MEMPHIS, Tenn. --- Cory Spinks and Jermain Taylor have been pals since their amateur days. They will be enemies Saturday night. “We know each other well,” said Spinks. “There won’t be any secrets.”

Spinks, the reigning IBF junior middleweight champion, is a better than 5-1 underdog against Taylor in their fight for the WBC and WBO middleweight titles at the FedEx Forum, a bout promoter Lou DiBella has christened the “Border War.”

It would be nice to say DiBella chose Memphis because the blues capital on the Mississippi is conveniently proximate to both Taylor’s hometown (Little Rock) and Spinks’ (St. Louis), but the truth of the matter is that in this case the site was picked before the opponent was.

(We’re just guessing here, but we doubt a the politically correct DiBella would have been calling it a “Border War” if Sergio Mora had been the opponent.)

Another problem with encouraging fierce hometown loyalties this way is that you could wind up with more spirited fights in the stands than in the ring.

Spinks, who had done his share of trash-talking at his Mississippi gym a day earlier, was downright conciliatory, almost cordial, at Thursday’s press conference.

“Sure, Jermain and I are good friends, but it’s like two friends go out to play basketball. We’ll both be trying to win,” said Cory. “Yes, we’re friends, but we’ll be trying to tear each other’s heads off.”

That was for public consumption, anyway. When we spoke with Spinks a few minutes before he seemed almost brash in his confidence, particularly when it was suggested that Taylor had been working on “some new things” in preparation for the fight against his former (and, presumably, future) buddy.

“No matter what he’s learned he’s still got to do it in the fight,” said Spinks, who sounded as if he didn’t believe it for a minute. “It’s one thing to work on them, but you’ve still got to execute.

“Jermain has always fought the same way,” he added. “Remember, I’m the boxer in this fight.”

Spinks will be the third southpaw in a row for Taylor, who didn’t seem to much enjoy fighting the first two, Winky Wright and Kassim Ouma.

Trainer Emanuel Steward certainly didn’t like any of them.

“I’d actually picked Winky Wright to win their fight, before I got the job training Jermain,” recalled Steward. “I thought Wright was a dangerous opponent for Jermain, and I didn’t like Ouma as an opponent either. Now, at this stage of his career what Jermain needs is to go out and punch the daylights out of somebody and get a spectacular win, and it’s almost impossible to do that against Cory Spinks. I’m almost resigned to going in there and stinking the joint up and winning a decision.”

When it was mentioned that his grab and run style might prove frustrating to Taylor, Spinks responded with a wink and a grin.

“I’m frustrating for anybody,” he said.

Beyond Spinks’ unaesthetic style, Steward frets that facing an opponent of the lefthanded persuasion effectively negates Taylor’s best weapon, his jab.

“It does,” said Spinks. “That’s the whole thing with the jab. I’ve got to make sure I get mine off, and make sure he don’t.”

When Floyd Mayweather jumped a division to meet Oscar De La Hoya two weeks ago, he deliberately angled for speed and came in at 150, four pounds under the junior middleweight limit. Some suspect that Spinks might opt for a similar tactic, with a weight closer to junior middle than to the 160 pounds he is allowed.


Cory will make the world wait until Friday’s weigh-in for that.

“I’ll make the weight,” he said. “I’ll be quick regardless.”

The absence of rancor did not extend to the undercard participants. Edison Miranda, who will face Kelly Pavlik in a WBC middleweight eliminator in Saturday night’s co-feature, didn’t have much to say to Pavlik (other than that he would “barbeque” him – fighting words in Memphis), but he woofed on Taylor enough to produce an uncharacteristic tirade from the enraged champion.

At one point Miranda pointed at Taylor and loudly demanded, through an interpreter, “How about Cory Spinks fighting Kelly Pavlik and Edison Miranda fighting Taylor for the same amount of money? Can you accept that?"

Taylor, warning “I’m not to be played with, man,” went off on a rant.

“It’s hard when everybody wants a piece of you, even people who can’t speak English,” he said.

 Spinks actually seemed to apologize for Miranda and congratulated Taylor for maintaining his composure as much as he did in the face of the provocation.

On the other hand, Cory wasn’t backing off his rash (and possibly imprudent) prediction of Wednesday, when he boasted to a posse of visiting writers that he was going to “shock” Taylor, and that there was “no way I’m leaving Memphis with Jermain’s title.”

“I never eats my words,” Spinks said with a grin Thursday. “I don’t care if he gets mad. When we get in there and start swinging at each other, he’s gonna get mad anyway.”

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The press conference dais was decidedly promoter-heavy, with DiBella (Taylor) joined by Hall of Famers Don King (Spinks) and Bob Arum (Pavlik), along with Leon Margules of Seminole Warriors (Miranda)… With 48 hours to go, DiBella reported 7,000 unsold tickets in the 18,500-capacity FedEx Forum, most of them in the less expensive sections… Former heavyweight champion Neon Leon Spinks is supposedly going to work his son’s corner, presumably offering more moral support than advice. Memphis native Thomas (Hit Man) Hearns will also be on hand to watch his son Ronald, an unbeaten (13-0) middleweight, who will fight former Andy Lee victim Dennis Sharpe in one of Saturday night’s prelims… Unbeaten welterweight Andre Berto’s undercard fight against Martinus Clay is not scheduled for the HBO telecast, though DiBella is holding out hope that the network will at least show clips.