Dream Matchup: Holyfield vs. Spinks @190

[BoxBuzz]

I wanted to bring this back up.

190 was the old Cruiserweight limit....so it does look intriguing.....right about Spinks best weight, but Holy would be a bit disadvantaged at this prime.

Opinions? Over 10 years later?


Please note....I have added a survey question to collect opinions.

[campfire]

What a great match up this would be if they fought 10 time's they would probably win 5 apiece but if I had to pick a winner I'd imagine Spinks
boxing at his brilliant best with Holyfield trying to put the pressure on by round 6 Spinks would be doing well and hold a slight lead on all 3 judge's score card's with the smarter boxing in round 10 Holyfield rocks Spinks who holds on for dear life to see out the round over the next 5 round's
Holyfield seems to get stronger and Spinks bravely try's to hold off Holyfield but is on the back foot for most of the championship round's[last 3 ]
and at the final bell Holyfield is awarded a close un dec..................

[gregor]

(...) Mikes camp made sure that they waited for the Spinks fight till Micheal was past his best.

It was possible he was past his best, but I do not see any waiting on Mike side. He defeated Berbick (end of 86) to get his first title, the next year added WBA and IBF to the collection. I do not know if Biggs was his mandatory, but even if not - Biggs was undefeated at that time, and held a win (in amateur) over Tyson, so the fight is OK for me. It was rather Spinks who was inactive in 87' with only one fight.

[Ezzard]

Spinks knew he wasn't a HW. He fought brilliantly to beat the slowed down Holmes. But no way was Spinks risking the big money fight with Tyson by going in with a live contender. Spinks avoided a live fight until he got the big pay day.

Holyfield would win. Spinks was a truly great LHW but I don't consider him as much of a HW. He could beat cumbersome HWs...

[Tony1244]

Honestly couldn't with confidence choose a winner here but have to lean towards Spinks based on experience. Great fight it would have been, though

That's why I "cheated" and picked draw. Tough question. An easier question would have been Holyfiled vs Leon, @ 190, I would go with Holydeal KO2 on that one.

[Ambling Alp II]

Spinks knew he wasn't a HW. He fought brilliantly to beat the slowed down Holmes. But no way was Spinks risking the big money fight with Tyson by going in with a live contender. Spinks avoided a live fight until he got the big pay day.

Holyfield would win. Spinks was a truly great LHW but I don't consider him as much of a HW. He could beat cumbersome HWs...

It would have been interesting to see Spinks against someone like Witherspoon, Thomas, Page etc.

We can only judge him by the five fights that he did have at heavyweight.
He looked pretty good in four of them.

[Ezzard]

He fought for 45 seconds a round in the Holmes fights (brilliant strategy not a criticism)...the other two fights were against a guy who shouldn't have been in the ring with him and a heroin addict.

I love Spinks at 175. I like him as a guy too. I cheered for him in almost every fight but he I don't think he really believed he could beat Witherspoon or Thomas. I doubt he'd have beaten Bonecrusher...

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

Instead of making the leap all the way to heavyweight, Mike Spinks puts on a modest amount of weight and faces a prime cruiserweight Evander Holyfield at 190. Who wins, and why?

- Well, Eric, it goes like this:

Spinks only lost to one fighter, a peaking, Mike Tyson who in that time frame could beat any champion in history.

Mr. Field literally, I mean literally went life and death against the tubby version of the 5'-5" Qawi whereas Spinks easily outboxed the best version of Qawi that ever existed. Really, now, it's just plain silly talk or misty eyed idolatry to think that any version of Mr. Field would stand more than a nominal puncher's chance against a true all time great like Spinks who rolled the dice and went up two divisions to slap down Mr. Larry with Rocky's handy jockstrap. Time to keep it real on this forum.
8)

[BoxBuzz]

Don't forget that this hypthetical has 190 as the problem for Holyfield.


HW vs HW....I think that's pretty one sided in Holy's favor.....maybe not everyone agrees.


But the weight is what makes this so intriguing to me.

[gregor]

Mr. Field literally, I mean literally went life and death against the tubby version of the 5'-5" Qawi whereas Spinks easily outboxed the best version of Qawi that ever existed.

To be fair, you should also take into account it was Holyfield 12th fight with a little more than 1.5 year as a pro. It is obvious he took the wrong strategy against Qawi and still won. He did much better in rematch (though you may say Qawi also deteriorated by that time)