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Leon Spinks, Dead at 67, Fell Far and Fast After Shocking Muhammad Ali

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No one could ever confuse former heavyweight champion Leon Spinks, who on Friday night finally succumbed to the multiple cancers that for several years had been slowly devouring his internal organs, with handsome film star Robert Redford. But achieving a seemingly impossible goal, in real life for “Neon Leon” and on the silver screen for Redford, does suggest a possible link.

It is one thing to fulfill a dream few thought possible. It is quite another, once the dream becomes reality, to enjoy the tsunami of attention that can make a sudden and unprepared star a sort of Cinderella in reverse. In 1972’s The Candidate, Redford portrayed a young and ambitious senatorial nominee who, against all odds, wins election. In the final scene, he slips out of the victory party to be alone with his thoughts. Upon being joined by his campaign adviser who tells him he has to come back to meet with a throng of journalists, the stunned new senator-elect asks, “What do we do now?”

Leon Spinks, who someday would shock the world by upsetting the great Muhammad Ali, launched his longest-of-long-shots plan to become heavyweight champion when, at age 13 and constantly picked on by older boys in St. Louis’ notorious Pruitt-Igoe housing project, he heeded the advice of a Teamster official named Mitt Barnes to take up boxing as a means of better defending himself on the street. The oldest of seven kids (six sons and a daughter) raised by his mother Kay after the father had left home, Leon proved a quick study in the pugilistic arts, if not academically. A dropout midway through his junior year of high school, he became a father at 17, enlisted in the Marine Corps at 19, and by the time his service hitch ended had won 178 of 185 amateur bouts and was fast-tracked for eventual success as a pro.  He was a bronze medalist at the inaugural 1974 World Championships, a silver medalist at the 1975 Pan American Games and then a light heavyweight gold medalist at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, at which his younger brother Michael also took gold as a middleweight.

In 1994, Michael, who would go on to win both light heavyweight and heavyweight titles as a pro, recalled how he frequently got the worst of it in sparring sessions with his older brother, until the day when he proved to himself that he at least had significantly narrowed the gap between them.

“It was back in St. Louis, in the early ’70s,” Michael said. “Me and Leon were passing by this gym, somewhere we’d never been in before. Leon said, `Hey, let’s check this place out.’ There was a ring in there, and Leon found a couple of pairs of gloves. We pulled them on and went at it for three rounds.

“I couldn’t believe I was actually winning. You have to understand, Leon had always beaten the dog out of me. He always beat the dog out of everybody. Leon was the man in those days. There wasn’t anybody who could beat Leon. There wasn’t even anybody who could last three rounds with him. He used to beat me up so bad, I’d cry. He beat me like we weren’t even brothers. But he was trying to help me, in his own way. He’d say, `Mike, I know I take it hard on you, but if I took it any easier, you wouldn’t learn anything.’

“I threw off the gloves and said, `Hey, man, I beat your ass. I got you.’ And that was it. We never sparred again. Looking back, that might have been my proudest moment in boxing. I figured if I could do that well against Leon, I could hold my own against anybody. From that point on, I was a completely different fighter. I had confidence in myself.”

Maybe Michael was even as confident in his ring abilities as was Leon, who wangled a lucrative contract with Top Rank after the Montreal Olympiad while Michael went back to his old job as a janitor at a St. Louis chemical plant, where his duties included, as one co-worker later observed, “scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets.”

For Michael, who later joined Leon in the Top Rank fold, his star turn as a pro would come later. It arrived startingly soon for Leon, who, with just seven pro fights (6-0-1, 5 KOs), was tapped to challenge WBC/WBA champ Ali on Sept. 15, 1978, at the Las Vegas Hilton. Virtually no one gave Leon much chance to even be competitive, much less win, but the 24-year-old underdog believed he had a fight plan to get the job done, one previously authored against Ali by Joe Frazier.

“I watched him fight Joe Frazier, and I knew then I had to give him pressure like he’d never seen before,” Leon said of the punches-in-bunches he intended to throw at Ali, then 36 and as overconfident as Spinks was hopeful. “By the time I got to Ali, I knew how to beat him before I ever fought him. Then I learned the pressure of being champion.”

The shocking split decision for Spinks, accomplished before just 5,298 paying spectators, did not appreciably diminish the star power of Ali, but it made the victor an instant sensation. It also changed his life and career in ways he could not have anticipated, both good and, even more obviously as it turned out, bad. Being the new heavyweight champion and conqueror of arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time had the same effect on Leon, even more so, in fact, than winning an election he never thought he could, had on Redford’s fictional character six years earlier.

In quick order, the WBC stripped Spinks of its version of the title for declining to fulfill a mandatory defense against Ken Norton in favor of a much-better-paying, much-higher-visibility rematch with Ali, who was determined not to make the same mistakes he had made the first time around. Guys from Leon’s St. Louis neighborhood and hordes of other aspiring hangers-on sought to gain the champ’s ear, and in many instances did.

The do-over was scheduled for Sept. 15, 1978, in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, the lead-up to which was a spectacle of excess to rival Mardi Gras. Some 63,350 fight fans packed the arena, among them such celebrities as Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, Jackie Onassis, Liza Minnelli, Jerry Lewis, Telly Savalas, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Lily Tomlin.

It was hoopla to an extent that Ali, as much as any boxer ever, could handle in stride. Not so for Spinks, who even before arriving at the fight site had demonstrated that he was crumbling under the demands of his newfound notoriety.

The late Butch Lewis, who promoted both Spinks brothers, recalled how Leon disappeared for days at a time when he should have been in the gym and focusing on the task at hand. Rumors flew that he was pub-crawling not in the comparative safety of the French Quarter, but in dives in crime-infested neighborhoods that even the local police were hesitant to go into.

“He was drunk every night he was there,” disgusted Top Rank founder Bob Arum said of Leon’s hard-partying ways. “Leon went to places our people didn’t dare go to. I’m surprised he didn’t wind up with a knife stuck in him.”

The shenanigans weren’t so amusing to highly regarded Philadelphia trainer Georgie Benton, who had been brought in to plot Leon’s strategy for the first fight and stayed on for the second, ostensibly in conjunction with lead trainer Sam Solomon. But Benton and Solomon seldom agreed on anything, and then there was the matter of Leon’s 70-member entourage, all of whom figured they merited a spot in his corner on fight night.

Shortly before the fight, Solomon told Benton that Spinks’ small army of would-be advisers would take turns working in his corner. “Sam said, `You go up one round and work and then Leon’s brother (Michael) can go up one round,’” Benton said of a mob scene unlike any seen for a fight of that magnitude. Benton’s frustration increased until, after the sixth round, he simply walked away, out of the Superdome and into the night.

“It was a zoo,” he would say later. “It was like watching your baby drown. There was nothing you could do about it. I had no more control of the guy. I was useless. All I could do was get the hell out of there.”

The unanimous decision for Ali – by margins of 11-4 and 10-4-1 (twice) in rounds – was a foregone conclusion, and pretty much evident to everyone early on. Ali was back on top, a king re-crowned, and Leon Spinks was generally dismissed as a one-hit wonder that never should have enjoyed even a temporary stay in his sport’s throne room.

“I don’t think Leon Spinks will ever fight again,” a miffed Arum said after the fight. “It’s only my opinion, but I don’t think so. He doesn’t like to fight, he doesn’t like to train. He was drunk about every night down here. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get him back into a gym.

“He has money and he doesn’t have to go back (to boxing). To tell you the truth, I think down deep he’s glad that he lost that title. He is a simple guy. He doesn’t need the lifestyle of Muhammad Ali. Leon Spinks’ money will last a long time. He doesn’t live like Muhammad Ali.”

Well, Spinks’ career ring earnings – pegged at $5 million, with $3.75 million for the second Ali fight – didn’t last as long as Arum had predicted. Nor did Leon slip away from the fight game, never to be seen or heard from again; he did get another shot at the heavyweight title, losing on a third-round TKO to Larry Holmes on June 12, 1981, and then on a sixth-round stoppage to WBA cruiserweight ruler Dwight Muhammad Qawi on March 22, 1986. His final bout, an eight-round points loss to Fred Houpe on Dec. 4, 1995, left him with a record of 26-17-3, with 14 KO victories and nine defeats inside the distance. The only boxing Hall of Fame in which he is enshrined is Nevada’s. Michael, on the other hand, was 31-1 (21) as a pro, along the way becoming a multimillionaire and first-ballot inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1994.

“I know I could have made Leon upwards of $50 million if he had disciplined himself doing the right thing for four or five years,” said Butch Lewis, who died in 2011.

After his boxing career ended, Leon lingered on the fringes of combat sports. For someone who had outhustled and defeated a legend like Ali, it had to hurt his fans to see him go into a ring with a wrestler named the Mighty Wojo who lifted him up and threw him onto a cold concrete floor. He capitalized on what remained of his celebrity status here and there, including a gig as a greeter at Mike Ditka’s restaurant in Chicago.

“I have no regrets,” Spinks, his voice a bit slurred, said during his time at Ditka’s restaurant. “I had my good times. I won a gold medal. I won the heavyweight title. I reached as high a point in sports as I could.”

And if he had to do it all over again, what changes would he make?

“People pull you here, they pull you there,” he said of his hectic seven-month title reign. “I was not the type who trusted people right away. I was trying to take care of my business and box, too. You can’t do two things at one time. It was my downfall. When I did start to trust people, they took advantage of me. I found myself with a bunch of people around me I didn’t even know. They had me running in the fast lane.”

Leon was able to find some domestic happiness with wife Brenda Glur Spinks, whom he married in Las Vegas on Oct. 9, 2011. She was by his side when he passed away, but because of COVID-19 restrictions only a few close friends and family members – including his son Cory, who won versions of the welterweight and junior middleweight title — were present.

He remained upbeat even as his medical issues worsened. In 2014 he suffered intestinal damage and was hospitalized after swallowing a piece of chicken bone, which led to multiple surgeries. Then, in mid-December of last year, the TMZ gossip site reported he was in a Las Vegas hospital and “reportedly fighting for his life.” The prostate cancer he had been diagnosed with had spread to his bladder, assuring an outcome as certainly negative as his defense against Ali had been. But he fought as he could, for as long as he could, and that is in and of itself a testament to what had once made him special.

Rest in peace, Leon. So many fighters, good ones, have never known the exhilaration of being an Olympic gold medalist, or a heavyweight champion of the world.

A New Orleans native, Bernard Fernandez retired in 2012 after a 43-year career as a newspaper sports writer, the last 28 years with the Philadelphia Daily News. A former five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, Fernandez won the BWAA’s Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism in 1998 and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service in 2015. In December of 2019, Fernandez was accorded the highest honor for a boxing writer when he was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the Class of 2020. Last year, Fernandez’s anthology, “Championship Rounds,” was released by RKMA Publishing.

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Mbilli Stays Unbeaten: Outpoints Gongora in a Bruising Tiff

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Camille Estephan’s “Eye of the Tiger” promotions returned to the Montreal Casino tonight with an 8-bout card capped by an intriguing match between super middleweights Christian Mbilli and Carlos Gongora, both former Olympians.

The Cameroon-born Mbilli (pictured on the left) represented France in the 2016 Rio Games. He was undefeated (23-0, 16 KOs) coming in and ranked #2 by the WBA. The Massachusetts-based Gongora, a two-time Olympian for his native Ecuador, brought a 23-1 (16) record, his lone defeat coming on the road in Manchester, England, to currently undefeated Lerrone Richards.

When the smoke cleared, Mbilli won a unanimous decision, but the scores (99-91, 98-92, and 97-93) were misleading as this was an entertaining fight and the granite-chinned Gondora, a southpaw, was always a threat to turn the tide with his signature punch, a left uppercut. In fact, he may have landed the best punch of the fight when he hurt Mbilli in the opening minute of the eighth round. But the muscular Mbilli shook off the cobwebs and stormed back, dominating the final minute of the eighth and then finishing strong, nearly forcing a stoppage with a non-stop assault in the final frame.

Mbilli would love to fight the winner of Saturday’s tiff between David Benavidez and Caleb Plant, but that’s not likely to happen. A more likely scenario finds Mbilli opposing fellow unbeaten Vladimir Shishkin, the Detroit-based Russian.

Co-Feature

Simon Kean, a six-foot-five, 250-pound heavyweight from Three Rivers, Quebec, advanced to 23-1 (22 KOs) with a seventh-round stoppage of 40-year-old warhorse Eric Molina (29-9).

Both were tentative during most of the match. The end came rather suddenly when Kean knocked Molina down with an overhand right after landing a good left hook. The punch did not appear to land flush, but Molina was swaying as he made it to his feet and the referee called it off.

It was not a particularly impressive performance by Kean. Molina, a special education teacher in the Rio Grande Valley community of Edinburg, Texas, hinted before the bout that this would be his final fight. That would be a sensible idea. He has been stopped six times in his last 10 outings and nine times overall.

Also

In a 10-round bout contested at 140 pounds, Calgary veteran Steve Claggett improved to 34-7-2 (24) with a TKO over Mexican import Rafael Guzman Lugo (26-3-2) whose corner pulled him out after seven frames. This was a good action fight fought at close quarters, albeit Claggett was clearly in control when the bout was halted.

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A Conversation About Boxing with Author and Journalist Steve Marantz

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If you ask former sportswriter Steve Marantz when was boxing’s Golden Age, he’s quick with a response.

His answer just so happens to coincide with the period when he was on the beat as a boxing columnist for the Boston Globe (1979-1987).

“You could argue that boxing has had a few Golden Ages, but yes, that was an exciting and memorable era,” said Marantz, who sat ringside for many legendary matches. “The round-robin bouts amongst [Ray] Leonard, [Marvin] Hagler, [Thomas] Hearns and [Roberto] Duran, certainly was a major element.”

Those four legends are important but other weight division kings also played an integral role in boxing’s global popularity.

“Let’s not forget [Aaron] Pryor, [Alexis] Arguello, [Julio Cesar] Chavez, [Salvador] Sanchez, [Hector] Camacho, [Wilfredo] Gomez, Michael Spinks, [Dwight Muhammad] Qawi, [Donald] Curry, [Mike] Tyson and [Evander] Holyfield,” Marantz offered. “The key was competitive balance in most of the divisions.”

Marantz began his journalism career in 1973 at the Kansas City Star after graduating from the University of Missouri. After leaving the Globe, he worked for the Boston Herald (1999-2004) and ESPN (2004-2016). Nowadays, in addition to freelance writing for publications such as the Jewish Journal of Greater Boston, he produces the podcast “Championship Stories.”

Marantz recalled one particular moment that stood out while covering boxing and it happened at Aaron Pryor’s training camp.

“I have a vivid memory of his workout before he fought Arguello in Miami, November 1982. He had a hot funk song on the speakers, “You Dropped A Bomb On Me,” and as it played, loudly, he shadow-boxed to its beat and lyrics,” he recalled. “A rope was stretched across the gym, four feet off the floor, and Pryor moved along the rope, ducking under and back, gloves flashing. He was hypnotized by the music, in a trance. Hypnotized me, too. A moment that made boxing so cool to cover.”

That classic matchup at the famed Orange Bowl was halted in the 14th round with Pryor winning by technical knockout.

Anyone at Caesars Palace on April 15, 1985, knows what happened over roughly eight minutes of hot action when Hagler and Hearns tangled. It was nonstop punches from both participants.

“Hagler and Hearns fought as if possessed,” recalled Marantz of that showdown. “The stark final image [for me] was that of Hearns, now helpless, semiconscious, looking very like a black Christ taken from the cross, in the arms of a solemn aide.

“Hagler’s pent-up bitterness found release in a violent attack, even as each crack of Hearns’ gloves reinforced a lifetime of slights. In the end, Hearns was martyred to absolve Hagler of victimization. The first round is legendary, among the most vicious and splendid ever fought on the big fight stage. Action accelerated so quickly that spectators were left breathless. Punches windmilled into a blur, though the actual count was 82 punches for Hagler and 83 for Hearns, about three times that of a typical round.”

While that fight has blended into boxing folklore, a 1976 Olympic gold medal winner from Palmer Park, Maryland, was the epitome of true greatness for Steve Marantz.

“The way Sugar Ray Leonard maneuvered [Roberto] Duran to ‘No Mas’ in their rematch was brilliant. His grit and toughness beat Hearns, one of the great fights of the 1980s. And he beat Hagler with brains and psychology. Not to overlook his win over [Wilfred] Benitez in 1979. He was gorgeous to watch, stylish and rhythmic. His combinations were a blur. And he strategized like a chess master. Smooth and cooperative in interviews, always aware of the marketing and promotional necessities. Leonard was the gold standard.”

Marantz re-visited the Hagler-Leonard fight and the drama that surrounded it in “Sorcery at Caesars: Sugar Ray’s Marvelous Fight,” first released in 2008 and now available as an eBook.

Boxing’s been called the cruelest and the most unforgiving sport, but it’s also filled with high drama.

“It’s a test of athleticism, intelligence, grit and character. At its best, it’s dramatic and unpredictable, exciting,” Marantz said of the fight game. “A rich history of iconic personalities and events. Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, for example. A window into history bigger than just sport, a window into popular culture and politics.”

Marantz fondly recalls some of the characters he met while covering the sweet science: “Promoters Don King and Bob Arum, both conniving quotable snakes. Trainer Ray Arcel, in his 80s, a pillar of honesty and integrity. Emanuel Steward and Prentiss Byrd, running the Kronk Gym as a beacon of light and hope in Detroit’s blighted inner city. In Brockton, Massachusetts, two Italian-American brothers, Goody and Pat Petronelli, formed a sacred trust with an African- American boxer, Marvin Hagler.”

Marantz went on: “On my first newspaper job with the Kansas City Times/Star, I met a kindly trainer, Peyton Sher, who welcomed me into his gym and taught me the basics,” he said. “Never will forget Daeshik Seo, the Korean therapist for Larry Holmes who two weeks before the Holmes-[Gerry] Cooney fight in June 1982, tipped me to a story that a member of Holmes’ entourage pulled a pistol on Cooney’s entourage at Caesars Palace. Caesars top brass had to call Holmes on the carpet to get his people under control. Holmes was incensed at the story. In his media session after he won, he said I wrote it because I was [expletive] … and that I worked in a racist city, Boston.”

Marantz has never been put off by the seedy elements of the sport. “I don’t feel polarized by it.,” he says. “Nobody is forced to box. Nobody is forced to watch it. The world has bigger problems than boxing.”

Marantz has fond memories of the people he met and the friendships he made while covering boxing. Does he miss not being rinigside? “Not really,” he says. “My time came and went. Journalism and life took me in other directions. I do have some nostalgia for that era, and for the people who were part of it.”

Having been around the sweet science for a spell, Marantz offered sage advice to anyone inclined to mix it up: “Be disciplined, work hard, find a good trainer, learn the subtleties, read the tea leaves and don’t be pig-headed.”

Actually, all of those traits are always handy, even if one doesn’t step into the ring.

You can read more about Steve Marantz at his website: www.stevemarantz.com

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Mercito Gesta Victorious Over Jojo Diaz at the Long Beach Pyramid

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LONG BEACH, CA.-Those in the know knew Mercito Gesta and Jojo Diaz would be a fight to watch and they delivered.

Gesta emerged the winner in a super lightweight clash between southpaws that saw the judges favor his busier style over Diaz’s body attack and bigger shots and win by split decision on Saturday.

Despite losing the main event because the star was overweight, Gesta (34-3-3, 17 KOs) used an outside method of tactic to edge past former world champion Diaz (32-4-1, 15 KOs) in front of more than 5,000 fans at the Pyramid.

The speedy Gesta opened up the fight with combination punching up and down against the peek-a-boo style of Diaz. For the first two rounds the San Diego fighter overwhelmed Diaz though none of the blows were impactful.

In the third round Diaz finally began unloading his own combinations and displaying the fast hands that helped him win world titles in two divisions. Gesta seemed stunned by the blows, but his chin held up. The counter right hook was Diaz’s best weapon and snapped Gesta’s head back several times.

Gesta regained control in the fifth round after absorbing big blows from Diaz. He seemed to get angry that he was hurt and opened up with even more blows to send Diaz backpedaling.

Diaz targeted his attack to Gesta’s body and that seemed to slow down Gesta. But only for a round.

From the seventh until the 10th each fighter tried to impose their style with Gesta opening up with fast flurries and Diaz using right hooks to connect with solid shots. They continued their method of attack until the final bell. All that mattered was what the judges preferred.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Diaz the winner 97-93 but two others saw Gesta the winner 99-91, 98-92. It was a close and interesting fight.

“I was expecting nothing. I was the victor in this fight and we gave a good fight,” said Gesta. “It’s not an easy fight and Jojo gave his best.”

Diaz was surprised by the outcome but accepted the verdict.

Everything was going good. I thought I was landing good body shots,” said Diaz. “I was pretty comfortable.”

Other Bouts

Mexico’s Oscar Duarte (25-1-1, 20 KOs) knocked out Chicago’s Alex Martin (18-5, 6 KOs) with a counter right hand after dropping him earlier in the fourth round. The super lightweight fight was stopped at 1:14 of the round.

A battle between undefeated super welterweights saw Florida’s Eric Tudor (8-0, 6 KOs) emerge the winner by unanimous decision after eight rounds versus Oakland’s Damoni Cato-Cain.

The taller Tudor showed polished skill and was not bothered by a large cut on his forehead caused by an accidental clash of heads. He used his jab and lead rights to defuse the attacks of the quick-fisted southpaw Cato-Cain. The judges scored the fight 80-72 and 78-74 twice for Tudor.

San Diego’s Jorge Chavez (5-0, 4 KOs) needed less than one round to figure out Nicaragua’s Bryan Perez (12-17-1, 11 KOs) and send him into dreamland with a three-punch combination. No need to count as referee Ray Corona waved the fight over. Perez shot a vicious right followed by another right and then a see-you-later left hook at 3.00 of the first round of the super featherweight match.

Photo credit: Al Applerose

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