Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003 | 10:16 a.m.
It's a rare achievement, holding all three of the major titles at a given weight. It's so rare, in fact, that boxing's welterweight division went more than 20 years without an undisputed champion, dating back to Sugar Ray Leonard in 1981.
But it has one today. Cory Spinks, who went into his fight Saturday in Atlantic City against Ricardo Mayorga with the IBF championship, added Mayorga's WBC and WBA titles by taking a majority decision against the zany slugger.
Now it's Spinks with a position in the limelight.
"We've been on a roll," said his trainer and manager, Kevin Cunningham, from St. Louis this week, where he and Spinks have been enjoying the attention directed their way. "Friday we'll be at the ESPN fights (near Chicago) and Cory will probably be interviewed, and Sunday we'll be on the sideline of the Rams game (in St. Louis vs. Cincinnati).
"It's already been a lot of fun."
Spinks, 32-2, who rented a home with a private gym in Las Vegas to train for the bout and utilized Kenny Adams as an assistant trainer, now has all the welterweight hardware in his collection. He defeated Mayorga by scores of 114-114, 114-112 and 117-110 on the judges' cards to become the first man since Leonard to have an absolute reign at 147 pounds.
"Nothing surprised me about it," Cunningham said. "The fight went exactly the way we drew it up and Mayorga was just what we thought he was: a tough, rugged guy but totally unskilled.
"To be the undisputed champion you have to have some skill to go with your toughness and ruggedness, and, skill wise, Mayorga was just lost. The only chance he had to win was to land a big punch, and when he did Cory was able to take it."
Mayorga's best punch of the fight came in the fifth round and Spinks responded not only by taking it, but by shaking his head as if urging Mayorga to try it again.
"I've been hit hard before," Spinks said afterward. "I wasn't worried about that."
Neither was Cunningham, an Army veteran and former cop who has been working with Spinks for almost 10 years.
"I know my fighter," he said. "I've seen him get hit by middleweights and a bunch of guys bigger than him in sparring. I also knew Mayorga wasn't going to hit Cory with too many big punches."
By the end of the fight, Mayorga -- a blustery, chain-smoking, beer-drinking bomber who had been receiving a ton of national publicity -- accepted the defeat with uncommon graciousness. In the ring following the bout, he placed the belts around Spinks' waist and kissed him on the hand.
"He was a man," Spinks said of Mayorga's public display, although the Nicaragua native said later that he felt he deserved better from the judges. He also lost two points when referee Tony Orlando penalized him for a late hit after the bell to end the fifth round and for holding and hitting in the 11th.
Without the deducted points, the fight would have been scored a majority draw.
"I will say Mayorga is just about the toughest, meanest, nastiest fighter I've ever seen," Cunningham said. "But it worked against him a little bit when he continued to foul. He did it because he was so frustrated that he said the hell with it.
"I think it got to where he thought the only way he could get to Cory was to hold and hit or hit him after the bell."
Spinks, 25, earned a career-best $750,000 for the fight and is now in line for a greater pay day. But Cunningham wasn't particularly optimistic that Spinks would slide into a spot that had been reserved for Mayorga, and fight Shane Mosley on March 13.
"Cory versus Mosley looks huge to me but it also looks like Mosley is afraid of taking the fight," Cunningham said. "I don't know if he's scared of Cory, but it sort of looks that way."
An alternate plan for Spinks has yet to be arranged.
"We want the big fights," Cunningham said. "But I guess we'll just have to wait for a while and see what happens."
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