Michael Spinks Michael Spinks Michael Spinks (born July 13, 1956) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1977 to 1988. He is a two-weight world champion, having held the undisputed light heavyweight title from 1983 to 1985, and the lineal heavyweight title from 1985 to 1988. As an amateur he won a gold medal in the middleweight division at the 1976 Summer Olympics. Nicknamed "Jinx", which spawned the nickname of his right hand, "The Spinks Jinx", Spinks is the brother of former world heavyweight champion Leon Spinks, and uncle of Cory Spinks, a former welterweight and light middleweight champion. After
Michael Spinks in Miami, Florida, and that same year captured the United States Olympic Trials Middleweight Championship by defeating Keith Broom in Cincinnati, Ohio. He went on to defeat the Soviet Union's Rufat Riskiev to win the Gold Medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Spinks finished with a 93-7 amateur record with 35 knockouts. With the Olympics behind him, Spinks returned to work at a chemical factory in St. Louis, "scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets," as one source tells it. He had no big contracts awaiting him and, while Michael appeared to experts to be the more promising