Michael Spinks Survives Ring, Stays Retired In Style

Ten years later, as Mike Tyson and his apologists plot yet another return from ignominy, Michael Spinks has little to say about the man who took him out in 91 seconds.

He knows Tyson has re-applied for a New Jersey boxing license. He understands the debate will be framed amid a mind-numbing repetition of video clips showing Tyson biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear. "I always knew that was there in Tyson," says Spinks. "I knew he was a bully. It was just a matter of time before that showed."

Beyond that, though, Spinks, now 42, has little inclination to moralize or prognosticate. It's enough for him to know he escaped the ignominy himself. He's got his wits and his money. Spinks stayed retired, making him almost alone in the recent history of heavyweight champions.

Look at them, the farce of their fates, their heavyweight talent for ruination: for booze and brain damage, drugs and domestic violence, for car wrecks, incarceration, financial desperation, and of course, for that inevitable humiliation, The Comeback.

Those famous 91 seconds gave birth to the notion of Tyson as the planet's Baddest Man. But a decade later, Tyson is an elaborately complicated failure, an ear-biter and convicted rapist suing his promoter for fraud.

Even The Greatest, Muhammad Ali - who, let it be known, counseled Spinks for his bout with the bully - was not spared. His mind may still yield miracles. But ask a fighter, and he'll say Parkinson's syndrome is a fancy way of saying the guy stayed too long.

Spinks knows all this, knows it in his blood. His older brother, Leon - one of four men to beat Ali - ended up abusing more substances than opponents. A couple years ago, Leon's address was an East St. Louis, Ill., homeless shelter. When he worked, it was as a $4.75 temp in a local labor pool.

"I knew," says Spinks. "I knew it was gonna come to this."

Spinks loved being a fighter, but he never trusted the fight game. And of all his fighter's instincts, that one served him best.

He has seven bedrooms, not including the guest house, on a secluded five acre spread outside Wilmington, Del. His teenage daughter, Michelle, also lives there when she's not away at boarding school. It's a good life, a quiet one, and about as far as he could get from the Pruitt-Igoe Projects back in St. Louis.

Spinks made $13.5 million fighting Tyson, bringing his final tally to $25 million for a career that made history. He was the first light-heavyweight champion to win the heavyweight belt. Back in the '80s, his promoter, Butch Lewis, thought to put him in those high interest zero-coupon bonds. Spinks lives off the interest, more than a couple of hundred grand a year, and more than he needs.

He doesn't need a fleet of cars. Doesn't owe the IRS. Doesn't need to make a comeback.

"Don't want to come back like Swole," he says.

Swole wasn't a fighter. He just ended up like one, walking around in his own private palookaville.

"I was just a little kid back in St. Louis, hanging around the gym," says Spinks. "Seven o'clock, guys start hitting on the bags, sound like drums, like drum noise was coming off they gloves. And here comes Swole, walking up Cass Avenue. I didn't know his name. I just call him Swole 'cause he have this big old swollen head. His whole body was swollen, really, like, from drinking. Swole come up the street, smelling like alcohol, walking by the dope fiends, talking to himself, cursing. So I ask this one guy, I say, `Why Swole like that?' He says, `Back in the day, that man was one of the sharpest brothers on the avenue. Then what happened was, his girl done left him for his best friend and he been like that since.' "

That Spinks considers the fables of failed heavyweights as versions of Swole may be explained as an accident of association. Then again, maybe not. The fight game is as as cruel a mistress as Swole ever had.

"I felt proud to be a boxer," says Spinks. "But I knew boxers were supposed to be dumb. I knew how a lot of guys ended up with no money, and I didn't think I'd be dealt with fairly. Plus, I was already happy. I had my mom and best friend, Kay Francis Spinks. I had my lord and savior, Jesus Christ. And I had a job, potwasher at the Holiday Inn, made $100 every two weeks. They promoted me from dishwasher to potwasher. I didn't need to be a pro. Only thing I ever wanted out of boxing was making the Olympic team."

In 1976, Michael and Leon Spinks went to Montreal as the middleweight and light-heavyweight designees of the best boxing team the United States ever sent to the Olympics. They won gold medals, but not before they met a sharp judge of talent named Butch Lewis.

"Most of the guys sitting around the coffee shop scouting the Olympics had Michael as the dude least likely to succeed," says Lewis. "They said he's clumsy. They said he's lucky. But I'm saying to myself, `If he's so lucky, then how come he's always beating the favorite? When I seen him buckle that Russian, I knew. That wasn't no luck. But he don't want to turn pro. And I mean, I'm hitting Mike with everything just to get him to sign with me. I'm telling him this, telling him that. I'm telling him, `Boy, you gonna miss out on what you been blessed to do.' "

But after the Olympics, Michael Spinks felt blessed to have a $250-a-week job at Monsanto. "I didn't want to take a chance and get me imprisoned to a pro contract," he says. "I just wanted to come back to St. Louis, get a good job and take care of my mom."

The Monsanto plant smelled like rotten eggs. The gold medalist worked a graveyard shift, cleaning ashtrays, cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors. "I didn't feel too bad about it," he says. "Hey, it wasn't like I had chemical engineering skills."

The days turn to months. Lewis keeps calling. But Michael Spinks pays him no mind. Then one night, Spinks commits the great offense of falling asleep on the sofa in the women's bathroom. "I admit it," he says, "I was wrong. But the supervisor comes in there yelling, `Who the hell you think you are,' cursing me out, calling me a bunch of bad names. Finally, I figured I might as well just turn pro. I was probably dying sucking in those chemicals anyway."

So he signed with Lewis, as Leon already had. "After I turned pro, I saw me and Leon being the baddest brothers ever to put on the gloves," says Michael. "We were gonna do everything together."

Leon, of course had other ideas. After Lewis got him that first fight with Ali, Leon returned the favor by signing with a couple of lawyers out of Detroit. He even moved to Detroit. Leon Spinks didn't know it, but he was already well on the way to nowhere, drifting and drinking, drugs and debt. By 1981, Leon had become just another body for Larry Holmes to beat on.

"I didn't like how Holmes tried to hurt my brother," says Michael. "He did the same thing with Ali. Ali would say how he's retiring after every fight, but he never would."

None of these lessons was lost on Spinks, then still beginning a brilliant career. Yes, Spinks was awkward, but such awkwardness enabled him to deliver punches from almost any angle, the best of which was a right hand called "the Spinks jinx."

"I always moved my head," he says. "And I was never afraid to pack up and run."

In 1981, he won a 15-round decision against Eddie Mustafa Muhammad for the WBA light-heavyweight belt. Two years later - just a few months after his wife, Sandy, had died in an automobile accident - he beat Dwight Braxton, the WBC champ.

And in 1985, in violation of every oddsmaker's scenario, he beat Larry Holmes, who was 22 pounds bigger, 48 wins without a defeat, the heavyweight champ. Michael Spinks had done what Billy Conn, Archie Moore and Bob Foster could not. "Most fun I ever had in the ring," he says. "That night was all my way."

Spinks won the rematch. Then he knocked out Gerry Cooney. Soon, the fight everyone wanted to see, the biggest bout in the world, was Spinks-Tyson. It took a while to make, but unlike his night with Holmes, this one wasn't ever going Spinks' way, even if Ali had picked him, whispering in Spinks ear that he could beat the bully.

"He'd given me some pointers for Larry Holmes, and then for Tyson," says Spinks. "I guess I let him down."

Of the 21,785 on hand at the Atlantic City Convention Center on June 27, 1988, Spinks must have been the only one who didn't work up a sweat. He came in dry as a bone. And he didn't even try to run.

"Guess I fought a pretty dumb fight," he says. "Trying to slug with a slugger."

Those 91 seconds ended with Tyson's right hand. "The way Slim hit the ropes, the way his head snapped, I didn't want to see him try to get up," says Lewis. "Tyson was at his best that night. No one has ever seen that Tyson again."

"I heard on the street, how I threw the fight," says Spinks. "But I came to fight like I always came to fight. Just wish I made a better showing of myself."

A month later, Spinks announced his retirement at Tavern on the Green. "I can't thank you and kiss you enough for all the wonderful things . . ."

He broke down, weeping.

"I only started crying because Butch was crying," he says.

Leon, of course, was still fighting. That's easy, though, to keep fighting. It's much more difficult to keep retired.

"It's tough on anyone, leaving the ring," says Spinks. But toughest on an erstwhile champ.

"The money, the power, that bright light around you,once you've been champ of the world, that's tough to give up," says Lewis. "That bright light is a Jones, my man, and you start living to satisfy that Jones. It's an addiction like no other."

There's always another payday. Another belt. Another fight. And that's usually the fight that gets you hurt or humiliated.

"I could've gotten Slim five or six million to fight Holyfield," says Lewis. "But it wasn't the right thing. He didn't need it."

Michael Spinks didn't need that bright light. He's been tempted, sure. He works out at Joe Frazier's gym on Broad St. in Philly. He talks about sparring, but never does.

Instead, he shadowboxes. He wraps his hands, and bangs the big bag for 12 rounds.

Then he heads home. He gets there before his daughter Michelle arrives with her friends to swim in the pool. There's five acres. That's a lot for a kid from Pruitt-Igoe: five acres and not a Swole in sight.