What is Michael Spinks's record?

31–1 in boxing. That is the aggregate stated in the English Wikipedia infobox; the results table on the same article lists 32 bouts individually.

Does a no contest change a record here?

No. A no contest is not a win, a loss or a draw, and it is never folded into one. It is counted and printed separately, so a 20–0 record with two no contests is shown as exactly that rather than as 22–0 or as 20–0 with the no contests dropped. The same applies to a bout overturned after the fact where the source records the change.

What happens when sources disagree about a fight?

This site publishes one source — the fighter's English Wikipedia article, read on the date printed under every table — and it does not silently reconcile that against anyone else's database. Where the article's own infobox total and its own results table disagree, both are shown and the page says which one each figure came from. Nothing is averaged, and no field is filled in from a second source to make a total balance.

Michael Spinks — record, reach and career in context

Boxing record

31–1

Michael Spinks has a reach of 76″ against a height of 74″ — a reach advantage of +2.66%, short for heavyweight boxing and the 36th percentile of the 317 compared here.

WON ABOVE·LOST BELOW BAR = STOPPAGE·BROKEN BAR = SUBMISSION·TICK = DECISION 1977–1988

SOURCE·Michael Spinks — English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)·derived figures computed here·REVIEWED 2026-07-11

How this record is compiled

Measurements come from the fighter's English Wikipedia infobox; the bout list is parsed from the results table on the same article, read on 2026-07-11. Boxing tables are read by header name and MMA records by the fixed column order of the MMA record template — two different parsers, because reading MMA rows as a boxing table returns a fighter's boxing record in place of their real one.
A bout enters the ledger with whatever fields the source states: result, opponent, method, round, year. Any field the source leaves empty stays empty here. A date that cannot be established is left blank rather than inferred, and the bout is still counted.
A no contest is counted and printed as a no contest. It is never folded into the wins, the losses or the draws, and it never disappears to make a total balance.
Where the article's infobox total disagrees with its own results table, both figures are published and each is labelled with where it came from. Nothing is averaged and nothing is reconciled against a second database.
Percentiles rank this fighter among the 317 heavyweight boxing fighters in the dataset — the most specific group of at least 30 that this fighter belongs to.

reach advantage = (reach − height) ÷ height × 100

Sources, exclusions and known limits →

Bout record

Every bout the article's own results table lists, in order. A dash is a field the source leaves empty — it is not a zero and it is not a guess.

Bout-by-bout recordAUG 2026
Year	Result	Opponent	Method	Rd
1988	L	Mike Tyson	KO/TKO	1
1987	W	Gerry Cooney	KO/TKO	5
1986	W	Steffen Tangstad	KO/TKO	4
1986	W	Larry Holmes	—	15
1985	W	Larry Holmes	Decision	15
1985	W	Jim MacDonald	KO/TKO	8
1985	W	David Sears	KO/TKO	3
1984	W	Eddie Davis	Decision	12
1983	W	Oscar Rivadeneyra	KO/TKO	10
1983	W	Dwight Muhammad Qawi	Decision	15
1982	W	Johnny Davis	KO/TKO	9
1982	W	Jerry Celestine	KO/TKO	8
1982	W	Murray Sutherland	KO/TKO	8
1982	W	Mustafa Wassaja	KO/TKO	6
1981	W	Vonzell Johnson	KO/TKO	7
1981	W	Eddie Mustafa Muhammad	Decision	15
1981	W	Marvin Johnson	KO/TKO	4
1981	W	Willie Taylor	KO/TKO	8
1980	W	Yaqui Lopez	KO/TKO	7
1980	W	David Conteh	KO/TKO	9
1980	W	Murray Sutherland	Decision	10
1980	W	Ramon Ranquello	KO/TKO	6
1980	W	Johnny Wilburn	Decision	8
1979	W	Marc Hans	KO/TKO	1
1978	W	Eddie Phillips	KO/TKO	4
1978	W	Tom Bethea	Decision	8
1977	W	Gary Summerhays	Decision	8
1977	W	Ray Elson	KO/TKO	1
1977	W	Jasper Brisbane	KO/TKO	2
1977	W	Joe Borden	—	2
1977	W	Luis Rodriguez	—	6
1977	W	Eddie Benson	—	1

9 of these opponents have their own page here.

SOURCE·Michael Spinks — English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)·derived figures computed here·REVIEWED 2026-07-11

Reach in context

Reach advantage

+2.66%

76″ reach on a 74″ frame

lowestmedianhighest

Compared against 317 heavyweight boxing fighters. Median 3.99%.

-2.8%heavyweight boxing reach advantage12%

Measurements
Reach	76″ (193 cm)	32nd pct
Height	74″ (188 cm)	39th pct
Stance	Orthodox
Division	Heavyweight Boxing competed at 2: light heavyweight, heavyweight — compared here against the last
Most active decade	1980s — 23 of 32 dated bouts
Country	United States

Record

Boxing record

31–1

32 bouts on record

Finish rate

68%

of wins ended inside the distance — heavyweight boxing median 68%, 50th percentile

By knockout 68%
By decision 32%

The career, bout by bout

32 recorded bouts from 1977 to 1988. Every incumbent shows this as a table you have to read; here it is as a shape you can see.

winlossdraw / NC1977–1988

Career span

12y

1977–1988

Longest unbeaten run

31

without a loss — draws do not break it

Busiest year

1977

6 bouts

Recorded bouts

32

32 with a date

Closest in build

heavyweight boxing fighters with the nearest reach advantage.

Standing questions

What this record does and does not say

What is Michael Spinks's record?: 31–1 in boxing. That is the aggregate stated in the English Wikipedia infobox; the results table on the same article lists 32 bouts individually.
Does a no contest change a record here?: No. A no contest is not a win, a loss or a draw, and it is never folded into one. It is counted and printed separately, so a 20–0 record with two no contests is shown as exactly that rather than as 22–0 or as 20–0 with the no contests dropped. The same applies to a bout overturned after the fact where the source records the change.
What happens when sources disagree about a fight?: This site publishes one source — the fighter's English Wikipedia article, read on the date printed under every table — and it does not silently reconcile that against anyone else's database. Where the article's own infobox total and its own results table disagree, both are shown and the page says which one each figure came from. Nothing is averaged, and no field is filled in from a second source to make a total balance.

Cross-references

Heavyweight boxing

The 605 heavyweight boxing fighters this record is ranked against, and the distribution Spinks sits inside.

605 FIGHTERS 1980s boxing

23 of these bouts fall in the 1980s. This is what the rest of that decade's records look like.

205 FIGHTERS Marvin Johnson vs Michael Spinks

A bout both records confirm — set out side by side, with every opponent the two men have in common.

1981 Longest unbeaten runs

Michael Spinks went 31 without a loss. This is where that sits against every run on the site.

LEADERBOARD