Doctored Glove Tragedy Wont Go Away

NEW YORK --- When they hand you a press kit in which boxing is described as “a controversial, dying sport,” you might suspect that somebody has an agenda. And when the second paragraph of that press kit describes the attendance for the June 16, 1983 fight between Luis Resto and the late Billy Ray Collins as “a capacity crowd of 25,000 at Madison Square Garden,” the alarm bells ought to go off.

The actual attendance that night was 20,061, making it the third-largest audience in the history of Garden Boxing. The all-time record remains the 20,748 for Ali-Frazier II in 1974. While the fudged figure is not particularly crucial to the issues at hand, when someone is willing to take such liberties with readily verifiable facts, it doesn’t exactly bolster the case for his subsequent, more theoretical pronouncements.

A quarter-century later, the circumstances of the Resto-Collins fight still render it a low point in the annals of New York boxing.  The essential elements of the story are well-known, and, since Carlos "Panama" Lewis and Luis Resto were both convicted and sentenced to prison for using doctored gloves in the bout, a matter of public record.

The purpose of Thursday’s press conference at Jack Demsey’s restaurant was twofold – to boost interest in “CORNERED,” Eric Drath’s as-yet unreleased film, and to provide attorney Marc Thompson with a forum to announce his having filed a motion to reopen the case in federal district court.

The agendas of the filmmaker and the lawyer would seem to be at cross-purposes, particularly since Resto, in a surprise appearance, materialized at Demsey’s and publicly confirmed for the first time that not only was he aware that Lewis had removed the horsehide padding from his gloves, but that the trainer had compounded the offense by applying plaster of paris to his hand-wraps that night.

At the very least, this revelation is going to require some conceptual tinkering with the footage of “CORNERED,” at least as described in the accompanying press release: “CORNERED reveals the inadequacies of Luis Resto’s trial and investigates the circumstances behind his conviction. The film confronts the realities of racism, discrimination, and class struggle that plague not just the sport of boxing, but America as a whole.”

Since just about the whole world, or at least everyone not named Eric Drath, already assumed Resto was guilty, his admission that he unfairly beat Collins figured to have all the drama of an announcement that the world was indeed round, and it’s hard to see exactly how Resto fessing up is going to help Thompson (or Collins' estate) in court.

Thompson, of the Manhattan law firm Pulvers, Pulvers, and Thompson, represents Mrs. Andrea Nile of Nashville, Tenn. Twenty-five years ago Mrs. Nile was married to Billy Ray Collins, Jr. She was supposed to attend the New York press conference, but did not.

Two previous attempts to make a civil case out the scandalous events of June 16, 1983 met in failure. The first, a federal suit against New York officials, ended in a hung jury, and the second, before the New York Court of Claims, was tossed out by the judge.

It is unclear to me just how Andrea Collins-Nile’s fortunes are likely to be enhanced by Resto’s confession. To prove actual damages she must not only prove that Resto won unfairly (which everybody already knows) but that by failing to prevent the skullduggery, the New York State Athletic Commission directly contributed the death of her late husband, who did not die until months later from injuries not directly related to the bout when his car ran off a bridge. There are also statute of limitations issue, meaning there must be a good reason to justify a lawsuit over something that occurred a quarter of a century ago.

Did Luis Resto’s loaded gloves in New York make Billy Ray Collins get drunk and drive off a bridge in Tennessee nine months later? Billy Collins Sr., who described his son’s death as “a suicide,” always maintained so, but being able to prove that to a jury and, moreover, demonstrating actual damages does not seem promising.

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Of the 20,061 on hand at the Garden that night, fewer than a hundred were actually there to see the Collins-Resto fight. Roberto Duran, who was celebrating his 32nd birthday, was challenging for Davey Moore’s WBA junior middleweight title in the main event.  Both Duran, who had been fighting in the Mecca of Boxing since 1971, and Moore, a Bronx-born former New York Golden Gloves champion, had substantial New York constituencies, but events of the evening would demonstrate that the allegiance of most of the crowd lay with Manos de Piedra.

Two years after the ‘No Mas’ fight in New Orleans, Top Rank’s Bob Arum had taken on Duran as a reclamation project, and through a fortuitous confluence of events – chiefly Duran’s January knockout of Pipino Cuevas and the arrest of No. 1-rated Tony Ayala on rape charges – had provided the opportunity for a title fight.

Moore-Duran was originally scheduled to take place Sun City, in the South African “homeland” of Bophuthatswana, in combination with a Ray Mancini-Kenny Bogner lightweight title bout and a concert by Frank Sinatra. Weeks before the scheduled date, Mancini broke his collarbone, and Sinatra – who had agreed to the performance because he was a big-time Boom-Boom fan – also pulled out.

MSG Boxing didn’t bid on Moore-Duran. Arum hired the building himself, and proceeded to fill it with its third-biggest boxing audience ever.

Moore, making his fourth title defense, was favored by nearly 4-1, and when a newspaper polled two dozen boxing writers in town to cover the fight, only four – including myself -- picked Duran.

That Moore might be in for a long night was foreshadowed at the weigh-in, when he struggled for two hours to make 154, while Duran made it with ease.

The fight turned out to be completely one-sided. Duran caught Moore with a stray thumb to the right eye in the first round, and spent the ensuing rounds bullying him around the ring, hitting his one-eyed foe with punches and elbows until he knocked him down with a right hand in the eighth, at which point Moore’s corner threw in the towel. (Referee Ernesto Magana, was widely excoriated for not stopping it sooner.)

The win set Duran up for lucrative fights against Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns over the next year, and in the giddy atmosphere that surrounded the Panamanian’s upset victory, few were even aware that evening of the disgraceful events that had preceded it in the preliminary bout between Resto and Collins.

Collins was from Tennessee, an ESPN-level fighter who was 14-0, though unless you counted Bruce (The Mouse) Strauss, a very young Harold Brazier was the only recognizable name on his list of victims.

Resto, a Puerto Rican then domiciled in the Bronx, was 20-8-2, but had faced much tougher opposition. I’d first encountered him in Cleveland two years earlier when he sparred with Duran before the Nino Gonzalez fight, and I actually expected Resto to win going in.

So did Resto.

“I didn’t really need that (stuff),” said Resto at Demsey’s. “I would have beaten him anyway.”

Panama Lewis, alas, wasn’t taking any chances.

On the night in question, Panama supposedly kicked the inspector who was supposed to oversee the gloving out of the dressing room, and then put the contraband gloves on Resto when the inspector left to tell his superiors.

Resto, in any case, beat Collins from pillar to post all night. Between rounds, Collins could be heard telling his father in the corner “he’s a lot stronger than I thought,” and at the end of ten rounds Billy Ray’s face was a mass of lumps and bruises.

At the final bell, Collins Sr. congratulated Resto, but as he shook hands, said he felt “only knuckles.” He was shortly shouting “Commissioner! Commissioner!” in an attempt to call attention to the treachery.

The gloves were impounded in the dressing room that night. (The hand wraps Resto wore that night were not, but Marc Thompson said that he believed they still existed, which I rather doubt. Not even Panama Lewis is that stupid.)

The chain of evidence at one point to the gloves being returned to Everlast, which, Thompson pointed out, “is sort of like sending the dope back to the dope dealer for testing.” 

Once the gloves were subjected to examination, it turned out that Lewis had surreptitiously removed the stuffing. Even without the layer of plaster on his wraps, Resto might as well have been hitting Collins with a pair of bricks that night.

Resto’s win was stricken ultimately stricken from the books and changed to No Contest. Lewis and Resto were convicted on charges of assault, possession of a dangerous weapon and, in Lewis’ case, conspiracy to influence the outcome of a sporting event. Both were banned from boxing for life. Lewis was sentenced to six years, but served only one. Resto spent two and a half years in prison.

Collins’ injuries included a fractured orbital bone and permanent eye damage that prevented him from boxing again. The following March after a night of drinking, he he drove off the bridge.

Neither man ever boxed again. Resto has lived for the past decade in the basement of a New Jersey gym.

If Panama Lewis augmented his surgery on Resto’s gloves by doctoring the hand wraps, it might be noted, there existed an historical precedent, in legend if not in fact. For almost ninety years there have been whispers that Jack Dempsey (the heavyweight champion and not the saloonkeeper) had won the championship using loaded gloves in his 1919 fight against Jess Willard.

Supposedly manager Jack Kearns had used plaster of paris on the wraps in very much the fashion Resto now says Lewis did with his. One irony here is that as the story grew, Kearns was careful never to deny it, and his legacy became that of an impish rogue, the boxing equivalent of Gaylord Perry winking at the umpires while he continued to throw spitballs.

The other irony is that both Lewis and Resto were banned for life, Panama has continued to earn a living as a boxing bottom-feeder. Sure, he can’t be licensed and he can’t work corners, but that hasn’t prevented him from turning up as a freelance voodoo-master in gyms from Las Vegas to New York to London over the past two decades. And you can bet he’s not doing it for nothing.

“CORNERED” has been selected for the IFP Marketplace, and will be screened at the organization’s showcase for indie films in September, as well as at the HBO-sponsored New York International Latino Film Festival.

Thompson’s bid for a new trial faces a more uncertain future. Copies of the motion were supposed to be available yesterday, but were not. We’re just guessing here, but the next time you see it may be when it comes sailing out the judge’s window.