When the doors of the Savvis Center are unlocked this Saturday afternoon, employees of the arena will brace themselves for a flood of enthusiastic fight fans eager to experience St. Louis’ first big-time boxing spectacle in decades. Our town will borrow some of Sin City’s magic, as the section of Clark Street that stretches past the arena will be repaved into several blocks of the Vegas strip. Fans, celebrities and high rollers will mingle under sweeping spotlights and, before the evening’s end, the main event featuring undisputed world welterweight king Cory Spinks will cast a glitzy spell on the packed house.
Challenger Zab Judah and his posse will ride into town from New York flaunting their big-city ways, flashing their big money rolls, and looking to lift the champ’s belts and give them a change of scenery. But fans better pace themselves, because Don King has crafted a card that is bulging with sizzling boxing action. There are nine bouts on the card, adding up to 66 scheduled rounds.
When the show gets rolling, all of the hype and analysis will go out the window amid the chaos. So, it seemed important to take a quiet hour to break down the tape of the first clash between Spinks and Judah with an expert n Coach Winston “Buddy” Shaw at the Gamble Community Center.
Coach Shaw was in Cory’s corner with trainer Kevin Cunningham when Cory lost a hometown split-decision to Antonio Diaz in Indio, California. At the time, Coach Shaw thought that Cory benefited from the experience. It was Cory’s first leap from six-round fights to twelve rounders, and Spinks showed he could perform at that level.
As Coach Shaw and the American sat down to review the first Spinks/Judah fight, a trio of boxing fans joined in: Raeffel Merriweather, the assistant men’s basketball coach at Vashon High School; “Da Super Producers” CEO Herky; and Gamble Recreation Leader Walter Harris III.
Coach Shaw suggested that we score the fight separately, with no volume, to avoid being influenced by the broadcast crew.
The coach pointed out Judah’s strong points. “Zab has good power, good, quick hands, but he’ll jump in a lot.”
He added, “I think Zab was a little leery at the beginning. He didn’t know what to expect from Cory, so he’s really trying to feel him out in the first round.”
Over the course of the first six rounds, Cory was more aggressive and cut off the ring well. He was masterful with his jab, as he kept the smaller Judah out of range. Everyone in our group gave the first half of the fight to Cory.
Judah’s father and trainer Yoel read his son the riot act in the corner, pointing out that he was losing badly on the scorecards. It was in the second half of the fight that Zab started getting inside and scoring with hooks, and in the process he was able to chip away at Cory’s lead.
Judah was really starting to make things interesting, until the eleventh round, when he made the mistake of posing after a quick one-two to Cory’s face. Cory dropped Judah on the seat of his pants and Zab looked up with a wide grin. A member of our group suggested that Judah was off-balance when the punch landed, and that had actually caused the fall, but not everyone agreed.
As Raeffel Merriweather said, “That’s a knockdown. That’s a knockdown n on the block, in the ring, wherever.”
By the time we reached the final round, we agreed that Zab looked pretty fresh. As he dropped Cory with less than a minute remaining, the scores on our loose-leaf ledgers were very tight. The unofficial judge from HBO scored the bout even. Even though all of our scores were close, we unanimously gave Cory the edge.
Coach Shaw thinks that the first four rounds of the rematch will be extremely critical. He thinks Zab will start the first round of the second fight the way he ended the last round of the first battle, by putting on the pressure instead of languishing on the outside at the end of Cory’s jab.
The coach also hopes that Cory doesn’t try to do too much in front of his fans. Shaw said, “If I was in the dressing room with him, I’d tell him not to get carried away with the crowd. Box how you know how to box. Box within yourself.”
On Saturday night, boxing fans around the world will be watching as Cory returns home, and they will get a glimpse inside the honeymoon of a city and its favorite son.