WE’VE all no doubt heard the expression: “Me and my big mouth.” To my knowledge, two books have been published with that very title.
Larry Holmes, always outspoken, had a lot to say about boxing judges prior to his rematch with Michael Spinks. None of it was flattering.
Did Holmes’ remarks have anything to do with his disputed, split-decision defeat in the return fight? No one knows. However, one would have to surmise that Holmes’ comments weren’t exactly helpful to his cause.
Fight Details: MICHAEL SPINKS W15 (split) LARRY HOLMES II, IBF heavyweight title, Las Vegas Hilton, April 19, 1986.
Now, one could understand Holmes feeling disappointed, bitter even, when the judges scored unanimously in favour of Spinks when the two men met for the first time.
Holmes went into that fight with a 48-0 record, one win away from tying Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 mark for most consecutive wins at the start of a heavyweight champion’s career.
There was no doubt in Holmes’ mind that he won that first fight. And, to be fair, there were those who considered the decision debatable. Now Holmes was getting the chance for revenge. And Larry’s remarks about judges was a hot topic of conversation on big-fight weekend.
The judges “get drunk”, Holmes alleged in an interview with a local TV station in Pennsylvania. “They get paid off.”
Nevada Commission Chairman Sig Rogich demanded a public apology. If none was forthcoming, Rogich threatened, the Commission would convene to discuss whether or not Holmes would be licensed to box in the state.
And all this was just 11 days before the fight was due to take place.
Holmes duly apologised to the Nevada commission. The ex-champ even said: “I have a big mouth [that expression again] … I talk too much.”
But, as the late Jack Welsh noted in his pre-fight column in Las Vegas Sports Form, “the seed had been planted”.
It wasn’t just Holmes’ comments about judges; he seemed to have a chip on his shoulder concerning the press. Just four days before the fight, Holmes demanded that veteran New York columnist Dick Young be escorted out of a public workout because he objected to comments Young had made about him.
The Sun’s Colin Hart found this “a deplorable incident” and wrote that Holmes’ behaviour was “cause for concern”. Veteran observer Jerry Izenberg suggested in a New York Post column that Holmes was “playing out the final scenes of a strange, brooding illusion in which the enemy is all around him and reality is out to lunch”.
Then, Holmes was a no-show at a so-called gala press conference, leaving promoter Don King to address an empty chair as if Holmes was there but had somehow become invisible.
Yet leaving aside the angry backdrop to the rematch, the fight was certainly an intriguing one. Fight-day odds at the Vegas Hilton saw Holmes a slight favourite at 5/7 odds.
Spinks, 29, had youth on his side while Holmes, 36, promised he wouldn’t leave it up to the judges.
Bearing in mind how Spinks’ somewhat unorthodox, herky-jerky method of hitting, moving and generally being a pain in the neck had worked so well for him last time, I leaned towards him winning the rematch.
“Spinks will, I suggest, be able to repeat his previous win with the same sort of fight plan,” I cautiously predicted in the Boxing News preview.
And so, to the fight itself. Spinks, (28-0, 19 KOs) came in at a career-heaviest 205lbs, just over 5lbs heavier than in the first contest, while Holmes (48-1, 34 KOs) weighed in at 223lbs, a pound and a half heavier than last time.
Holmes had vowed a fast start, and he delivered, sweeping the first four rounds on all three judges’ cards. He went right at Spinks, even wrestling the one-time light-heavy champion to the canvas in the first 30 seconds of hostilities commencing. Referee Mills Lane called both men together to issue a “Cool it” instruction.
Spinks was being backed up and bullied by the bigger man. At this stage, a win for Holmes looked very likely. Holmes was throwing the right hand with an urgency missing from the early rounds of the first fight.
But this was the era of 15-round title fights, and Spinks fought his way back from the fifth round, his quick, sharp punches causing Holmes’ eyes to take on a puffy appearance by the middle rounds.
The rematch was a much more exciting fight than the first one. There were clear shifts of fortune. Holmes got off to a strong start, Spinks did excellent scoring in the middle rounds. But it was Holmes who enjoyed the biggest, most dramatic moment of the fight, almost dropping Spinks with a big right hand in the 14th round.
Holmes’ right hand was a threat to Spinks throughout. I thought he wobbled Spinks in the second round, hurt him again in the ninth and then landed his biggest right hand if the fight in the 14th, with Spinks almost squatting on the canvas as his legs buckled beneath him.
Yet, as in their fight, Spinks’ unorthodox moves gave Holmes problems. Spinks surprised Holmes time and again with his quick, lunging attacks.
Holmes desperately wanted to land a finishing blow but, as I reported from ringside: “Spinks deserves credit for his craftiness and coolness under pressure. He managed to move away from the executioner’s axe that was the Holmes right hand, sometimes bending low and leaning forwards, at other times turning almost sideways.”
Spinks’ punches weren’t as heavy as those of Holmes, but there were more of them. And Spinks boxed a tactically sound fight, concentrating simply on getting through the early rounds when Holmes was expected to be at his most dangerous, then coming on as the older man slowed.
The near-capacity crowd of 8,328 at the Hilton’s convention centre booed Spinks for his early retreat. But Spinks knew exactly what he was doing. And, as in the first fight, he was frustrating Holmes.
As the fight went deeper, so Spinks began to ratchet up his punch output. Now he was getting his left jab to work, landing right hands and some crisp left hooks.
Holmes made a sort of running-on-the-spot move in the sixth, as if mocking Spinks for not standing still. But Spinks was never going to go toe to toe with the bigger, heavier-handed fighter. For Spinks, this was all about hitting and not getting hit — or, at least, getting hit as little possible.
Rounds 10 to 13 were all excellent rounds for Spinks. He was beating Holmes to the punch and even had the former champion going back. But Spinks never pushed things too much. He had Holmes backed up on the ropes in the 12th but got caught by a right-hand counter, which was his cue to move away, “taking a walk” as some call it.
There was now a tired look to Holmes’ boxing. Yet, just when Spinks seemed in control of the contest, Holmes landed the right-hand bomb in the 14th that nearly saved the day for him.
Perhaps the younger Holmes could have pulled off a KO, but not the mid-30s version. As I described it at the time, it was as if Holmes’ brain couldn’t send the message to his fists to fire what might have been the finishing punches.
“Holmes had let seemingly imminent victory slip away and Spinks put in a strong finish, outpunching Holmes in a hard-fought final round,” I reported.
The scoring was predictably close. Judge Jerry Roth had it 144-142 in favour of Spinks, Joe Cortez had Holmes winning by 144-141, while Frank Brunette had the champ retaining his title by a score of 144-141.
My own card saw Spinks edging it, 144-143. Jack Fiske, veteran columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, was seated next to me. Last time he thought Holmes had won by a wide margin. He had Spinks winning the rematch. “This time I got it right,” he said.
It was, however, a controversial decision, one that was booed by the crowd.
Holmes didn’t attend the post-fight press conference. Apparently, he broke the thumb on his right hand — in the third round, he said later — and he went to hospital to have the thumb placed in a splint.
But Holmes did tell broadcaster HBO: “There’s no such thing as fairness. Spinks knows he didn’t win this fight.” Holmes also said that he was retiring, and that the referees, judges and promoters could “kiss him where the sun doesn’t shine” — no need to finish the sentence.
British fight impresario Mickey Duff told me: “I’ll lay 10-1 that within a couple of months Holmes is talking about fighting again.”
Mickey would have lost that bet: Holmes stayed retired for almost two years.
