There's No Padding in These Gloves!
There's No Padding in These Gloves!
I first met boxer Irish Billy Ray Collins in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 19, 1982. One of the professional boxers I was working with was fighting in the 10-round main event that night, and we shared a dressing room with the young Collins. His father, Billy Sr., was a world class welterweight professional boxer in the1960s. The younger Collins had a good amateur career and now was competing in his second professional bout, a fight he won via a second- round knockout against Gary Baker. Collins was a good-looking boxing prospect. His dad was his manager and trainer.
Since Collins lived in the Nashville area where I lived, I followed his career with great interest. I introduced the Collins’ to Randy Weiler, a friend of mine from church and a sports writer with The Nashville Banner. Randy wrote the first newspaper article and others on the young prospect. Collins was undefeated and moving up the professional boxing ranks very rapidly. Because of his dad’s notoriety he landed a promotional agreement with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc, arguably the best promotional boxing company in the world. All of Collins’ fights now would be televised on ESPN. Top Rank was grooming him for stardom and a world championship fight.
Collins had a professional record of 14 wins with no losses when Top Rank decided to showcase him in a nationally televised match from Madison Square Garden. He would be fighting on the undercard of the legendary champion Roberto Duran, who was fighting Davey Moore for the World Boxing Association light middleweight world championship.
Collins entered the ring before a capacity crowd of more than 20,000 fans on June 16, 1983, a heavy favorite against the lightly regarded journeyman Luis Resto. Astonishingly, early in the fight, Resto began to batter Collins, whose eyes horribly were swollen. Even though Collins was considered the much better fighter, Resto continued to punish Collins the entire 10 rounds.
Throughout the fight, something looked strangely out of sync with Collins. His injuries were far greater than a boxer usually absorbed in a match with gloves on. Billy Sr. felt that something terribly was wrong and walked to Resto’s corner at the end of the bout to shake hands with him. He instantly felt there was no padding in Resto’s gloves, and he began screaming and cursing at the officials and press members sitting at ringside.
“There’s no padding in these God ---- gloves!”
The gloves were taken off Resto and impounded by the New York State Athletic Commission. It later was determined the padding had been removed from the gloves by Panama Lewis, Resto’s trainer.
Today, boxing gloves are padded with high density foam; boxing gloves then were padded with horsehair. Lewis had taken a pair of tweezers and meticulously removed the horsehair padding from each glove in the dressing room before the bout. Unfortunately, no one from the Collins camp or the New York State Athletic Commission inspected the gloves before the fight.
Resto received a unanimous 10-round decision against Collins. Resto and Lewis were arrested and later tried and convicted of conspiracy to fix a fight and other crimes. Lewis spent a year in prison and was banned from the sport of boxing for life in America by the New York State Athletic Commission. Resto spent 2½ years in prison and also was banned from the sport. The commission subsequently ruled the bout a no-contest and restored Collins’ record to 14-0.
Collins received permanent eye damage and vision impairment in the fight nd was told he never would be able to box again. According to friends and family members, he went into a state of depression. Nine months later on March 7, 1984, he was at a Nashville bar with a friend, John Duke, and Billy Sr. Reportedly, Collins had too much to drink, and as he was about to leave the bar, his father took his car keys and handed them to Duke and asked him to drive his son home.
When Collins and Duke walked outside the bar, Billy asked John to give his keys back to him. Just a few minutes later, at approximately 1 a.m., Collins was driving his Oldsmobile west on Old Franklin Road in Nashville when his car veered down an embankment into a creek and landed upside down. Collins was killed while Duke walked away with minor injuries.
Only 23, Billy Collins had a very promising future as an undefeated professional boxer only to have it stolen from him.