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10: Best memories of lifelong boxing fan

Fighters Network
08
May

Date: February 15, 1978.

Time: Prime Time.

Place: Laying in front of the TV.

Significance: Learning that legends are human too.



Although George Foreman ruled the heavyweight roost at the time of my “thunderbolt moment,” Muhammad Ali was the overarching figure of my early years as a fan. For this 13-year-old, Ali embodied everything a heavyweight champion should be. He was glib. He was funny. He had a commanding presence. He sold the sport to the masses. And he backed up every boast.

Ali was the only heavyweight champion I had ever known, and I didn’t think Leon Spinks had a snowball’s chance of changing that. Sure, he won a gold medal at the 1976 games in Montreal but he appeared at least two years away from achieving his championship dreams. That seemed especially true when he struggled to earn a draw against Scott LeDoux and a 10-round decision over Alfio Righetti in his last two fights. It was insane to think that someone with eight fights had the wherewithal to dethrone the mighty Ali. Even my teen-aged mind knew that.

Good thing Leon Spinks never thought that way. For the first time in his life Spinks locked himself away at a training camp in the Catskills, and save for a brief getaway to a South Carolina billiards room to blow off steam, he stuck with the program and whipped himself into fantastic shape. Meanwhile, a blase Ali went through the motions at Deer Lake, logging only 20 rounds of sparring and doing the bare minimum on everything else. The differences in physiques and attitudes were stark as Ali weighed a soft 224¼ pounds while Spinks was a rock-hard 197¼.

Spinks climbed all over the rope-a-doping Ali and never stopped coming. Everyone – including the champ – waited for Spinks to exhaust himself but that time never came. By the time Ali realized Spinks was for real it was far too late. Ali’s desperate effort to save his title lifted the 15th round to Round of the Year status by THE RING and Spinks’ gargantuan upset propelled Spinks-Ali I to Fight of the Year. But for this freshly-minted teen-ager it was a mind-blowing, earth-shaking reality check.

As I lay in bed that night, I silently repeated the phrase “Leon Spinks, heavyweight champion of the world.” It just didn’t sound right, but I did it just so I could wrap my mind around the concept. That fight proved to me that even legends are subject to the effects of age and complacency. Ali had grown too comfortable with his status and he, as well as the rest of the world, was caught napping by Team Spinks.

Over the next several decades I bore witness to hundreds of extraordinary upsets, but only one – Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson – surpassed this fight for pure shock value. As is the case with love, a fan never forgets his first major upset.

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