Heavyweight who shocked the world
LEON SPINKS was the gaptoothed fighter from the St Louis slums who pulled off one of the most stunning upsets in boxing history in 1978 by defeating Muhammad Ali to claim the undisputed world heavyweight title.
He died on February 5, aged 67, after a long battle with cancer.
Spinks rose to fame by winning the lightheavyweight gold medal for the United States at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. He shocked the boxing world just two years later when he defeated Ali in a split decision. It was only his eighth professional fight.
That was the highlight of Spinks’ career as Ali claimed revenge in the rematch seven months later in New Orleans.
Spinks fought for a heavyweight crown only once more, losing to Larry Holmes in 1981.
He retired in 1995 at the age of 42 with a pedestrian 26173 record, including 14 knockouts.
Much of his postboxing life was marked by substance abuse, subsistence jobs and obscurity.
But in the late 1970s he had plenty of reasons to flash his trademark broad smile, sometimes accentuated by two missing front teeth.
After serving in the Marine Corps, Spinks won a gold medal in the lightheavyweight competition at the 1976
Montreal Olympics. He was undefeated in his first seven professional fights but few thought he had any chance at all against the great Ali, even though the champion was past his prime going into their February 15, 1978, fight in Las Vegas.
Spinks’ aggressive style and superior stamina allowed him to outduel Ali in a 15round split decision, becoming the first boxer to take the title from Ali in the ring.
Spinks’ reign did not last long. Seven months later, he squared off again against Ali at the Superdome in New Orleans and a properly prepared Ali won a unanimous 15round decision. Spinks already had been stripped of his WBC heavyweight title for refusing to fight No 1 contender Ken
Norton in favour of the Ali rematch.
After the second Ali fight, Spinks was never again a serious championship contender, although in 1981 he took on Larry Holmes for the WBC crown. Holmes beat him on a technical knockout in the third round.
Spinks continued fighting, often for embarrassingly small purses, until retiring following a unanimous decision loss to Fred House in December 1995.
When his brother, Michael, upset Holmes for the IBF heavyweight championship in 1985, he and Leon became the first brothers to have held world heavyweight championships.
The Spinks brothers were often bullied growing up in a notoriously rough housing project in St Louis and learned to fight as a matter of selfpreservation. In a way, Leon remained a raw, naive child of the rough streets and after he won the title, the life of ‘‘Neon Leon’’ became a cautionary tale.
‘‘It might have looked to people like I was having a good time,’’ Spinks told the Chicago Tribune, ‘‘but deep down I wasn’t because I wasn’t who I wanted to be. I never had anything when I was young.
‘‘We were poor and now I had so much, so I tried to enjoy it. Having money like that makes you feel you can do anything you want but you can’t.’’
Spinks was unsophisticated and did not seem to mind being photographed without his false teeth — replacements for the ones he lost to a headbutt in the Marines, he said. He endured a series of arrests for driving violations and problems with drinking and drugs, including an arrest for cocaine and marijuana possession.
The millions of dollars he won in the ring were lost to exorbitant spending and mismanagement, Spinks said.
In the late 1990s, media reports said he sometimes stayed in a homeless shelter in the St Louis area and was taking random minimumwage jobs. In 2005, Spinks was living in Columbus, Nebraska, working as a janitor at a YMCA and at a McDonald’s. — Reuters