[1] By mid 1985, Larry Holmes had made 19th successful defenses of the Heavyweight championship he won against Ken Norton in June 1978, following Leon Spinks' vacating of WBC title in order to have a rematch against Muhammad Ali.

As the bout went on, Spinks was able to use unpredictable movement to throw flurries of punches from unexpected angles which scored points but never troubled the champion.

By the last few rounds, pattern had formed, with Holmes coming forward, loading up, scoring with hard punches but never landing anything that looked like hurting Spinks.

After 15 rounds, Lawrence Wallace scored it 145–142 while Harold Lederman and Dave Moretti had it 143–142, all three in favour of Spinks, giving him a unanimous decision victory.

Nevertheless, Holmes said that the specialist's comments affected his performance, "I found that not only was I flat and listless, I was reluctant to pull the trigger on the right hand.