Leon Spinks, former heavyweight champion who won Olympic gold and shocked the world by beating Muhammad Ali, winning the heavyweight title in only his eighth pro fight, died Friday night at 67.
Spinks died in Henderson, Nevada, with wife Brenda Glur Spinks and some close friends by his side, following a five-year battle with multiple cancers, according to a release from a public relations firm.
Spinks defeated Ali in a 15-round fight in 1978 to win the title. He was unranked at the time, and picked as an opponent because Ali was looking for an easy fight.
The two legends met seven months later at the Superdome in New Orleans, with Ali taking the decision this time before a record indoor boxing crowd of 72,000 and a national television audience estimated at 90m people.
“It was one of the most unbelievable things when Ali agreed to fight him because you look at the fights he had up to then and he was not only not a top contender but shouldn’t have been a contender at all,” promoter Bob Arum said. “He was just an opponent but somehow he found a way to win that fight.”
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Spinks won the light heavyweight pision at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, beating Sixto Soria of Cuba, becoming one of five US fighters to win gold.
He became the heavyweight champion of the world at the age of 25. However; he did not consider himself “ The Greatest,” but he is “Just the latest.”
In 2011, having moved to Las Vegas, he was married to Brenda Glur. The couple was often seen at boxing-related activities, including his 2017 induction into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame.
“He was happy go lucky, the salt of the earth,” Arum recalled, chuckling at the memories. “Leon was nutty but you couldn’t get angry at the guy. He never meant any harm to anyone.”
“You couldn’t help but love him even though you shook your head at how he acted.”
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