and the World Boxing Council-and expects to annex the third later this summer. He has already consolidated two of the titles-those bestowed by the World Boxing Assn. Even though just 20 years old, Tyson, with his continued activity and ring excitement, has come to be thought of as the heavyweight champion. Then, too, there is the Mike Tyson factor. His fight with an over-the-hill Holmes is still regarded as a controversial decision, immortalized by Holmes’ rap song, “Boxing Politics.” The fact that Spinks was stripped of the International Boxing Federation title for scheduling a Cooney fight ahead of a Tony Tucker defense, is not what has damaged his credibility. Although regarded as a wonderful light-heavyweight champion, he received surprisingly little credit for bulking up and becoming a heavyweight champion. Similarly, promoters misread Spinks’ attraction. Seven rounds in five years do not qualify even a white heavyweight with a left hook for contention. Promoter Butch Lewis reports that a closed-circuit distributor in the South has a promotional tape that advises fans to “be there for the pride of their race.” But nothing sells Cooney any more.
As he remains white and a puncher, as well-as an 86-second destruction of Eddie Gregg last year reminded us-it was thought that appeal was intact. Cooney’s mysterious appeal, that of a white puncher, inspired a gate of more than $30 million for his challenge of Holmes in 1982. In Detroit, they pulled the show out of Joe Louis Arena when they could sell no more than 16 tickets. Reports of similar indifference roll in from across the country. The closed-circuit distributor there said he was “dumbfounded” by the fight’s lack of appeal. Just past the bombed-out ghetto, the real Atlantic City that’s hidden by the shiny facade of beachfront casinos, is Philadelphia and a world of indifference.
Tickets to the Convention Center have been snapped up by the high rollers, and casino execs are bragging about their new “marketing tool.” But the excitement apparently does not extend beyond the casino floor. Here on the boardwalk, hard by the taffy stands and T-shirt shops, the excitement is something less than palpable.
Spinks and Cooney were not, are not, perhaps never will be. But perhaps it has to do with the fact that Frazier and Holmes, who hit chins with more accuracy than they hit notes, were regarded as heavyweight champions. To judge by the advance sales at closed-circuit locations, they would.
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How to account for their box-office punch? How to account, on the other hand, for the surprising lack of it for tonight’s main, non-singing event? Would people rather pay to see Frazier and Holmes sing badly, as they did in a casino lounge Saturday night, than to watch Gerry Cooney and Michael Spinks fight well? This, despite the fact that both Joe Frazier and Larry Holmes carried fighters in their day lots better than they carried tunes. Two heavyweights, performing on a kind of musical undercard to the so-called War at the Shore, packed the house the other night.