heavyweight championship in a fight recognized by the IBF. Holmes was trying to tie Rocky Marciano's record of 49-0 as the Heavyweight champion, but it was Spinks who made history that night, winning a fifteen-round unanimous decision and becoming the first world Light Heavyweight champion ever to win the world Heavyweight title.

Spinks had a complete filled to the brim at the very peak HOF career. Patterson also a HOFer, but a lesser talent wrapped in cotton wool in his prime no matter how many "big" Tom McNeeleys he fights. Spinks fought in a golden era as the clear class of the era and pulled the three legged stool out from Holmes in a fight the braying donkeyboy fans claim that Larry no longer wanted.

Much to admire about Floyd, but he was nowhere near the prodigious talent and fighting acumen of a Michael Spinks on his best day in the ring. That's OK, because we in the know clearly see you using Floyd as a tool to artificially prop up the overranked first part of Ali's career that question the veracity of the health and the results of his biggest fights of the 60s, the two Liston and one Patterson fight.

That he won is without question, but were they really mentally or physically healthy enough to be in the ring to compete much less win?

Said it before and it bears repeating lest the cacophonous braying of donkey boys short circuit reality, the best prime 60's fighter Ali beat was Terrell. Then it's something of a beauty contest between Jones, Chuvalo, or Mildenberger, not exactly a murderers row compared to Joe actually handling the real threats to the title in undefeated Mathis, Ellis, Bonavena 2x, Foster, Quarry, in addition to handling Chuvalo, Machen, Jones. Add on the names of Leotis Martin and Thad Spencer who competed in the elimination tourney, this notion that Ali wiped out all relevant contenders of the 60s nothing a but a historical revision and turd frosting to be blunt.

I can accept that he had to fight Liston twice and then Floyd because of the history of the division, but Floyd's reign as champ was much like Holmes' reign in that he weakened the era with weak defenses while ignoring the most talented challengers, an opportune time for a puppyish soft challenger to come of age.

It's beyond me why Ali can't stand on the merits of his brilliant natural talent and fine career without having little critters scurrying out of the woodwork to gamely prop him up during his less than stellar career moments. Ali went 24-4 after the Frazier loss, yet according to you he lost his bouts against Young, Shavers, and Norton 3, which makes that a 21-7 record with 3 less title wins, altering ye olde greatometer rating.

At what point in time does Ali actually surpass the career achievements of Joe other than some fluffy legacy points for beating up a couple of ODOTFBGs, Moore, Patterson and Liston?

I submit 1972 when Joe looks terrible against Daniels and Stander where Ali regains his mojo with a stellar 72 year that strangely gets overlooked in the quest for fluffy legacy points. 72 overlooked because Ali and his donkeyboy fans sabotage Ali's own career by refusing to acknowledge Joe's obvious win over Ali and broken promise to crawl to Joe's dressing room if he lost.

True boxing fans would have forgiven the latter had the former been properly addressed. Joe was so steamed he refused to consider the rematch until it became the only way to regain his crown. Instead Ali backslides again with a loss, some say two loses to Norton and poor performances against Bugner and Lubbers, so the Big George star outshines Joe and Ali combined for those storied two years of his ascendancy.

Ali finally wins a lethargic rematch with Joe who is suffering career ending declines of his physical health and well being, then the dramatic Foreman upset, and finally back on top Ali goes on legacy cruise control. He seldom shows up really looking sharp, often out of shape, but managing to stage one last hurrah in Manilla to secure the legacy of he and Joe.

So Ali never really dominates a era with his ring prowess, but rather with his fame is what I get. Frazier, Foreman, and Norton extract their own legacy claims and you can't spin it any other way.

When Tyson closed out the 80s, his closest "golden era" challengers were nowhere near his form with Mr. Field hiring a Mr. America to reshape his skinny frame and Bowe and Lewis getting their amateur clay feet wet as novice pros. I submit that the 80s was actually a lost golden era of heavyweights that Tyson highlights by sweeping out the division of very underranked talents ducked by Holmes in addition to dismissing Spinks and Holmes.

One can criticize Tyson for becoming irrelevant during the 90s, but his 80s comp far more prime and talented not to mention substantially bigger and stronger than what Ali fought in the 60s just to sum up to the subject header conclusion.

Cute, citing wikipedia of all places because you haven't actually seen Spinks-Qawi and do not know that Qawi gave Michael his first career knock down. He was not "nearly" floored, it was ruled a knockdown and there was a count. Fucking moron. You can't even accurately describe his career without looking it up on some website edited by retards like yourself and you're talking crap about me not knowing about Spinks' title reign? Sweet irony. You cannot learn about boxing history by relying on the internet, grasshopper, a lot happens in 12-15 rounds that the boxing websites can't tell you about. Boxing websites might help you learn about how "Ali sucks" but you will have to go beyond that to really learn the history of the sport.
I never even referenced to Patterson's title reigns. Quote me once directly where I stated that Patterson had great title reigns, you baiting prick, you cannot do it because I never even alluded to Patterson's opposition as Heavyweight champion. I in fact agreed with what you said in the original thread, when it was expedient for you to say it, that Patterson's best opposition came late in his career and it was there as an older fighter no longer in his prime that he put on some of his most respectable showings against the big names of the era.
Spinks' title reign is great, but trying to cite his Light Heavyweight opposition in comparison to Floyd beating Machen, Chuvalo, Bonavena fighting competitively with Quarry and almost beating Ellis is nonsense. Patterson's chin was shaky as a Heavyweight when he was fighting bigger men but he had no knockdowns against fighters his size and he blew Archie Moore away at 21 which is more impressive than winning competitive decisions with a weight drained Mustafa and a midget Light Heavyweight in Qawi. And I'm not knocking Spinks when I say that, they are great wins and he was one of the three or four best champions at 175 in the division's history, but that is quite the point, it was Light Heavyweight and not Heavyweight, so spare me the garbage about Patterson being a lesser fighter especially when he would have fought at least as well against that opposition and destroyed in a much more dominant fashion a much better opponent in Archie. You cannot judge the dominance of a big Light Heavyweight champion compared to a small Heavyweight champion, Patterson put it on the line against bigger guys for the majority of his career and this was inevitably going to lead to more knockdowns and knockouts than Michael Spinks had.
Accusing me of artificially propping up an all time great like Patterson is such a vile statement, you're such a bullshit excuse for a fan. Questioning the abilities of Liston and Patterson who would have conquered any of Tyson's mediocre opposition is cute, but you're forgetting who you're arguing for; Tyson's best opponents were a ring rusted fat Heavyweight and a blown up Light Heavy with bad knees.
The rest of your post is pure stupidity. First you accuse me of propping up Ali and then you criticize me for saying that I thought that Ali lost to Young, Norton the third time and Shavers. Can you make up your mind? Why are you even talking about their career's past 23 and 25 when you spent half the thread criticizing me for suggesting that Buster Douglas had some relevance to the discussion? And do you honestly believe that you're going to weaken people's perceptions of Ali as champion in the 60s by saying that its a shame that he wasn't fighting Trevor Berbick and Frank Bruno instead of Liston and Patterson? Get serious. An undefeated fighter with nine defenses over the division's established names who unifies the title and beats two linear champions in the process was not dominant, you say. If that is the case then there have only been a half a dozen dominant title reigns in boxing history... and Tyson's wasn't one of them, especially after he got splattered.

That long post by BRR was pure shite. What a dork.

Collins2000 wrote:That long post by BRR was pure shite. What a dork.

Yeah, though I would say that of all of his posts, the guy's an idiot. I'm finished with this thread.

Collins2000 wrote:That long post by BRR was pure shite. What a dork.

There may be some that feel "pure" is a benchmark that is difficult to achieve, and perhaps something to be valued.
But such things are assessed best if they are hermetically sealed and opened in 20 years to see how they've held up over the test of time.

I Feel Fine wrote:Cute, citing wikipedia of all places because you haven't actually seen Spinks-Qawi and do not know that Qawi gave Michael his first career knock down. He was not "nearly" floored, it was ruled a knockdown and there was a count. Fucking moron. You can't even accurately describe his career without looking it up on some website edited by retards like yourself and you're talking crap about me not knowing about Spinks' title reign? Sweet irony.

- Weren't cute when mummy done bolted the house early without diapering that big potty mouth of yours. Now you done crapped yourself, and not so sweet irony is the emanating fumes of your mess.

Clearly stated I didn't recall a KD, nor do I even recall Spinks being buzzed even once during his career until Tyson. It's been decades since I've seen Qawi, so I searched again for the fight which I've been looking for for ages and found the Wiki reference in support of the specific incident.

In the mean time you found another plum in your shorts as you pronounced yourself such a fine boy for such a fine find. Just Brilliant!

Spinks is the much greater championship fighter as respected by his 6th IBRO LH ranking plus he beat a higher ranked undefeated IBRO heavy twice in Holmes and beat better overall comp than Floyd or Ali did in his first reign even if it was shorter. Floyd doesn't make IBRO honourable mention heavy rankings much less top 20, period.

Liston near the same age as Holmes when both lose their titles. Holmes the lesser talent but better trained at that point and much more motivated than Liston who had started to take the path of least resistance. So Spinks beating Holmes twice and Tyson beating Spinks and Holmes surpass the best of Ali's first reign and Floyd's best ever. The Moore/Patterson fight was nice, but anyone seeing the first Durelle fight in comparison when Archie's even older can see Archie was stopped by Floyd on a flash KD that he protested violently to no avail. Better to stop that fight early before the experience of Archie started to wear on the very untested Floyd but who had the flashy gold Olympic credentials and the youthful career of large promotions ahead of him.

Mummy finally came home and cleaned you up my little friend, but the stench of your potty mouth is permanent as are the stains. Pretty much all a guy who fights like a washerwoman can come up with.

Now, if someone comes up with the Spinks KD by Qawi with a count, fine and dandy, an adjustment will be made. For now for years the prevailing literature on Spinks has been he was untouched and untroubled in his career until Tyson, so time for you to start pulling plums my little friend, so begone and be misbegotten in private for sake of the public health.

I didn't read past the 1st sentence but I bet BRR's post above was pure unadulterated dog shite.

Might want to find something other than Wikipedia, BRR, you've hurt yourself in every post. The Junior High-level attempts at trash talk and the repetition of mistakes can't help you. Your make believe revisionism of Patterson-Moore does not need comment.

Can't wait for the first butting of heads between Gran & BRR.

Well, I have no love loss with Dingleberry, but he is at least entertaining... BRR is retarded.

BroughtonRulesRefuge wrote:

I Feel Fine wrote:Cute, citing wikipedia of all places because you haven't actually seen Spinks-Qawi and do not know that Qawi gave Michael his first career knock down. He was not "nearly" floored, it was ruled a knockdown and there was a count. Fucking moron. You can't even accurately describe his career without looking it up on some website edited by retards like yourself and you're talking crap about me not knowing about Spinks' title reign? Sweet irony.

- Weren't cute when mummy done bolted the house early without diapering that big potty mouth of yours. Now you done crapped yourself, and not so sweet irony is the emanating fumes of your mess.

Clearly stated I didn't recall a KD, nor do I even recall Spinks being buzzed even once during his career until Tyson. It's been decades since I've seen Qawi, so I searched again for the fight which I've been looking for for ages and found the Wiki reference in support of the specific incident.

In the mean time you found another plum in your shorts as you pronounced yourself such a fine boy for such a fine find. Just Brilliant!

Spinks is the much greater championship fighter as respected by his 6th IBRO LH ranking plus he beat a higher ranked undefeated IBRO heavy twice in Holmes and beat better overall comp than Floyd or Ali did in his first reign even if it was shorter. Floyd doesn't make IBRO honourable mention heavy rankings much less top 20, period.

Liston near the same age as Holmes when both lose their titles. Holmes the lesser talent but better trained at that point and much more motivated than Liston who had started to take the path of least resistance. So Spinks beating Holmes twice and Tyson beating Spinks and Holmes surpass the best of Ali's first reign and Floyd's best ever. The Moore/Patterson fight was nice, but anyone seeing the first Durelle fight in comparison when Archie's even older can see Archie was stopped by Floyd on a flash KD that he protested violently to no avail. Better to stop that fight early before the experience of Archie started to wear on the very untested Floyd but who had the flashy gold Olympic credentials and the youthful career of large promotions ahead of him.

Mummy finally came home and cleaned you up my little friend, but the stench of your potty mouth is permanent as are the stains. Pretty much all a guy who fights like a washerwoman can come up with.

Now, if someone comes up with the Spinks KD by Qawi with a count, fine and dandy, an adjustment will be made. For now for years the prevailing literature on Spinks has been he was untouched and untroubled in his career until Tyson, so time for you to start pulling plums my little friend, so begone and be misbegotten in private for sake of the public health.

Regardless of the Durelle fight, Patterson dominated and handled Moore nicely.
If that so called flash KD had not ended it, then it is safe to say it would have
happened some time thereafter. Patterson was in perfect form that night.

Holmes' training, defences and exhibitions had taken their toll by the time he met
Williams-Spinks. He proved that with a re-assesment, rest and some come backs
that even in his 40s he could be a credible guy.

Posters have to remember that fighters get tired, feel pain and some days feel old
and other days feel like super men. Some days you wake up and do not know how
you will make it through round 1 and other times you know no man could stop you
on that day.

Holmes, Liston, Tyson, Spinks etc are all no exceptions to this. They are just men
and while they do get paid a lot to fight. The average employee get's paid alot to
work, yet how many of them have less than flat days but still get a pay cheque.

^^^Probably something overlooked too often.

Robinson wrote:Holmes, Liston, Tyson, Spinks etc are all no exceptions to this. They are just men
and while they do get paid a lot to fight. The average employee get's paid alot to
work, yet how many of them have less than flat days but still get a pay cheque.

I agree robinson. And it is good that you did not mention Ali among those names, otherwise you would be making excuses for him, as BRR has explained to us while defending Tyson's loss to Douglas.

It goes for all fighters. I just mentioned those guys because they were
recently being discussed.

Ali is most certainly in that list. Any man on top, who has to do his best
to stay there while hungry challengers do their best to knock him of his
throne.

Its not an excuse, it is merely a fact of life.

Robinson... that was a shot at BRR, not at you. I understood your point, it was a point I made earlier. Fighters have their off days, but for BRR an old and out of shape Ali is not allowed an off day, only Tyson... even in his prime. His is the kind of logic that one uses to argue for geocentrism.

Got you.

BRR, uses the same logic for Holmes sadly. And I will not stand for it :)

I Feel Fine wrote:Might want to find something other than Wikipedia, BRR

- Why, Mr. Potty, all I need do is post a reference to your nursery school primer and that would be an upgrade to zero content that you provide.

Not like I'm presenting a dissertation to a distinguished panel of historians, but there are plenty of others who understand my points and appreciate the content.

Ahuh.
Glad to see we have a Wikipedia scholar in our midst, someone who uses this sometimes reliable but often times not website which anyone can edit (BRR included, I might add) to tell people with first-hand information what the facts are. Great

I pulled the fight out, haven't seen it in a long time. Qawi lands a body shot and Spinks goes down. To be fair Spinks was probably a little off balance, though he had also just been hit by a big right on the jaw. The ref gives him a standing eight and Barry Tompkins says that it is being ruled a knock down. Later in the round Spinks trips a couple of times and neither are called knock downs; perhaps these two slips that came after the knock down are what Wikipedia is referring to.
So, again, your information is incorrect. Michael wasn't hurt but he did have an official knock down at Light Heavyweight. Bury it up your ass.

Robinson wrote:Regardless of the Durelle fight, Patterson dominated and handled Moore nicely.
If that so called flash KD had not ended it, then it is safe to say it would have
happened some time thereafter. Patterson was in perfect form that night.

Holmes' training, defences and exhibitions had taken their toll by the time he met
Williams-Spinks. He proved that with a re-assesment, rest and some come backs
that even in his 40s he could be a credible guy.

- Already made a strong case for Holmes being well overrated, whether his 20s, 30s, or 40s, but that's a separate issue.

Just comparing the careers of Spinks to Patterson/Holmes to Liston in the context to the thread header and using independent consensus evaluations such as Ibro, Holmes and Spinks are ranked much higher than are Patterson and Liston, no two ways about it. Add on the context of their physical and mental health at the time of the fights and the non controversial way Tyson so easily dismisses Holmes/Patterson, then Tyson blows Ali out of the water in the strength of his first reign compared to Ali.

It was expected that the younger, faster, more mobile Floyd would come out of the blocks faster than Moore, but Moore was taken out of that fight prematurely by the ref, especially in the context of the era which was the most dangerous in boxing. Floyd was knocked down 7x against Ingo in the first fight in spite of being out after the first KD for example and was allowed to fight on in many subsequent fights in spite of multi KDs that often weren't even called KDs.

If the limited Ingo could knock him out, I expect Moore deserved at very least one more opportunity to adjust for his shot at Floyd's dainty chin. The powers that be simply groomed Patterson for the crown, a plain and simple more financially astute decision. I like Floyd on a personal level compared to a general disdain I have for Mr. Larry, but Floyd was one of the most vulnerable heavy champs ever and his reign the weakest since that of Burns and Johnson.

Mark my words my friends, starting with Tyson's induction to the IBHOF, his career to get a major reevaluation and the strength of those early years are utterly standout compared to any other's first 5 yrs. He's not getting in on the subsequent 15 yrs of being a very popular parttime club level fighter in accomplishments.

I Feel Fine wrote:I pulled the fight out

- Why, Mr. Potty, you must feel mighty fine to pull out another fine plum. Time to call for the clean up brigade........."MUMMY"

Talk about bullshit.
Holmes is certainly rated ahead of Liston. Spinks, however, is not rated ahead of Patterson as Heavyweights. BRR is again sadly trying trying to obfuscate the point that Michael was a Light Heavyweight for most of his career, as though no one is going to notice, and as though this has no bearing on how he should be judged compared to Patterson. Incredible tunnel vision. The difference between the Holmes that fought Tyson and the Liston that fought Clay is self-evident and there for anyone to see, I don't care what anyone says about Liston in that fight he was in much better shape and was younger than Holmes. Liston looked bad at times because of the style match up, but he was competitive and clearly if it had been Patterson or Williams in there instead of Clay he would have scored another early knockout. The knock on Liston in that fight is that he had been inactive, which is fair enough, except for the fact that Holmes hadn't fought in over a year either and took the fight on short notice. Liston clearly had more left in him when he lost the title. Patterson did have the bad back, though Spinks looked to be on bad knees and was also coming off a year absence.
Floyd knocked Moore out; you aren't allowed an opportunity to get up and make adjustments when the ref counts to ten. I thought posters on this board were on a high enough level to know this, but apparently not. Moore may have been a little old but he was still the Light Heavyweight champion and would remain so for years. When Spinks beat Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Eddie was weight drained having killed himself to make weight and was apparently being pushed by Saad to work to drop the weight the very day of the weigh in. This being one of Michael's two great wins at Light Heavyweight, which ended as a competitive Unanimous Decision for him, I think Floyd KO'ing the greatest Light Heavyweight champion of all time in five rounds at 21 can be given a bit more credit.
Tyson's title reign is overrated, and you're overrating your own reasoning abilities.

BroughtonRulesRefuge wrote:

I Feel Fine wrote:I pulled the fight out

- Why, Mr. Potty, you must feel mighty fine to pull out another fine plum. Time to call for the clean up brigade........."MUMMY"

Look at BRR squirm at being confronted with his blatant errors. Life isn't fair sometimes, I have the fight and you have Wikipedia, but your juvenile troll response doesn't make up for the fact that you've been exposed... again. Look, Spinks was not badly hurt and normally I would forgive this kind of small mistake that you made, I am sure that I have made them myself, but you made a point of trying to mock me for allegedly not having a knowledge of Spinks' career simply because I said that he had been knocked down at 175, and you did so by... again... citing Wikipedia of all places, so you can really kiss my ass on this one.

I Feel Fine wrote:Talk about bullshit.
Holmes is certainly rated ahead of Liston. Spinks, however, is not rated ahead of Patterson as Heavyweights. BRR is again sadly trying trying to obfuscate the point that Michael was a Light Heavyweight for most of his career, as though no one is going to notice, and as though this has no bearing on how he should be judged compared to Patterson.

- Why, Mr. Potty, I made Mike Spink's LH ranking front and center.

Little Tommy Burns made more successful HEAVY defenses than did Floyd, so now he must be better than Floyd by Mr. Potty logic and little Fitz with zero successful defenses ranked over Burns AND Floyd.

Mike Spinks is the epitome of a super accomplished big modern heavy cut down to LH before moving up the ranks. He would easily handle Fitz, Burns, and Floyd on the same night and you can't spin it any other way. It's Spinks who is highly rated and with better wins. Floyd unrated in any category with lesser wins....end of.........