Focus on Cory Spinks
When Cory Spinks steps back into the ring on August 7 in St. Louis to defend his IBF junior middleweight title, he’ll be trying to regain much of the lustre that has gone out of his career. Despite being a hometown fighter defending his world title, he’ll be below in the fight card behind two other bouts. In fact, his bout against Cornelius Bundrage won’t even be shown on television.
It’s quite a fall for someone who was once the undisputed welterweight champion of the world. Then again, Spinks hasn’t fought in more than a year and hasn’t looked particularly great in the bouts he has had. At 32, many people believe that Spinks is past his prime and hanging on to his career. It’s a downright odd statement to hear about someone who is a current world champion.
Of course, Spinks hasn’t done a lot to help himself in his quest to further his career. Part of the reason for the lengthy layoff before his fight against Bundrage was the fact that he was arrested in April for drunk driving after crashing his car into a parked vehicle in April. Just this week, Spinks learned that he would receive 12 months of probation along with 200 hours of community service after pleading no contest to the charges.
Spinks’ last bout was in April 2008 when he eked out a split decision over Deandre Latimore to win the IBF junior middleweight crown. Despite being the heavy favourite, Spinks looked flat and uninspired against the veteran Latimore. In fact, Latimore dropped Spinks midway through the first round is was very lucky to make it out of the round without the fight being stopped. Latimore wore down as the fight wore on, allowing Spinks to claim some of the later rounds and steal the fight.
Until he beat Latimore, Spinks had dropped three of his last five fights, including a split decision against Verno Phillips for the IBF junior middleweight title in March 2008. Spinks was the busier fighter while Phillips was the more powerful puncher. At the end, Phillips’ counter punching and power was the difference in the contest. Spinks also had a split decision loss to Jermain Taylor and a ninth-round stoppage against Zab Judah.
The high point in Spinks’ career came in December 2003 when he earned a majority decision against Ricardo Mayorga to win the undisputed welterweight title. Spinks benefited from the roughhousing techniques employed by Mayorga, who was penalized two points for hitting after the bell and also for holding and hitting. That was the difference in the fight as one judge scored the bout even and the other had Spinks winning by two points.
Mayorga is exactly the type of fighter that played right into Spinks’ strengths. Although he doesn’t have a lot of power, in his prime Spinks had exceptional hand speed and was a great defensive fighter. Mayorga was a wild and brawling fighter and Spinks was able to avoid Mayorga’s big bombs and strategically manage the fight.
In many ways, Spinks’ win against Mayorga signified the problem with his career. The victory was ugly and not pretty to watch. It’s typical of Spinks’ career and a major problem – Spinks is hardly the type of fighter who creates exciting fights.
Spinks comes from an impressive boxing pedigree – his father is former world heavyweight boxing champion and Olympic gold medallist Leon Spinks and his uncle is former light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Michael Spinks. Unfortunately, Spinks also seems to have inherited many of the problems outside of the ring of his famous family. If he is going to find a way to become a major force in boxing again, he needs to find the inner strength and focus that has apparently been lacking.
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