Maybe Michael Spinks Is Taken <i> Too </i> Lightly; After All, There’s Leon

If you don’t think it will be fun to watch Larry Holmes wade into Michael Spinks--that is, if you’re not the kind of person who buys tickets to a train wreck--you may nevertheless enjoy watching Leon Spinks cheer his brother during tonight’s heavyweight title fight.

This is one of those fights that may offer something, carnage and comedy, for everyone.

Comedy? Ringsiders recall the last time that Leon, a former heavyweight champion, coached Michael from the corner. It was two years ago in Atlantic City, when Michael was beating Dwight Braxton to unify the light-heavyweight title. Leon, who is nothing if not irrepressible, was cutting a manic figure, running around the ring, shouting and just generally looking like a mad man, albeit one in a black cowboy hat.

Michael, in the middle of the toughest fight of his career, looked down from his stool at one point and stared into his older brother’s immense and frantic face. “Leon,” he said calmly, in one of boxing’s best-remembered lines, “straighten your hat.”

That vignette illustrates two things, even beyond Leon’s capacity to attract unfavorable notice:

--The bond between these brothers is something special.

--Michael has a presence of mind unequaled in boxing.

So one pauses before automatically awarding this fight to Holmes, the much bigger man: If Michael Spinks can keep his wits about him with Leon in his face, then what could Holmes do to disturb him in the ring?

Spinks, who is bidding to become the first light-heavyweight to topple a heavyweight champion, just as Holmes is bidding to equal Rocky Marciano’s record for victories by an undefeated heavyweight tonight at the Riviera Hotel, is not allowed much edge besides his presence of mind.

Although he surprised everybody Friday when he weighed in at 200 pounds, to Holmes’ 221 1/2, the conventional thinking is simply that he’s too small. Holmes, even at 35 and with his skills in decline, is expected to become 49-0 with his 21st successful title defense, offering some carnage along the way.

Spinks, who has never been off his feet while fighting at 175 pounds, has spent the weeks leading up to this fight answering questions about the carnage caused by a heavyweight punch. Exasperated, he says mostly that he doesn’t know about that.

“Will Larry’s jab be harder than any punch I’ve felt?” he asks. “I don’t know. If Larry hits me with one, I’ll call time out and be able to say, ‘Larry, you’re right. That’s the hardest punch I’ve ever felt.’ ”

Spinks did assure that he is no stranger to a hard punch. “I have been hit hard,” he says. “And I have found no pleasure in it.”

Despite his coyness, be assured that Spinks does indeed have some idea how hard Holmes hits. In a turnabout-is-fair-play scene, it was Michael coaching Leon while the former champion was trying to take out Holmes four years ago.

Leon, a born cruiserweight even though he did manage to upset Muhammad Ali, was no match for the larger Holmes--Leon was the same weight for that fight as Michael is for this--and he suffered a terrible beating because of it. And there was Michael, throwing in a white towel from ringside.

It will not be considered any miracle if Holmes advances to his 50th fight unharmed and returns Spinks, 29, to the light-heavyweight division that he has so ably ruled. Most everybody will be satisfied. Holmes will have earned $3.1 million, Spinks a career-high purse of $1 million.

On the other hand, if Michael duplicates Leon’s feat by winning Holmes’ International Boxing Federation title, news will have been made.

No two brothers have ever won heavyweight titles, although Max and Buddy Baer tried. But then again, no two brothers had ever won Olympic boxing gold medals, as Michael and Leon did in 1976.

They used to do everything together, even before the Olympics began their pro careers. Growing up in a St. Louis ghetto, though, they mainly fought together. As they seemed incapable of beating anybody else in the neighborhood--legend has it that their mother often took to the streets to protect them--they beat on each other.

This from the publicity notes: Once they were both playing hooky from school when they started fighting over a bologna sandwich. Leon pulled down a curtain rod and bent it around one of Michael’s knees. “I called for time out, and that’s when he let me have it in the head,” Michael said.

Later, their lives took different paths. Leon seemed to look for trouble and was often able to find it. His driving, his drugs, his guns--he became a national joke, the staple of every comedian’s monologue. Butch Lewis, who promotes Michael and who first signed Leon, said it was not always a laughing matter, although Leon’s life has certainly had its laughs.

Lewis recalled the time he was preparing Leon for his first pro fight and Leon simply disappeared two weeks before it was scheduled, during Christmas.

In moves that might have made any Pinkerton proud, Lewis finally tracked him down in Des Moines. He espied Leon climbing out of a car and simply said, “Yo, Leon.” Leon looked up, his eyes as big as dinner plates. “Butch!”

What, Lewis wondered, was Leon doing, frolicking in Iowa snow two weeks before his first pro fight. Said Leon with his usual elan: “Butch, it’s the holidays.”

The laughter was hollow after he had beaten Ali and the money and fame and trouble came. He self-destructed.

“If ever there was an American dream, Leon had it. And tragedy came and wiped it out,” Lewis said. “The money he made, a young black man who slept in abandoned cars in the projects, it was something he couldn’t even dream about. Sometimes, I think Leon felt it was a dream, and he had to do it all before the dream went away.”

Today, Leon, broke, is quietly embarking on a career as a cruiserweight. He is strictly second banana these days, largely neglected in the shadow of his little brother. Friday, he showed up for the weigh-in wearing a pith helmet. He was overlooked.