It’s a shame most only people Michael Spinks as the guy who was bombed out in a round at the hands of Iron Mike Tyson. The reality is though that Spinks was one of the greatest light heavyweight boxers in history and moved up to heavyweight to beat one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time in Larry Holmes.

In the video here we see greatness from two people here. Firstly of course Michael Spinks who put on a clinic to beat an excellent opponent in Dwight Qawi but secondly and no less important, another reason demonstrating what a master strategist coach Eddie Futch was. My last article actually was another demonstration of Futchs mastermind as there I looked at how Montell Griffin, under Futchs instructions gave Roy Jones Jr fits.

Now Dwight Muhammad Qawi is someone I have written about on this site, specifically looking at his use of the jab to the body and head. Eddie Futch knew that Qawi would be looking to land this shot as Qawi was a short fighter so this was one of the his preferred counter punchers to the opponents jab. To combat this Michael Spinks would slip to the inside off his own jab, what this did was it took his head off the centre line so whenever Qawi looked to counter with the outside slip jab to the head, Spinks head wouldn’t be there as he had slipped to the inside after throwing his jab.

Another tactic was making sure Qawi couldn’t use his right hand over the top of the jab. Qawi loved to throw this shot as the opponent was jabbing, catching them with a big right hand. Spinks though was constantly changing direction and moving away to his right, this meant Qawi’s right hand was often sailing harmlessly away and hitting air. At times Spinks would jab and instantly move across to the right anticipating the right over the top from Qawi, other times he would slip to the inside off his jab and then move to the right off his next jab, whether Qawi tried the right hand or the outside slip jab to the head, both efforts fell short. If Qawi missed with a right as Spinks was turning to the right, it sometimes resulted in Qawi being out of position which meant Spinks could then launch an attack on Qawi.

As the fight went on, Michael Spinks could now use his jab as a bait to draw Qawi in by inviting the right hand and when Qawi took the bait, Spinks could catch him on the way in with either another jab or a short left hook.