When Cassius Clay was honing the art of self-promotion to perfection as he rose through the heavyweight boxing ranks and earned a shot at the supposedly indestructible Sonny Liston, white sportswriters said his braggadocios attitude was a disgrace to boxing and that his showboating only covered the fact that he was a sham, a fraud.
When heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali dared to wear white silk boxing trunks, instead of the traditional black, and put tassels on his white boxing boots, white sportswriters said it was an insult to the great champions like Rocky Graziano, Rocky Marciano. Clay’s fashion statement was called a sham and a travesty.
Thus, when Jay Randolph Sr., of KFNS, called welterweight champion Cory Spinks’ entrance to the ring before his loss to Zab Judah a “sham,” “despicable” and other denigrating terms, St. Louis was suddenly transported back to the 1960s and 70s.
Since the 1980s, boxers have been trying to outdo one another with ring entrances. Dancing to the ring is nothing new for Spinks. He’s done it before, and then gone on to beat his opponent.
The respected Roy Jones Jr. entered the ring while rapping himself AFTER playing in a United States Basketball League game earlier that day. Pernell Whitaker once fought in his hometown of Norfolk, Va., and was accompanied by the Norfolk State University Marching Band into the ring.
Certainly, Randolph saw the movie Rocky. The fictional heavyweight Apollo Creed stole the show in 1976 because of his entrance into the ring before taking on Rocky Balboa. When Creed entered the ring while James Brown sang “Living in America,” and a Las Vegas revue was unleashed on the crowd in Rocky IV, boxers throughout the world took note. Many decided that it was important to put on a show even before the fight began.
(Note: Yeah, Creed got killed in the fight, but the Russian Drago was on more steroids than Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco combined in their bathroom stall.)
This was all apparently lost on Randolph, who also used the names of Graciano, Marciano and “Sugar” Ray Robinson to attack Spinks. This is the same Randolph Sr., who probably would have someone thrown out of one of his stuffy country clubs for wearing the wrong color of pants on the wrong day of the week.
What makes Randolph Sr.’s comments even more ridiculous is the fact that, a week later, he was praising the skills and talent of some jokers on the Mix Tape And 1 Tour. The guys that are helping ruin team basketball in America receive praise, while one of the hardest-working athletes in St. Louis n who was determined to bring a title fight to his hometown, and made us all proud by doing so n gets ripped by Randolph.
When Spinks decides that it would be better to just live elsewhere, like his uncle Michael Spinks, we can thank the butt-backwards mentality in St. Louis expressed by Randolph Sr. for sending him on his way.