This fight came during one of the many conversations I have had with Shutterworth da Gawd. Shutterworth and I are from the same boxing generation so there are plenty of past fights about which we do talk. But although I knew what the result of the fight was, sometimes how a fight went might be a little fuzzy. Shutterworth had brought up this fight as an example of a point he was making. I had slightly disagreed with him about it. It was enough for me to want to run the fight back and subsequently write about it. In a way it was poignant because I genuinely thought one of the fighters, Cory Spinks, had been forgotten since his last fight in 2015.

Cory Spinks came from boxing royalty via St. Louis, Missouri. The son of former Undisputed Heavyweight Champion Leon Spinks and nephew of former Undisputed Light-Heavyweight and lineal/IBF Heavyweight Champion Michael Spinks. He had a stellar amateur career and turned pro in 1997. During his career, he would pick up an undisputed welterweight title as well as a pair of super welterweight title reigns. He would have victories over the likes of Zab Judah, Jorge Vaca, Rafael Pineda, Michele Piccirillo, Ricardo Mayorga, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, and Roman Karmazin. In 2007, he would challenge then undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor and would lose a controversial decision. After this fight, Cory would start a slow decline. After losing his IBF Super Welterweight Title to Verno Phillips, Cory did not fight for 13 months.

Deandre Lattimore also comes from St. Louis. A multiple time Golden Gloves champion, he would go pro in 2006. He would also later sign with Mayweather Promotions. Lattimore, explosive with a punch, would run up to a 19-1 record with 16 KOs. He would earn his title shot by impressively stopping Sechew Powell in seven rounds. The stage was set in St. Louis, to see who would pick up the IBF Super Welterweight Title vacated by Verno Phillips.

The first 3 or 4 rounds saw Lattimore repeatedly rock Spinks with straight left hands and right hooks. Lattimore, the puncher, was also able to match hand speed and went for broke early. One thing you notice is Spinks is not moving like he used to. In his prime, Cory Spinks had some of the most educated feet you would ever see to go along with competent defense. The knockdown he suffered in round one was him simply not being able to avoid the heavy shots Lattimore was winging at him. The legs stiffened almost immediately. Kevin Cunningham, Spinks’s trainer, would get furious for what he saw as unneeded carelessness. Spinks also suffered a cut from a legal punch and made it worse with inadvertent headbutts. Lattimore unfortunately would not be able to keep up his early onslaught. Spinks would come back firing. He knew boxing the younger and fresher Lattimore was not a game plan that was going to work for him. He was going to have to fight him.

The middle rounds saw Lattimore tire from throwing so many hard punches and his work rate started going down. Spinks started picking Lattimore off with counters and landing effective body shots. Lattimore seemed to age round after round from the consistent punishment. Even rewatching this fight, it is still weird to see Cory Spinks be so stationary and throw punches with mean intentions. It almost seemed like Spinks wanted that 12^th career knockout. The crowd sensed the change of momentum and started to chant “Cory!!! Cory!!!.”  It also seemed that Cory also needed those early rounds of turmoil in order to properly warm up into the fight. Lattimore was landing those right hooks, but they no longer had the steam that it once had early in the fight. Cory took those shots well and continued to walk Lattimore down, who was finding a home staying on the ropes. Round nine saw Cory return the favor and cut Lattimore over his eye with some punches. 10^th round saw both fighters hit the wall and become increasingly tired. That did not stop them from moving the fight to the center of the ring and start to throw home run punches in their toe-to-toe exchange. Lattimore, if I am not mistaken, had never been in water this deep before. This will be shown in the final two rounds. Cory’s experience was able to hold off a slight second wind surge from Lattimore and was able to throw more punches and finish strong down the stretch. Lattimore appeared to go down with less than a minute to go in the final round, but it was ruled a slip. This was enough for Cory Spinks to win the tight split decision over Deandre Lattimore by scores 115-112 & 114-113 over 115-112. This was one hell of a fight from both men. Cory, not known for winning slugfests, showed plenty of resolve to counteract the decline of his physical talent in this win to become IBF Super Welterweight Champion once again.

The aftermath of this fight would see both fighters continue a career decline. Cory Spinks would unfortunately be one and done in his final reign as a world champion. In his next fight, he would lose his title to Cornelius “K9” Bundrage. He would win two more fights, the latter against Sechew Powell. Powell would be his final career victory. He would then lose a rematch to Bundrage and then an IBF eliminator to Carlos Molina. Spinks would quietly retire after that fight and have largely been out of the spotlight since. Judging by his IG page spinksjinxboxing, Cory seems to be happy and content with post boxing life.

Unfortunately for Deandre Lattimore, this would be his only world title shot. He would never regain any momentum again. He had some good lower-level wins mixed in with a loss to Sechew Powell in a rematch. An alarming close majority decision over Milton Nunez, in which he was dropped twice late in the fight, would be his final win. He would be outboxed and stopped by Carlos Quintana on the undercard of Mayweather vs Cotto in a minor upset to end his career. There is not much that I can find on what he is up to outside of a Twitter page that has not been updated with any tweets since 2014. Hopefully, Deandre Lattimore is doing well for himself. If you need something to watch before Canelo vs Crawford, throw this one. You know when it comes to these types of fights, I will never steer you wrong.

written by Patscorpio.