MAN BEHIND SPINKS : Veteran Trainer Futch, 76, Says He Can See His Boxer Beating Slugger Tyson

There is a widely held view this week that Michael Spinks, in the 12th year of an undefeated career, is finally in over his head.

Sure, he was a great light-heavyweight, one of the best. Sure, he was the first light-heavyweight champion to move up and win the heavyweight championship. Sure, he beat Larry Holmes twice.

But Mike Tyson, the smart guys say, is an entirely different matter.

Michael Spinks, the smart guys say, has no chance.

Eddie Futch hears all this, and a gentle smile spreads across his remarkably unlined face.

Futch, 76, is one of boxing’s most respected figures. He has trained 15 world champions, beginning with welterweight Don Jordan, in 1958.

Today, he is Michael Spinks’ trainer.

Eddie started training fighters in Detroit when he was 25. In those days, he said, a local main event fighter earned $300 to $500. Trainers, then as now, got 10%.

“We were still in the Depression, and I was a working father then,” Futch said Thursday. “Fifty bucks in those day was a great pay day, believe me.”

At Monday night’s main event in Atlantic City, Spinks will earn a guaranteed $13.5 million. Futch won’t say if he’s getting 10% of that, saying only: “It’s on a scale basis, but something close to that.”

So, although the numbers might have more digits than in the old days, some things never change. Some fundamental truths in boxing still apply, he says, and one of them is that a smart, experienced boxer can smother the firepower of a superior puncher.

Examples? “The Ring” record book is full of them, Futch said.

“You can go all the way back to (James J.) Corbett-(John L.) Sullivan, if you want to,” Futch said.

“Look at the two (Jack) Dempsey-(Gene) Tunney fights (in 1926 and ‘27). There were people back then who would have bet everything they owned that Dempsey would tear Tunney apart. I can remember them talking about that fight 10 years later. Tunney had a great left hand and great feet, and he made Dempsey look foolish, of course.

“One of the best examples, though, is the first (Joe) Louis-(Billy) Conn fight (in 1941). The fact that Conn got careless in the 13th round and got knocked out is immaterial. The point is, for 12 rounds he boxed Louis silly, and Billy Conn was a much smaller man who was quick on his feet, smart and knew how to counter-punch with Louis.

“I ran a little gym in Detroit then, and I remember taping pictures of the fight on the gym wall and writing on signs: “This is beautiful boxing--the way it should be done.”

Louis and Futch were contemporaries.

“We both lived on Clinton Street (in Detroit), a mile apart,” Futch recalled. “We sparred a lot together. We were amateurs together. Even as a teen-ager, Joe had something special. He threw a very straight right hand and a very short left hook, maybe no more than 12 inches.

“And he absolutely never telegraphed his punches, which meant you could not make a mistake with him.”

And then there was Lester Felton.

Lester Felton?

“Lester Felton was a welterweight I handled back in the late 1940s,” Futch said.

“In my personal experience, Lester Felton is the best example of a good boxer smothering a superior puncher’s power.

“In 1949, I took Lester to Syracuse to fight an up-and-coming heavy hitter in his hometown--Carmen Basilio. No one gave us a chance. Basilio had everyone in Syracuse pretty excited because he was a powerful puncher who was knocking a lot of guys out.

“Now, Lester had a pretty fair right-hand punch, and Basilio knew that. But Lester was also a great feinter, and Basilio didn’t know that. See, Lester would give little feints with his shoulders and head (Futch was on his feet, demonstrating). Every time he did that, Basilio would hesitate. And when he hesitated, Lester would jab and hook him, 1-2, and move away.

“This went on for 10 rounds. Lester won every round. Well, two judges gave Lester every round, the third gave him nine. I remember a sportswriter wrote that the judge who gave Basilio a round should be given a seeing-eye dog.”

Futch leaned his head back and laughed at the memory. Eddie likes it when a boxer beats a puncher, except when his guy is the puncher, which finally brings us to Manila.

At the “Thrilla in Manila,” a boxer, Muhammad Ali, throttled a puncher, Joe Frazier. It was the last of the three Ali-Frazier meetings.

“Joe and I had a game plan,” Futch said. “Joe was to stay low and close to Ali. For most of the first 10 rounds, it worked. At the end of the 10th, Ali wanted to quit but Angelo (Dundee, Ali’s trainer) kept him in the fight.

“Then Joe’s right eye started to swell at the end of the 11th, and it quickly began to impair his vision. So he had to back off and stand up straight, to see better.

“Ali immediately saw this as an opportunity to win the fight, and it seemed to give him new verve and energy. By the end of the 12th, Joe’s eye was completely closed.

“I wanted to stop the fight then, but then I thought Ali had thrown so many punches in the 12th, he might be punched out for the 13th. So, one more round, I decided.

“Well, the 13th was a very bad round for Joe. He got hit with an Ali right hand that he never saw, and it knocked his mouthpiece in the sixth row. Near the bell, I said to George Benton, my assistant, ‘I’m going to stop it.’

“ ‘That’s a good idea,’ he said.

OK, Eddie, how can Spinks pull this one off?

“I can see Michael winning,” he said. “He’s obviously going to have to box very well, and avoid getting hit with Tyson’s best shots.

“He’s going to have to use his very good counter-punching ability and his very respectable power. Many people don’t consider Michael a power puncher, but he has respectable power. Michael is also a good finisher. If he hurts you, he can finish you.

“So while we’re looking for a decision victory here, Michael will take advantage of any mistakes Tyson makes in the fight.

“Above all, he must remember to never trade power for power with this guy.

“You know, that was a fault that Sugar Ray Robinson had in his big middleweight fights with Basilio. Sugar Ray had the best left jab in the business in those days. But he had this pride, see. He wanted to give the crowd a good show. He could have boxed Basilio silly with that great jab, but he didn’t do it.”

Boxing Notes

The Trump Plaza’s Tyson-Spinks press office here has issued 1,307 media credentials, a record. The previous high was just over 1,100 for Marvin Hagler-Sugar Ray Leonard at Caesars Palace last year. . . . Atlantic City Mayor James Usry was a little carried away at a news conference Wednesday. He called Tyson-Spinks “The greatest sports event in the history of the earth.”

The biggest buyer of tickets for the fight is Donald Trump’s Boardwalk neighbor, Caesars Atlantic City, which bought 498 for its high rollers. On the loss--freebie--side, Mike Tyson wants 100, and at last check was meeting some resistance to the request. . . . Tyson has been weighing about 214 pounds at the end of his workouts this week. Trainer Eddie Futch expects Michael Spinks to be at 210 Monday.

The fight, the city’s chamber of commerce says, will pump between $80 million and $100 million into the Atlantic City economy. There isn’t a vacant hotel room, they say, within 35 miles of here.

Bill Cayton, Tyson’s embattled manager, wrote an op-ed page piece for the New York Times recently, disputing a point made by Tyson’s confidant, Jose Torres, who in an article for the same paper, wrote that boxing managers who make one-third of a boxer’s earnings are overpaid. “Fighters train six weeks for a major fight,” Cayton wrote. “I have worked night and day, seven days a week, since mid-March on the Tyson-Spinks fight. . . . A good manager is well worth the one-third share he’s paid.”