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June 13, 1981 - Image 16

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Michigan Daily, 1981-06-13

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4

Sorts

The Michigan Daily

Page 16

Saturday, June 13, 1981

Holmes demolishes Spinks
in 'Motown Showdown'

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By MARK MIHANOVIC
Daily Sports Editor
Special to the Daily
DETROIT-Larry Holmes waited one round ...
waited another .. . then demolished challenger Leon
Spinks after eight-and-a-half minutes of furious ac-,
tion last night at Joe Louis Arena to retain his WBC
heavyweight championship.
After two rounds in which Detroiter Spinks (10-3-2)
charged at a dancing Holmes (38-0), arousing the
crowd by landing blows several times, the champion
caught Spinks midway through the third round with a
right cross.
Holmes then pinned him in the corner and pounded
his head with the right, finally sending him to the
canvas. Spinks stood up again, but it was to no avail
as several more Holmes' right hands prompted the
former champion's corner to throw in the white towel.
"I was landing right hands from the beginning of,
the first round," Holmes said afterwards. "When I
got him with the right, I had all the time to measure
him with the left. You can see that I could do what I
wanted, and the ref should have stopped it right
there."
But the fighting didn't stop even after-Holmes left
the ring. While he was going through the standard
Howard Cosell post-fight interview, heavyweight
challenger Gerry Cooney sauntered to the area.
Holmes lunged at him over Cosell shouting, "We're
gonna fight right now," before he was restrained. The
announcer emerged from the bout-with a bloody lip.
"I didn't want him (Cooney) near me," Holmes
said, of the man whom many consider his stiffest
challenge. "I don't wanna make Cooney. I'm the
champ. Thirty-eight fights, 38 wins, 28 knockouts.
Nobody can beat me."
By far the most eventful of the evening's first three
preliminaries was Greg Page's second-round
HEAVYWEIGHT champion Larry
Holmes pounds challenger Leon Spinks
against the ropes during the third round
of their WBC title fight at Joe Louis
Arena yesterday. Holmes defeated
Spinks later in the round with a TKO.

knockout of Alfredo Evangelista.
Page, the promising heavyweight out of Louisville,
Ky., who is now 16-0, went about his business quickly
and efficiently, peppering Evangelista's face with
jabs throughout the first round.
When Evangelista, the former European cham-
pion, came out swinging in the second round, he
opened himself for his own demise as Page nailed
him with an uppercut. Evangelista went down once,
got up, was jabbed again by Page, went down again,
and the issue was settled.
The second fight featured the talents of Larry
Holmes' unbeaten middleweight brother Mark, who
defeated another Detroiter, Bob West, with a TKO in
the seventh round of the scheduled eight-rounder.
Holmes did not appear too interested in showcasing
his talents early in the fight, as he simply let West
swing wildly at him.
But he started to move and jab effectively in the fif-
th round, and by the seventh, a cut on West's face
convinced the referee to stop the fight.
In the evening's first event, a four-rounder between
a pair of boxers making their light-heavyweight pro
debuts, Toledoan Bernard Benton dominated
Detroiter Charles Wooten and won a unaminous
decision with only a handful of spectators dotting the
cavernous arena.r
Throughout the bout, Benton was the aggressor,
and each judge scored it 40-35 in his favor. The only
knockdown came in the first round when Benton cut
Wooten with an overhand right.
In the WBC super lightweight championship, Saoul
Mamby (30-12-5) retained his title with a 15-round
unanimous decision over the number one challenger,
Jo Kimpuani (56-3) of France.
Mamby was effective both early and late in the
fight, as his best rounds were the second, third, twelf-
th and fourteenth.

In the second and third rounds, he kept Kimpuani
pinned against the ropes much of the time, using
quick, choppy undercuts and jabs to stagger him.
But then the complexion of the fight changed. Kim-
puani continually glided towards Mamby with his left
outstretched and followed with the right hand.
He scored well at several junctions in the fight, par-
ticularly during the middle rounds. However, as the
fight wore one, another of his tactics, that of grabbing
Mamby behind the head and holding him, became
more frequent and undoubtedly cost him points.
In the twelfth, Mamby connected with a pair of left
hands and a right and continued to pound away with
the left, dominating the whole round. He held the
momentum through the last three rounds, and when
the bell at 15 rang, there was no doubt about the
decision.
In the final preliminary bout before the champion-
ship fight, third-ranked heavyweight Michael Dokes
(21-0-1) of Akron, Ohio, answered the victory of the
fourth-ranked Page with an impressive knock-out of
his own in the fourth round over European title holder
John L. Gardner (32-3-0).
Early in the first round, it did not appear that the
fight would even go that long. The hard-hitting Dokes
connected right away with the left hand and followed
with a right cross that staggered Gardner, igniting
the crowd at Joe Louis.
Neither man danced, and this style of fighting ap-
peared to suit Dokes fine, as he followed with two
more lefts and a right that nearly put the Englishman
away.
But Gardner survived that round and the next two,
as Dokes' pace appeared to slow down. In the fourth,
though, Dokes stAggered Gardner with a left jab and,
as the latter tried desperately to hold on, Dokes con-
tinued to pummel him until a sharp left knocked him
flat on his back and ended the fight at 1:54.

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