By Chet Mills: In somewhat of a shocker, two-time light middleweight champion Verno Phillips (42-10-1, 21 KOs) defeated IBF light middleweight champion Cory Spinks (36-5, 11 KOs) by a 12-round split decision last night at the Scottrade Center, in Saint Louis, Missouri. The final judges’ scores were 116-112 and 115-113 for the 38 year-old Phillips. The fight was rather boring, with Spinks mostly countering Phillips, who initiated most of the exchanges. In the early rounds, Spinks, 30, was more effective using his speed and left hand to pile up a slight lead.

After the six, Phillips found it progressively easier to land his shots as Spinks seemed to tire slightly. At the same time, Spinks appeared to want to mix it up more, perhaps because many of the fans in the audience were none too pleased with his cautious style of fighting. In the past, in fights against Zab Judah and Roman Karmazin, the crowd didn’t seem to mind counter fighting style, but they did this time.

While the loss may have surprised some, I wasn’t one of them for Spinks, 30, hadn’t fought in almost a year. At that time, he’d lost to Jermain Taylor by a split decision. In two of his prior bouts, Spinks had been beaten by Zab Judah by a knockout and then received a gift decision over Roman Karmazin. As it is, Spinks, for all practical purposes, had lost three out of his last four fights going into his bout with Phillips, making this loss not as big of a deal as it would otherwise have been.

Afterwards, Spinks said I was trying to give the fans a little excitement…I should have just boxed, but it was also the rust…I will get my titles back.”

Whether Spinks, the son of former heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks, gets a rematch with Phillips is still up in the air at this point. Phillips could possibly make more money by fighting another light middleweight opponent rather than Spinks, who many fans are turned off by due to his cautious style of fighting.

Spinks’ biggest wins of his career were victories over Ricardo Mayorga in 2003, and Zab Judah in 2004. Other than that, there was Spinks’ victory over Karmazin in 2006. Judah avenged his defeat to Spinks with a 9th round TKO in February 2005. Karmazin, despite appearing to beat Spinks by at least two rounds, was never given a rematch, oddly enough.