One Punch from the Promised Land

by John Florio

  Most ring insiders agreed that Michael was out of his league.

  Billy Conn told the Chicago Tribune: “It’s like betting on a toothpick against a lumberyard.”

  Los Angeles Times writer Jim Murray, anticipating last rites, wrote, “On September 21st at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, Larry Holmes, a 225-pound fighter with a 45½-inch chest and an 18-inch neck, will get in a 16-foot square ring with a 175-pound ‘opponent,’ one with a 38-inch chest and a 15½-inch neck, and will be turned loose on him. Bring a priest.”

  The burning question was why Michael would put his considerable legacy on the line by stepping into the ring with a heavyweight champion he couldn’t beat.

  “I don’t care about getting more recognition,” Michael told the Miami Herald. “Fame brings more than money and respect—it gets everybody into your life. I’ve never been into that. But it’s a heavy challenge, and that makes it exciting.”

  And so the über-challenged Michael stepped into the glare of the klieg lights at the Riviera. But now his face seemed fuller, his neck thicker. He had the back of a lumberjack and the face of a barroom poker player.

  When the weights on the scale found their proper grooves, Duane Ford of the Nevada State Athletic Commission announced the reading. “Michael Spinks,” he said through the PA system. “Two hundred even.”

  Michael gave the crowd a wink and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. Things were A-OK.

  Silence gave way to a flurry of questions. Ten pounds over the minimum? No way. Check the scale. Twenty-five pounds in three months? Even Larry Holmes looked confused.

  “He must have drank a couple of cases of water and didn’t go to the bathroom,” the champ told the gathering.

  Rumors had been flying for weeks about Michael’s workout regimen, which had been cooked up by a strength-and-conditioning coach named Mackie Shilstone.

  A walk-on wide receiver for Tulane in the early 1970s, Shilstone had been conditioning Michael’s light-heavyweight body for three years—but turning him into a heavyweight was a new challenge. According to Shilstone, his biggest accomplishment had not been bringing Michael to two hundred—that was Michael’s “walking around weight.” His triumph lay in converting that weight into lean, energetic, heavyweight-worthy muscle. He’d cut the fighter down to 185 pounds and then rebuilt him from scratch, putting him on a 4,500-calorie-a-day diet made up of 65 percent carbohydrates, 20 percent protein, and 15 percent fat.

  Michael had told the press, “I’m eating nuts, bolts, screws, razor blades, and sledgehammers.” In truth, he was loading up on vegetables and grains and depriving himself of his favorite snacks.

  According to Shilstone, “He’d get this candy and hide it under his bed. The funny thing was I’d go into his room, and one day I found it. I asked him, ‘Are you gonna go eat the candy under the bed?’ He said, ‘No, I don’t really want it. I just want to know I can have it.’ So one time I took it away. I came back later and he’d [replaced] it.”

  The process hadn’t stopped in the kitchen. To make Michael a more “explosive” fighter, Shilstone had him run sprints instead of doing traditional long-distance roadwork, and he put him on a weightlifting regimen. Talk to Shilstone and you’ll walk away thinking he’s a genius. Talk to others and you’ll think his approach was nonsense.

  Holmes’s trainer, Richie Giachetti, believes the media took the story and ran with it.

  “That was a hype job,” Giachetti says. “Anyone who’s an athlete knows you don’t do sprints. There’s no substitute for doing long distance to get in shape. Sprints help you to fight in bursts, but they don’t help you when you have to go fifteen rounds.”

  At the weigh-in Giachetti told Holmes that a 200-pound Michael would not be the same fighter he had been as a light-heavyweight. The extra body mass, according to Giachetti, would make Michael slower and stiffer. Throw Michael’s bad knee into the equation and you’ve got a seriously compromised fighter.

  Holmes agreed with Giachetti and brushed off the weight issue, just as he discounted anything he didn’t find agreeable.

  “The heavier he is, the easier it’ll be for me,” Holmes told reporters. “This will probably be one of my easiest fights…. The only way Michael Spinks could beat me is if I was out drinking all night long. I haven’t been. So I said to myself, is there any way he can beat me? The answer is no. No way.”

  Michael dismissed Holmes’s trash talk. But Holmes was accurate about one thing: Michael was about to get into the ring with one of the most successful heavyweight champions the sport had ever seen.

  Las Vegas, 1985. Michael was not the only fighter chasing history. Holmes, who had fought ten times since beating Leon in 1981 (including a racially charged mega-bout against Gerry Cooney), was one win away from tying Rocky Marciano’s unbeaten record of 49–0.

  Now thirty-five years old, Holmes had been talking of retirement since the previous year when the WBC ordered him to fight its number-one challenger Greg Page or be stripped of the championship. Holmes said no to the fight, reportedly because Don King’s offer of $2.5 million was insulting. Behind the scenes, though, many thought Holmes was afraid of blemishing his sterling record.

  Before the WBC could take away his title, Holmes defected. He accepted the belt of the newly formed IBF, providing instant credibility to the nascent organization, and gaining the freedom to pick his own opponent in the process. He chose a $3.1 million payday against Marvis Frazier, who aside from a legendary surname had little offer. It took Holmes two minutes and fifty-seven seconds to dispatch Frazier and improve his record to 45–0.

  Through it all, Holmes claimed he wasn’t interested in Marciano. Nobody was buying it. Why would they? Despite his talk, he seemed to be on a mission to break the record. In the eighteen months following the Frazier fight, he got by Bonecrusher Smith, battered the underqualified David Bey, and unwrapped a gift decision over Carl Williams. That left one victory. And one undefeated light-heavyweight champion.

  Seth Abraham, then president of HBO Sports, recalls how the idea of Holmes-Spinks first came about. “[In 1985] I was at Pietro’s seafood restaurant in Las Vegas with my father-in-law and one of my wife’s uncles and a bunch of HBO people,” he says. “And who shows up but Don [King] and Butch [Lewis], so I moved everybody down and sat with them. And we start talking about Holmes and Michael. Larry was chasing Marciano’s record at the time, and he had fought a barely breathing guy. I had had conversations with Larry, and I was concerned that he wanted to fight me next to tie Marciano, and then fight you to break Marciano. So the dinner was not a negotiation as much as it was a probing, diplomatically, to see if Larry wanted to take the fight. Don was interested in history and in helping Larry break Marciano’s record. Butch’s determining factor was, frankly, money. It wasn’t a question of breaking Larry’s undefeated record; it was a question of winning the heavyweight championship of the world.”

  In June Michael had been at the Riviera entertaining the press corps after stopping Jim MacDonald in the eighth round. The MacDonald fight was his tenth defense of the WBA belt and his fourth defense of the WBC title he had taken from Qawi. Holmes’s publicity agent Dick Lovell placed an emergency call to the hotel and reached the Riviera’s public relations representative Laura Herlovich. Moments later she interrupted the press conference.

  “Michael is not aware of what I’m about to say,” Herlovich announced. “Dick Lovell, who represents Larry Holmes, just called to offer Michael Spinks $550,000, plus $150,000 in training expenses, to fight him in August.”

  Michael’s postwin euphoria puddled at his feet. He’d already turned down $1 million to fight Holmes. This new offer was even more insulting.

  “That was the emergency call?” Butch Lewis said to Herlovich. “Hang up on him.”

  Herlovich hung up, but the negotiations, which had been going on for the better part of a year, were coming to a head. Within a month Lewis and King finalized a deal with Abraham and HBO. Holmes would take in roughly $3.
5 million. Michael would earn close to $1.5 million, more than ten times his purse against MacDonald.

  The public cared less about the money than about the fight’s historical significance. Rocky Marciano had been a revered champion, and the matchup had the statisticians and historians working overtime to come up with noteworthy insights:

  The date. After all the shenanigans, the fight was set for September 21, 1985, exactly thirty years from the night Marciano wrapped up his flawless career by knocking out another ambitious light-heavyweight champion, Archie Moore, in Yankee Stadium.

  Holmes’s legacy. The fight marked Holmes’s twenty-second title defense; he’d been champ for seven years. He was chasing only Joe Louis, who’d defended his title twenty-five times in a twelve-year span.

  Michael’s legacy. In stepping up to heavyweight, Michael had become the first light-heavyweight to leave his division as an undefeated champion.

  The record books. If Michael took the fight from Holmes, he and Leon would become the first pair of brothers to capture the heavyweight title.

  The alphabet-soup organizations tried to cloud the picture. The WBA recognized Tony Tubbs as the heavyweight champ; the WBC recognized Pinklon Thomas. But no one else on the planet—perhaps not even Tubbs or Thomas—agreed. Holmes was champ, period. And the winner of Holmes-Spinks would walk away with the IBF heavyweight title, Ring magazine’s heavyweight title, the lineal title, and a sizable chunk of boxing history.

  On September 21, 1985, a chilled air was blowing through the outdoor arena that had been set up in the parking lot behind the Riviera.

  A stiffly moving Muhammad Ali sat ringside—Parkinson’s syndrome was taking its toll on the once-invincible champion. The right hand that had battered Joe Frazier in Manila now trembled as he went to sign autographs.

  Marciano’s relatives, including his brother, Peter, were also on hand, courtesy of Caesars Palace. Jersey Joe Walcott could be spotted in the crowd, along with Mr. T, Robert Duvall, Grace Jones, Redd Foxx, Hector Camacho, and Leon Spinks. Leon sported a white sweatshirt—the hood was pulled over his head and topped by a pith helmet. Camacho was in silver lamé, but most eyes were on that helmet. Pia Zadora sang the national anthem. It just so happened that her billionaire husband, Meshulam Riklis, owned the hotel.

  Standing in their corners, the two fighters loosened up: Michael in white trunks with black trim, Holmes in white trunks with red trim. Ring announcer Chuck Hull introduced the referee, Carlos Padilla, and the judges, Dave Moretti, Harold Lederman and Larry Wallace, to the crowd of 11,000. He then announced the fighters: “From St. Louis, Missouri, the undefeated light-heavyweight champion of the world, Michael Spinks. From Easton, Pennsylvania, the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, Larry Holmes.”

  The bell clanged.

  The fighters met in the center of the ring, but, surprisingly, Holmes did not take it to Spinks. Instead of throwing his hallmark right, he stayed outside. His once-feared jab was slow and off the mark, like a jackhammer with a weak battery. Michael was on the move, ducking the left jab while training his eye on Holmes’s right fist. He kept his upper body in motion, twitching and jerking his head in case Holmes pulled his right out of its holster. Michael’s awkward movements clearly frustrated the big man, who continued to fire only lefts. Most missed.

  You didn’t need a stopwatch to see that Michael was quicker than Holmes. Instead of slowing down from the extra poundage, Michael seemed spunky, energetic, and strong. Butch Lewis, obviously enjoying what he was seeing, taunted Holmes from ringside.

  “You’re an old man!” Lewis repeatedly shouted at Holmes, his words being picked up by the HBO microphones.

  Judge Harold Lederman says, “[Butch Lewis] was yelling and screaming. He wasn’t in the corner, either, he was on the apron or in the first row. He kept pounding on the canvas. The Nevada commission was so stupid, they didn’t know enough to chase him away. You could feel the banging; it was unbelievable.”

  By the third round Michael seemed to sense that Holmes didn’t have enough to hurt him. He ducked the jab, moved inside, threw combinations, and then ran like a bandit from a holdup. His punches failed to wobble Holmes, but they were piling up points by the dozen.

  Holmes landed a few big punches, mostly to Michael’s midsection. But he had lost control of the ring. His eyes were swelling and a small cut opened on his forehead. Despite pleas from his corner to throw the right, he kept it cocked but inexplicably didn’t pull the trigger. He chose instead to stalk Michael, presumably waiting for the chance to connect with a knee-buckling bomb. When completely flummoxed, he bullied his smaller opponent. Michael complained to Padilla of holding, thumbing, and elbowing; Padilla warned Holmes twice, but the big man continued to roughhouse and strong-arm. His moves were straight out of a bar fight and didn’t endear Holmes to the crowd. Those watching the bout live booed heartily, and when Holmes thuggishly tried to shove Michael to the floor, a water bottle sailed into the ring.

  Holmes had never been a saint between the ropes but neither had he bullied his way to the top. A seasoned champion, he knew what he had to do: lure Michael into a slugfest. Had Michael taken the bait, he probably would have met the same fate that Leon had in 1981. But Michael didn’t have Leon’s impetuousness, and he wasn’t about to do anything rash now. He continued to slip the jab, deliver five- and six-punch combinations, and leave town without waiting for a receipt.

  HBO commentator Larry Merchant midbout, “If [Spinks keeps] fighting Holmes in this fashion, if his stamina doesn’t betray him, we may have one of the great upsets in prizefight history.”

  Trainer Nelson Brison to Michael, “You’re doing good. Don’t get careless, now.”

  Richie Giachetti to Holmes after the eighth round: “You’re the champion. You can’t let this guy take it to you. Keep the jab, work off of it. Throw the right hand. If you miss, come back with the left hook. Then you bring the right uppercut…. Throw the goddamned right uppercut.”

  Going into the ninth, just as Michael was enjoying a razor-thin lead on the judges’ cards and the name Mackie Shilstone was being bandied about in living rooms around the country, the needle on Michael’s gas tank dipped into the red zone. His gloves dropped to his beltline and he took a solid right hook to the body. He appeared hurt as he sucked in huge gulps of air, but he quickly marshaled a defensive strategy, refusing to give Holmes a stationary target. He circled the ring, moved sideways, avoided the ropes, and jerked his body in the manner of a guy squirming inside an itchy wool suit.

  Holmes, as everyone knew, was fighting more than just a twenty-nine-year-old light-heavyweight champion; he was battling age. Like Ali at the end of his career, Holmes knew what he had to do but couldn’t find the wherewithal to do it. He was no longer the indomitable fighter who had beaten Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers, and Gerry Cooney. He did, however, have twelve years of professional ring experience, and that fact wasn’t lost on Michael, who continued to stay away, thereby sacrificing the late middle rounds.

  In the eleventh Michael seemed to gather strength, but his biggest spurt of energy came when he yelled at Leon, who was leaning on the ring apron in his pith helmet and shouting advice to his brother. HBO commentators Sugar Ray Leonard and Barry Tompkins, unaware of what prompted Michael’s outburst, remarked that he’d better save his energy for the last few rounds of battle.

  It was good advice, because it was becoming increasingly apparent that the fight was going the distance. And while Merchant, Leonard, and Tompkins had Michael well ahead on their cards, the official judges didn’t. After fourteen rounds Dave Moretti and Harold Lederman had the fight even; Larry Wallace had Michael ahead, 135–133. There were three minutes left, and the heavyweight title was still up for grabs.

  “The Volkswagen is beating the eighteen-wheeler…,” Larry Merchant told the HBO audience. “We may be going into the last round of a great champion’s career.”

  “Three minutes left and you have the feeling Holmes is going to need all of them
,” Barry Tompkins added.

  Richie Giachetti told Holmes, “It’s the last goddamn round. You gotta go after him. There’s no tomorrow, you hear me? You got to take it to him. Let it all hang out.”

  Nelson Brison told Michael, “You got three minutes and you’re champion.”

  Holmes answered the bell for the fifteenth with renewed gusto. He planted his feet to the canvas and swung for the fences. Michael answered the challenge, trading punches with Holmes in the middle of the ring, landing several. But going toe-to-toe with the big man came with risks. Holmes unloaded a powerful right across Michael’s temple, and as Michael struggled to clear his head, Holmes came in for the kill. Just then, a dazed Michael got to his toes and retreated in a fashion known to boxing fans as “getting on his bicycle” but referred to by Dwight Qawi as “running.” Michael continued to lurch in every direction, staying clear of the big man. By the time Holmes landed another right, Michael was clearheaded enough to retaliate with a six-punch assault.

  When the bell rang Michael shot his fists into the air. He didn’t need to wait for the judges’ scores. Nor did his cornermen, who rushed to his side, jubilant. Nor did Holmes, who skulked back to his corner, head down, mouthpiece dangling between his teeth. Nor did the announcers who gave the fight to Michael. Nor did the crowd, which rhythmically chanted “Mi-chael! Mi-chael!” Still, uncertainty crackled in the air. Boxing fans knew the sport had become notorious for dealing out questionable decisions, a few of which had kept Holmes champion in recent years.