Little over a year later, the novice professional was thrust into an unlikely heavyweight title challenge against the incomparable Ali. Spinks made his paid debut in Las Vegas with a fifth-round knock-out of Bob Smith the following January. His amateur career peaked when he defeated the Cuban Sixto Sorio in the light-heavyweight final of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Yet Spinks felt at home in the ring, winning the first of three national light-heavyweight titles at the age of 21. I went to school with holes in my sneakers and put cardboard in ’em, but the snow came through. “I’ve been on my own since I was 15,” he told one interviewer. Born into poverty in St Louis, Missouri, on July 11 1953, Spinks was a street fighter who donned boxing gloves at a young age.
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