Leon Spinks obituary: The no-hoper who beat the Greatest but lost it all
Leon Spinks shows off his famous smile before his title fight with Larry Holmes in 1981. Picture: Getty
Leon Spinks was an overnight sensation, a no-hoper who beat the Greatest. His gap-toothed smile became known around the world and while it was his destiny to become a support-player in the legend of Muhammad Ali, it was a great ride while it lasted.
Spinks died after a battle with prostate cancer at the age of 67 on Friday at a hospital on the outskirts of Las Vegas. He was a gold medallist as part of the greatest United States Olympic boxing team ever in 1976, but it was the 212 days he reigned as world heavyweight champion in 1978 that he is remembered for.
Spinks’s star burned bright but fast, becoming a classic example of a boxer who fell on hard times when the fame and money went. Much of the money was given away. Most went on partying, drink, drugs, and lavish purchases.
“A rush through the twilight zone,” was how his life was described by his brother, Michael, who won an Olympic gold medal alongside him at the Montreal Olympics and would himself hold the world heavyweight title seven years after Leon. “He got involved with backslappers and leeches.”
Spinks grew up in poverty in a notorious housing project St Louis, one of eight children. As the eldest, Leon used to get the brunt of his violent father’s temper and was regularly beaten. He joined the US Marines to escape, and despite a brief posting to Vietnam, he was able to pursue an impressive amateur career, which culminated with an Olympic gold medal in Montreal in 1976 at light-heavyweight – the same medal that Ali had won 16 years previously – on a team that included Sugar Ray Leonard and his brother, Michael.
He was surprised as anyone to get the call to face Ali at the Las Vegas Hilton in February 1978. He might have been an Olympic champion, but he had only had seven professional fights and he had not even won all of them. Spinks was seen as a soft touch for the ageing Ali. The champ’s speed and reflexes were gone. He should have been retired but there was still money to be made.
Ali was also Spinks’s hero. When he spotted Ali in the hotel’s lobby in fight week, he leapt to his feet and went over to shake his hand. On fight night he set a ferocious pace, attacking Ali, often wildly, from the first bell. And, while he tired late on, so did Ali. It was Spinks landing the punches at the end of the 15th round.
The crowd booed the one judge who sided with Ali after 15 rounds – bad Vegas decisions were a thing back then too – but Spinks was the champion on a split decision. It was the only time that Ali ever lost as a champion.
“When Leon became champ, it was like taking someone off the street and making them president,” Sam Solomon, his trainer, said.
Suddenly he was surrounded by a huge entourage and even had Mr T, before he became famous, as his personal bodyguard. “Everything was happening so fast,” he would say later. “I partied, boozed, and smoked pot. I had no control of myself outside the ring.
”I was the happiest man on Earth and I just wanted to live my life. But being heavyweight champion brought a whole load of obligations and I didn’t know that.”
Seven months after he won the title in front of around 5,000 fans in Las Vegas, he faced Ali in the rematch in front of 63,352 at the Superdome in New Orleans. The estimated worldwide television audience was 2 billion. This time Ali trained properly and Spinks didn’t.
“We were all staying at the same hotel in New Orleans for the rematch and one morning I was coming down to breakfast and Leon got in the elevator and collapsed on the floor,” promoter Bob Arum remembered. “Obviously he had been out drinking and I said, ‘Leon, are you crazy, you’re fighting in just a few days.’ He said, ‘What do you mean? I’m just coming in from roadwork.’”
The old champ kept things simple, jabbing and grabbing on his way to a 15-round points decision that crowned him heavyweight champion for the third time.
Spinks vanished for nine months before returning to fight Gerrie Coetzee in Monaco, the South African knocking him down three times in the first round as he wiped him out.
He scraped together a few wins and was matched with Larry Holmes, for the WBC title, in Detroit, in 1981. He started well but was battered to defeat in the third round. There was one more title shot, in 1986, down at cruiserweight, but he was stopped again by Dwight Muhammad Qawi.
Spinks continued boxing into his forties out of necessity. All that was left was a name to trade off.
“He just gives his money away,” Marv Haupt, his manager, said in 1987. “People are always coming up to him and saying ‘Leon, I need $100’. And he just gives it to them. Leon’s problem is that he is just too trusting, he’s too nice a guy.”
Spinks made $3.5 million for the rematch with Ali, the equivalent of $14 million today. Everything went, even his false teeth. One pair was stolen during a mugging along with a fur coat, one pair went to an ex-wife in divorce proceedings. He was married three times and divorced twice.
He spent time in a homeless shelter and, by the turn of the century, he was taking minimum-wage jobs, working as a cleaner at a YMCA and unloading trucks and emptying bins at a McDonald’s. In 2011, he moved to Las Vegas, where he made money appearing at fan conventions.
He had three sons, Leon Jr, Cory, and Darrell. Cory was born five days after the win over Ali, although they were not close until he was a teenager. He followed in the family footsteps, though, becoming undisputed world welterweight champion and IBF light-middleweight champion. Leon Jr had also been a promising boxer but was shot dead while driving home from his girlfriend’s house in 1990 at the age of 19.
At the time he lost his title, Spinks was the shortest reigning world heavyweight champion in history. That record has since been broken. “I’m not the greatest, I’m the latest,” he said after beating Ali. But later on he feared his reputation would not be a good one.
“I don’t want my name to be made out no joke,” he said. “I know I made mistakes but I was just living the life I thought people wanted me to. You know, I am a human being.”
And for one night he was the biggest star in boxing. No one could never take that night away from him.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
