Spinks vs. Molina on Friday night on ESPN

By Boxing News - 01/31/2013 - Comments

506By Allan Fox: On Friday night, former two division world champion Cory Spinks (39-7, 11 KO’s) will be looking to rebound from a disappointing 7th round knockout defeat at the hands of IBF light middleweight champion Cornelous Bundrage from June of last year by taking on #4 IBF Carlos Molina (20-5-2, 6 KO’s) in an IBF light middleweight eliminator for #2 spot at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois.

The fight will be televised by ESPN Friday Night Fights in the United States, and will likely have a fairly large audience to see this fight card because in addition to the excellent Spinks-Molina fight, there will also be super middleweight slugger Don George facing James Cook in an eight round bout, and welterweight Antwone Smith facing former lightweight champion Jose Luis Castillo in a 10 round bout.

Spinks, #12 IBF, has really had a lot of problems since losing his IBF/WBA/WBC welterweight titles to Zab Judah by a 9th round TKO defeat in February 2005. Before that loss, Spinks had been fighting incredibly well, beating Judah in their fight, and also defeating Michelle Piccarillo, Ricardo Mayorga and Miguel Angel Gonzalez.

Spinks later picked up the IBF light middleweight title on controversial 12 round majority decision over Roman Karmazin in July 2006. However, Spinks then moved up to middleweight and was beaten by WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor by a 12 round split decision defeat in May 2007. Spinks was then beaten by Verno Phillips.

At that point, Spinks was considered over the hill by a lot of boxing fans but he was then able to defeat Deandre Latimore by a 12 round split decision in April 2009 to capture the IBF 154 pound title. However, Spinks then lost the title in his first defense to Bundrage in a 5th round TKO loss. Spinks then followed that loss with two wins before losing to Bundrage again.

The fact that Spinks is being put in an IBF eliminator bout for the #2 spot is a sign of how weak the junior middleweight division is right now because with all those losses, Spinks shouldn’t be ranked in the top 15 anymore, but he is because of little talent the division has.



Comments are closed.