Leon Spinks 1990, Leon's other son, Leon Calvin, was shot to death in East St. Louis as he was driving home from his girlfriend's house. Calvin was an aspiring light heavyweight pro boxer with a record of 2-0, with the two pro bouts occurring only a month before he died. Leon's grandson and Calvin's son, Leon Spinks III, is an aspiring light heavyweight southpaw boxer with a pro record of 11-3-1 with seven knockouts, his last outing being a six round draw with Robbie Cannon in October 2017. Leon has slurred his words since his active boxing days, and was diagnosed in
William A. Spinks again, and while including French champion Edward Fournil, the bet specifically the top-three names in that era of the sport, namely Shaefer, Ives and George Franklin Slosson. The challenge was accepted by well-known Chicago pro Thomas Gallagher (in a match that future champion Ora Morningstar traveled all the way to Chicago to see). Spinks was apparently not a fan of upstart cueist Ives in particular. Days after issuing his caveat-laden challenge, Spinks was described by an onlooking journalist as "very uneasy until the seventeenth inning" as a spectator at the 14.2 balkline World Champion challenge between Ives and incumbent Schaefer;