Quote Originally Posted by Lyle View Post
A very solid and capable fighter...his record is diminished a little by the dodgey decisions vs Holmes (but he hung with the guy who is an ATG at heavyweight which is not easy to do) and the way he "fought" Tyson....it seemed to me, he just took one for the good of the sport in that fight, just so Tyson could get the linear title.

Spinks was a GREAT light heavyweight though
To be fair though Larry Holmes was quite badly faded at that time. Even the early 40's version of Larry Holmes, was better than the late 30's faded one.

Larry Holmes even though he was one of my favorites, only just about scrapped through against Carl Williams. In which he looked like a shot fighter. Just before the Michael Spinks fight.

And in the 1st fight with Michael Spinks. He didn't look good and it was one of his worse performances out of his title fights. He hardly threw a right hand and was too cautious.

In the 2nd fight he was much more up for it, he was aggressive. He released the right hand, and he deserved a clear cut decision. That fight was not close and Larry Holmes easily won by 9 rounds to 6.