When one door closes another one opens. IBF junior middleweight champion Cory "The Next Generation" Spinks and his manager and trainer, Kevin Cunningham could not be more thrilled to learn that Oscar De La Hoya is no longer interested in finishing his career against Felix "Tito" Trinidad. Although Team Spinks and myself are among the minority who have no interest in a Trinidad-De La Hoya rematch, Cory and Kevin have four or five million reasons to pull the plug on it that aren't found on my list.
"Tito is a living legend and a fight between me and him would be off the hook because that's as big as it gets. You know me G, I sign contracts."
None of the contracts Spinks has signed were for middleweight fights. If Trinidad is to return it will definitely be as a middleweight, so would Spinks fight Tito at 160?
"I would rather fight him at like 157 or something like that but once I get this manadatory out of the way, I ain't going to let the weight be the reason boxing fans don't get to see if I can box the socks off the greatest Puerto Rican fighter of all time."
Spinks also says he's willing to face the man he described as the Puerto Rican G.O.A.T at his second home, the Mecca of boxing, Madison Square Garden.
"Hell yeah, I'd fight him at the Garden. I know Tito has a whole lot of fans out there in New York and on the East Coast, but I get nothing but love everytime I'm out there too, so it's cool," said Spinks. And Cunningham couldn't agree with him more.
"We're businessmen too, unlike these other boxers though our business is to make the biggest fights out there for Cory and for the boxing world. It's like I've told you G, we sign contracts to make fights. We signed to fight the so called best out there and he dodged out of that to fight an overhyped toughman with ten losses."
Spinks interjects, "Don King ain't the greatest promoter in the history of boxing for nothing, he knows that this is the biggest fight he could make, he knows how much money this can make and he promotes both guys so it's just comes down to Tito wanting to make it happen."
There's no question a Trinidad-Spinks fight would be an anticipated event, but does Cunningham think it would be a PPV success?
"Man listen, Cory and Tito do 500,000 homes without breaking a sweat. We're professionals at what we do, the Trinidad's are professionals at what they do and Don definitely knows what he's doing so that's just the low number, the tip of the iceberg if you ask me. I know Tito and his father read Boxingtalk, and they know Cory's been wanting to fight Tito way before they fought Mayorga. Now it's time to hear what the Tito and his father have to say to see if we can give the boxing world something special. Tito has a huge following and Cory is the biggest boxing star in the hip hop community, so to me this is the kind of fight that would do HUGE numbers."
In closing Spinks wanted to make it clear that he's still looking to fight the biggest names out there, but since none of the Mayweather's and Mosley's are willing to fight him "fighting Trinidad is the best option for me, it's the best option for Tito and man there's no question it would be the best thing for the fans.
The Trinidad's were unavailable for immediate comment.
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