TalkingBoxing Articles
519 Days Later, Spinks Battles Karmazin
FRI July 7, BRIAN BLAKE - 519 days can seem like an eternity, especially if you are former unified welterweight champion Cory Spinks.
Come Saturday night, July 8th, live on Showtime Championship Boxing at 10PM/ET, it’ll be 519 days since he last stepped into the squared circle for a professional prizefight.
While WBO titlist, Antonio Margarito, still struggles to secure a meaningful fight a lot has changed in the division where Spinks once ruled. Zab Judah, the man that took the titles from Spinks in his last bout, is now coming off of two consecutive losses. Floyd Mayweather Jr., Ricky Hatton and Carlos Baldomir have all gone on to win titles in the welterweight division since then. All the while the St. Louis native, Cory ‘Next Generation’ Spinks, has been on the outside looking in.
St. Louis, the city where his reign came to an abrupt end.
Was Spinks too concerned with entertaining his hometown fans with his extravagant ring walk alongside rapper Nelly? Some would say so. Some would say that Judah was just too strong for Spinks over the course of the nine rounds the bout lasted. What’s done is done.
For the moment, the welterweight division in not a concern for Cory, as he moves up in weight to challenge IBF jr. middleweight king, Roman Karmazin, at the Sawis Center in St. Louis, MO.
It’ll be 519 days since he last fought in that arena.
Spinks will once again have his hands full this Saturday night. As he stands across from the ring looking at Karmazin he’ll be facing a naturally bigger opponent. As this is Spinks’ first fight in the division Karmazin has fought here his entire career. While Karmazin isn’t the slickest or the strongest of fighters he does possess a nice balance between the two, as he proved in his unanimous decision win over Kassim Ouma last July.
We’ve seen Spinks deal with slickness and power before. Just look back onto his first Showtime televised fight with Zab Judah where he came off of the canvas to pull out a unanimous decision win. Then look at another Showtime Championship Boxing outing where he held off Mayorga’s power to secure a majority decision victory.
It’ll be 519 days since Spinks was in the spotlight.
Since then Spinks has had his share of problems outside of the ring as well. His now ex-wife stabbed him in the stomach. His promoter Don King gave him problems as well.
When Spinks walks to the ring tomorrow night he’ll have dealt with quite a bit of adversity. Then he’ll deal with another problem in the form of Roman Karmazin for 12 rounds inside the ring. It could make for a very tough and long night for Spinks. Just don’t tell him that. This win was 519 days in the making.
Forum
