Just call him ”The Kid.” He`s 38 years old, but Leon Spinks points out he`s just a tadpole compared to old bullfrogs like George Foreman and Larry Holmes who have come out of retirement to fight again.
”I`m not an antique,” says Spinks, who Friday night in a union hall in suburban Countryside will fight Andre Crowder in the second bout of his comeback after a 3 1/2-year layoff. ”I don`t have to run around with an oil can.”
Like Foreman and Holmes a former heavyweight champion, Spinks is trying to cash in on the newest sporting phenomenon-”seniors boxing.” Last November, he scored a third-round technical knockout over Lupe Guerra in Gary. Nearly seven years earlier, it had taken him four rounds to dispose of the same fighter.
Either Spinks is getting better with age or Guerra is getting worse. It is not for money that he is coming back, Spinks insists, and you would like to believe him, although that is difficult to do in light of the past that still haunts him.
”A lot of people are in it just to get a lot of money and get out,”
says Spinks. ”My main goal is to get the title back. You see, my son, Leon Jr., got killed two years ago in East St. Louis.
”I had taught him not to get involved with gangs, and it was a situation where he didn`t want to get involved, so he went and sat in a car and someone had a gun and he got a stray bullet in the head.
”He had just won his second pro fight. He was following in my footsteps, trying to bring me a championship. Since he was trying so hard for me, I decided to go back and try myself.”
The comeback started last July when an Elmhurst attorney, John Caluwaert, agreed to become his manager.
”I took a heavy look at what would be involved,” says Caluwaert, a sports fan who had no previous connection with the fight business. ”It`s a major investment in your life, not to mention money.
”We had a couple of sports psychologists sit down with Leon and his wife in my office. I was very much aware of his background; it`s no secret he comes from a very difficult past. But I became aware of his phenomenal strengths as an individual, much of which has been blurred by media attention.
”The psychologists gave a very positive report.”
A group of investors paid off Spinks` debts, and the former champion began working out. Caluwaert himself runs with Spinks every morning and makes sure the fighter gets to a gym in Woodlawn every afternoon.
”He`s trained by some of the people who were with Muhammad Ali`s group,” says Caluwaert. ”Since last July, it`s been almost a picture-perfect recovery of a guy who had an image of one who`s not most likely to succeed.” But last week the picture got out of focus when Spinks was charged with driving under the influence after being involved in an auto accident. Automobiles and Spinks have never mixed well.
Spinks, who says he is getting professional help for his drinking problem, explains his lapse by saying: ”I got depressed.”
There is much in his past to be depressed about, and it is obvious he`ll have to bury his past if he has any hope to succeed in his present comeback. Otherwise it will bury him. So far, he has not been able to do it.
The final three years of his boxing career were a nightmare. In his last 10 fights, he had just one win and a draw and was knocked out five times. This for a man who had risen like a meteor, beating Ali for the heavyweight championship in his eighth professional fight.
”I went through a divorce, and it was very hard,” he says, trying to find reasons for his descent. ”I trusted a lot of people. A lot of people hurt me. They took my kindness for weakness. That was my downfall.
”Every inch of the way I found a wall. I tried to knock the wall down, but the wall wouldn`t move.
”There were people who wanted to take care of my money and invest it for me. But instead, they stole my money.”
This gnaws at him still, gives him no peace. ”It has a tendency to come back,” he says. ”You have a tendency to feel sorry for yourself again . . . or hurt yourself again. Not that you do it on purpose.”
Reminded that his constant remembrance of things past can only detract from his performance in the ring, he says, ”I will put it aside . . . but it will still be there. It still haunts you. I had 3.75 million dollars.
”A young man like myself, how can you come into 3.75 million dollars and three or four months later it`s gone?”
The solution, he is told, the thing that would set his mind at ease, might be to go out and make another $3.75 million. He shakes his head stubbornly. ”That money is out there, that money I worked so hard for, and someone else is enjoying it.”
He says he is still enjoying boxing, despite the struggle to get back in shape. ”I love fighting,” he says. ”It`s in my blood. I`ve been doing it all my life. I started in the ghetto in St. Louis when I was 15. The fighting game has helped me see the world.”
It has also helped him see the dark side of that world. When he steps into the ring Friday night, Leon Spinks once more will be trying to fight his way into the light.
