Olympic gold medalist and former heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks died late Friday night in a hospital in Henderson, Nevada, with his wife Brenda by his side. Spinks has faced numerous health problems, but eventually succumbed to prostate cancer.
Spinks took home Olympic gold for the United States during the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal and just one year later a pro. By 1978 and in just his eighth professional match, Spinks tackled Muhammad Ali for the WBA and WBC heavyweight titles. In a great uproar, Spinks defeated Ali with a 15-round refereeing decision and became the only man to ever dethrone Ali as a heavyweight champion.
When Spinks chose to reclaim Ali instead of tackling Ken Norton, the resident of St. Louis stripped of his WBC title. Ali would later win the WBA title unanimously in front of about 90 million television viewers on ABC and 63,000+ in New Orleans’ Superdome. It was the final victory in Ali’s career.
Unfortunately for Spinks, his career really never recovered from the loss of Ali. A brutal punch in the first round against Gerrie Coetzee followed shortly thereafter, and after stopping rival Bernardo Mercado in 1980, he was stopped three times in 1981 by Larry Holmes. Clear underweight as a heavyweight – Spinks often weigh in the range of 194-210 kg Spinks dropped to a crossweight and returned to its winning style. It came to a halt when he was dominated in 1986 by WBA champion Dwight Muhammad Qawi. It was his last major title fight and one of his last relevant fights in his career.
Spinks has also pursued a career in professional wrestling, most notably with Antonio Inoki in New Japan Pro Wrestling and in 1992 he won the Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling title.
In 1995, Spinks stepped out of the box with a record of 17-17-3 (14 KOs). Unfortunately, there was a dementia diagnosis among his many health problems. Doctors detected shrinkage in his brain in 2012 and suspected that the accumulation of strokes he had picked up during his career was the most likely cause.
Spinks’ brother Michael was a world champion in light heavyweight and heavyweight, while Leon’s son Cory was an undisputed champion in welterweight and also won junior middleweight titles in the 2000s.
Leon Spinks was 67 years old.