THE 100 GREATEST BOXERS OF ALL-TIME #51: MICHAEL SPINKS

“THE SPINKS JINX”

Kenneth Bridgham

4 min readNov 28, 2022

31 WINS (21 BY KO), 1 LOSS

World Light Heavyweight Champion 1981–1985

World Heavyweight Champion 1985–1988

Boxing Writers Association of America Fighter of the Year 1976

International Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee 1994

Archie Moore tried it. So did Billy Conn. Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, Georges Carpentier, Tommy Loughran, John Henry Lewis, Joey Maxim, and Bob Foster, too. All were light heavyweight champions of the world who tried to move up and take the heavyweight title only to fail. Michael Spinks attempted the same feat in 1985 against an undefeated Larry Holmes. Only Michael Spinks succeeded. And in the 37 years since that historic night, no other light heavyweight champ has repeated the feat of taking the lineal heavyweight crown. “The Spinx Jinx” still holds true.

Nine years before that signature professional win, Michael capped off a successful amateur career by winning Gold as a middleweight at the Montreal Olympics in 1976, along with his older brother Leon, who took Gold as a heavyweight. Promoter Butch Lewis convinced the brothers to turn pro in 1977.

The light heavyweight division was filled with top talents at the time, yet Michael went on a 1 winning streak at 175 pounds before facing the hard-hitting WBA light heavyweight titleholder and lineal champion Eddie Mustafa Muhammad in 1981. Spinks utilized terrific movement, a punishing body attack, a crisp left jab, and his famously heavy straight right to cut and drop Muhammad en route to a 15-round decision victory and the belt.

Spinks defended the championship five times, winning all by knockout, before taking on future Hall of Famer and WBC titlist Dwight Muhammad Qawi in a 1983 unification match. Rising from an eighth-round knockdown, he took the unanimous fifteen 15-round decision to become the first undisputed light heavyweight champion since the retirement of Bob Foster nine years earlier. Spinks then made another four defenses (three by KO) before abandoning his belts and moving up to heavyweight, having already established himself as one of history’s greatest 175 pounds.

Following a strict muscle-building regimen, Michael packed about 20 pounds of solid muscle onto his 6’2 ½” frame to go right for the heavyweight champion. And it was not just any heavyweight champion, it was one of the all-time greats, Larry Holmes. Undefeated in 48 fights, Holmes was one victory away from tying Rocky Marciano’s 49–0 winning streak. Holmes was taller, outweighed Spinks by over 20 pounds, and had a five-inch reach advantage which was thought to spell doom for Spinks, as Holmes was one of the finest jabbers the sport had ever seen.

They fought on September 21, 1985, at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. As he had with Mustafa Muhammad four years earlier, Spinks used every boxing trick and punch in the book to beat Holmes to the punch, outbox him, and secure a narrow but unanimous decision victory. It was a stunning and historic upset, and Spinks was the first lineal light heavyweight champion to win the lineal heavyweight title. He and his brother Leon were also the first siblings to win the heavyweight championship.

Some thought Holmes won that first fight, and the April 19, 1986 rematch at the Hilton in Las Vegas was also a highly competitive affair. Spinks survived an early onslaught from the bigger man to box his way to another controversial judges’ call.

In a petty, political move, both the WBA and WBC subsequently stripped Spinks of their belts, but he remained the lineal and Ring magazine heavyweight champion of the world through two more years and two more successful defenses, both by stoppage. In the meantime, the young phenom Mike Tyson went on a knockout rampage through the division, unifying the WBA, WBC, and IBF belts.

In one of the most publicized super-fights of the decade between undefeated men both claiming the championship, he was decimated in less than two minutes by younger, heavier, stronger Tyson in the Atlantic City Convention Hall on June 27, 1988. It would be the only defeat of Spinks’s illustrious career. One month later, he announced his retirement.