He Doesn’t Have Look of a Loser

As I looked across the room at Michael Spinks, I couldn’t help thinking that, the last time I saw him, he was supine on a ring floor, left leg twitching, eyes crossed, struggling to sit up and remember where and who he was. It’s human nature.

In fact, Michael himself is surprised he doesn’t get more reaction like that. As the knockee in one of the most celebrated knockouts in boxing history, he’s surprised when the Don Rickleses in the audience don’t snicker, “Hey, Spinks, make yourself at home--fall down!” Or, “Hey, Michael, lie down so the people will recognize you!” Or, “Hey, Mike, your 91 seconds are up! Signal when through.” Or they see him and just shout, “T-i-m-b-e-r-r-r!”

Michael gets none of that, he says. “I see people on the street, and it’s like I won the fight,” he says. “I was thinking of going back and looking at the pictures!”

Michael Spinks lost the fight, all right. You can’t hardly lose a fight any more convincingly. Michael barely survived the “Star Spangled Banner.”

Still, it was the only fight Michael Spinks ever lost. As a pro.

When Floyd Patterson lost on a one-round KO to Sonny Liston, he was mortified. He fled by a side door, donned false whiskers and wig, jumped in his car and raced to the horizon. He felt as if he had let the world down. And Liston took to drink when Muhammad Ali knocked him out in one round.

Michael Spinks took his loss as just another tough day at the office.

“I got on with my life,” he says. “You got to play the hand you’re dealt in this life. You can’t throw it back in and say, ‘Give me three more!’ You don’t get to draw in real life.”

One-round knockouts are not that big a disgrace. Would you believe Jack Dempsey once got knocked out in one round? By someone named Fireman Jim Flynn. Everyone knows Max Schmeling got knocked out in one round by Joe Louis in a title fight. But few know he was knocked out by somebody called Gypsy Daniels two years before he became champion himself.

Michael Spinks went farther on less, anyway, than any fighter who ever lived--with the possible exception of James J. Braddock. He was the Eddie Stanky of pugilism. It used to be said of Stanky that he couldn’t hit, field, throw or run--all he could do was beat you.

Michael couldn’t hit, box or show much speed either. He never particularly wanted to become a fighter. Yet, he parlayed his meager talents into two boxing titles, an unbeaten record--up to Mike Tyson--and a $13-million payday for a 91-second finale. It’s like a guy who can’t read music becoming the toast of two continents in opera.

Michael started life as Leon Spinks’ little brother. He did everything Leon did--except join the Marine Corps. “I don’t like to get shot,” he explains.

He didn’t like to get hit, either, which explains his fighting style, which was early turtle.

When the Spinks boys went to Montreal for the 1976 Olympics, Leon was the star. Michael handled the luggage.

When Leon won the heavyweight championship in only his eighth pro fight, Michael was content to plug along as a light-heavyweight, getting modest paydays for beating the likes of Mustapha Wasajja and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and Dwight Qawi for the World Boxing Assn. light-heavy title, which in the category of titles, ranks just higher than crossing guard.

No one ever thought to call Michael the Astoria Assassin or the Manassa Mauler. Still, neither was he Mr. Clutch. He was boxing’s version of a junk pitcher. He beat you with off-speed stuff. He, so to speak, wore out the corners. Like the toothless lion, he just kind of gummed you to death.

But when the fight was over, his hand was in the air. There was Michael Spinks, grinning as if he had just played the biggest joke in the world. He did this for 12 years and 32 fights. He made more money than a shipping magnate.

It was frustrating to fight him and Michael knew it. It provoked his opponents into reckless outbursts and these were Michael’s meat.

“He didn’t have a mean bone in his body,” trainer Eddie Futch used to say. But he had the uncanny ability to blunt the force of even an oncoming locomotive. Spinks smothered attack. “He was a human net,” the trainer used to say.

It had worked so often, and against such odds, that Michael thought it would work one more time against Mike Tyson. It might have. But he had run out of slow curves, changeups and forkballs. If he had survived the initial onslaught and turned the bout into trench warfare, Michael might have waltzed Tyson to the peace table, so to speak.

He lost as he had won--with a shrug. “A knockout is painless,” he tells you.

If there’s a moral to the story it’s that, if you’re going to lose, it’s better to lose in 91 seconds than in 15 brutal rounds. Michael came out of it as he had gone into it--cashing in on small skills to the extent no one ever really had before.

Still cheerful, optimistic, solvent, he’s on his way to Korea, where he will start a career as a television analyst for Olympic boxing. He well realizes he will be remembered for the one fight he lost, rather than the 100 or so--and the gold medal--he won.

But he has one consolation: He’s no longer Leon’s kid brother. Leon is now his brother.