Name: Leon Spinks Collection on Letterman, 1982 & 1985
Uploaded: 2021-02-07T02:53:55.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Leon Spinks Collection on Letterman, 1982 & 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Leon Spinks Collection on Letterman, 1982 & 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-07. Transcript available.

Thank you so much.
We have with us tonight
the former heavyweight champion of the world,
one of the few men ever to beat Muhammad Ali,
and with him, the current light heavyweight champ,
his kid brother, meet Michael and Leon Spinks.
Michael, how are you?
Good to see you.
Good to see you.
Good gentleman, have a seat.
Leon, nice to see you, sir.
Why don't you guys pick up chairs there?
Don't fight over them, for heaven's sakes.
Do you mind if I open this up now?
I'll be happy to.
This is a tradition that I hope catches on,
the guests bringing me gifts.
It's very nice.
This is from my promoter there, Butch Lewis.
Okay.
Oh, it's a nice shirt.
Now, I have a Butch Lewis shirt.
This is the only one in my collection I don't have, by the way.
Thank you very much.
It is nice.
That is very nice.
Leon, let me, you had some trouble getting in from Detroit.
I'm glad you made it.
Now, you once were the heavyweight champion of the world.
Sure.
Now, you're a young man,
and we're even younger at the time.
Was that a great deal of responsibility for you?
Did you feel any different?
It was a great deal of responsibility.
It's something that I didn't know.
It's something I had experience.
Yeah.
Was there a problem with it?
No, it's just the understanding of the past.
What was the difference between suddenly not being the heavyweight champion
and all of a sudden you were?
Well, it's just like being a poor man coming to a rich neighborhood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you feel like your privacy was invaded?
Yes, I was.
I tried to hide away in the corners and whatnot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I couldn't hide.
Yeah.
Is this something you want to be again,
the heavyweight champion of the world?
Well, I'd love to be there again.
Yeah.
I just kept crawling in more deeper corners.
Yeah.
Now, Michael, you're the light heavyweight champion, right?
Right.
Now, are you having any difficulty coping with this?
Is there a pressure for you?
Well, no.
But there are pressures there, you know.
But I just seem to be able to handle them.
Yeah.
What are the pressures for you?
Well, the crowd.
You're always being asked for autographs.
No matter where you go, you're being spotted at all times.
Yeah.
You know, and everybody wants to talk to you.
And they say some of the most incredible things to you.
I mean anything.
But I love it.
I just, I go through it.
I like to deal with it.
Because I like to let them know exactly what's on my mind.
Yeah.
You know, exactly how I feel about what they're saying to me
and about the whole thing, period.
What do people say to you that you think that...
Well, a lot of times they try to compare us to, you know.
And a lot of times they ask me, can I beat them today?
And a lot of times they say, well, you can.
I think you can.
And I say, well, I'm pretty sure he can whoop me.
And so on and so forth.
A lot of weird things.
Let me ask you something, Leon.
I made reference to the fact of the opening of the show
that you were having trouble getting here
and people sort of started to laugh.
Are you driving any better?
I'm driving a lot.
Now, is it my imagination?
It seemed like there every week for a couple of years,
you were running into trees or something.
I don't know what it was.
A tree like me.
But now, was that part of the problem of being the heavyweight?
Every move you made, good or bad, was in the press?
Yeah, I guess.
Yeah.
But no recent difficulties?
No, no recent.
Now, you guys are in two different weight classes, aren't you?
Yes.
Michael is a light heavyweight.
And you are fighting now in what class?
The cruiserweight.
What is the cruiserweight?
What do that mean?
Oh, it's...
A cruiserweight, cruiserweight fight between, uh...
They say it's more like a light heavy graveyard.
A light heavy graveyard.
Yeah.
Because the one that can't make light heavy no more,
they go with the cruiserweight.
Oh, I see.
And you're going to stay in this category?
Yeah, I'm staying in it.
Yeah.
Now, um, is there ever a possibility that you gentlemen would fight one another?
Is that, uh, I mean, for money?
Well, you never know.
You never know?
It all depends on if they give the right money.
If somebody got laid down, we're going to lay down.
We'll work it out.
We're trying to say, we'll work it out.
I'm pretty sure we could work it out if, uh, we were offered the right price.
A lot of money.
A lot of money, yeah.
Um, but, uh, strategically speaking, it's unlikely that the cruiserweight,
light heavyweight,
whatever...
No, really, I mean, it's...
It's really unlikely, but it's more likely than it is, really.
Yeah, yeah.
Because we're so close together.
Uh-huh.
Now, how does your mom feel about, uh, are you the only two sons that she has?
Dead box, yes.
Yeah, the box, you have other family...
Does she worry about you?
I know she shows up at the fights.
Does she...
Is she squeamish when you get punched in the...
She's, um...
She handles it better than, I think, the both of us.
Uh-huh.
She can...
Yeah, she's also...
She can watch him...
She can watch him fight and be totally into it.
I mean, rooting him on, uh, reffing the fight.
I mean, judging, being in the corner, corner, man.
She's everything, but, I mean, I was...
This fascinated me about my mother.
Once she started coming to watch us fight, her first fight was in 74.
We both were fighting the Russians.
I lost, and I won.
But she seemed to be so calm and cool.
You know, she's just...
You know, uh, she prays a lot.
I mean, we're a very religious family.
And my mother is my biggest prayer warrior.
Yeah.
Ours, brother.
And, um...
Thank you.
She just never...
Yeah, I had to ask you.
I didn't mean to...
But she has it better than I think I ever could, and Leon also.
One thing I do want to point out that I guess people realized at the time, but
may have forgotten now.
You gentlemen are forever in history for being the only brother combination to
make the United States Olympic boxing team.
And further, you both won gold medals.
Yeah.
I'm sorry we're running out of time, gentlemen.
I appreciate all the trouble it took you guys to get here.
And good luck with your next fight.
Same to you, Leon.
Thank you so much.
We'll be right back, folks.
Hotel accommodations for most guests of Late Night with David Letterman, furnished
by Berkshire Place, a Dunphy Classic Hotel, in exchange for this announcement.
For reservations at Dunphy Hotels in the U.S. and Europe, call toll-free 800-228-2121.
Thank you very much, Jerry.
We're all out of time.
We have to go.
I want to thank our studio audience, of course, and my guests, Steve Allen,
Leon and Michael Spinks.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Howard Smith, Bill Wendell, Paul Schaefer, and the orchestra.
Now, Monday, TV's Jimmy Olsen, Jack Larson will be here.
Super athlete Julie Moss, a look at how to survive in New York on $5 a day.
And Zucker, Zucker, and Abrams, the producers of Airplane.
Have a good weekend.
Good night, folks.
We'll be right back.
At one time, my next guest was the heavyweight boxing champion of the world,
winning the crown from Muhammad Ali.
He is currently on the comeback trail and is scheduled to fight Lupe Macho
Guerra on February 21st.
Please welcome Leon Spinks.
Leon.
Leon, good to see you again.
How are you doing?
Thanks for coming back.
Come on over here.
Nice to see you, Leon.
You were here a couple of years ago, weren't you?
Yes.
How have you been?
I'm doing fine.
Good.
Now, when was your last fight?
When I fought Carl Deliano about two years ago.
And what was the outcome of that fight?
I lost.
You lost.
Now, you retired for a while?
Well, I took a vacation away from fights for a while.
Yeah.
What did you do while you were on vacation?
Well, I worked with my brother, trained with him sometimes.
Uh-huh.
Until I found out what I wanted to do.
And you decided that you wanted to become heavyweight champion of the world
again, right?
Yeah.
Now, are you serious about it?
Oh, yeah.
I'm very serious about it.
Now, how are you different now than you were two years ago?
Say at the time that you lost your title to Muhammad Ali in the rematch.
Well, I got a lot of things off my mind, a lot of problems I had.
Then, plus, I'm giving myself a feeling back, too.
I found a lot back in my life.
Uh-huh.
So, I'm giving them back together.
You were going on pretty hard, though, weren't you?
You probably liked to party a little bit?
Oh, yeah.
I'm doing a party.
Yeah.
But you're off of that now.
You know more parties.
I'm doing a party.
Yeah.
What about in old boxing movies, a lot of times they say that, you know, it's a
good idea
to keep the training camp, keep women away from training camp.
Now, is there any truth to that?
There's a lot of truth to that.
Now, what happens if...
Now, what happens?
What's the problem there with a fighter and women?
Well, you know, it's hard to start bad things when you've got women around.
Uh-huh.
Does it do...
Does it hurt your stamina, your strength, your...
Or is it just a distraction?
It'll make you give in.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, tell me about the loopy macho guerrilla.
Who is this guy?
I don't know anything about him.
Have you seen films of the guy fight?
No.
I just seen him one time when I met him, and that was it.
Uh-huh.
Is this going to be a good test for you?
Well, I don't know.
I'm just going to try to win my shot.
Yeah.
Now, how far are you away, do you think, from a contender as a heavyweight?
Oh, I'd say another year, a year and a half.
Yeah.
Well, I wish you the best of luck on that.
Now, as you mentioned, a couple of years ago, you were a different man.
Different guy.
Wow.
I've been crazy a couple of years ago, yeah.
Nuts.
Just nuts.
Yeah, crazy.
Yeah.
A lot of chasing around.
Having fun.
Getting into trouble.
No, you don't have fun now?
Oh, I have no fun now.
What do you do for fun now?
Play jacks.
Leon, you're not playing jacks, are you?
I don't think something passed away the time.
Yeah, a couple of days of jacks, and boy, the time flies.
Yeah, I heard it.
All right, now, I'm going to talk about something here that maybe you don't
want to be reminded of.
All right.
But I think since you're a new man, new inspiration, new...
Shoot.
All right.
Let's see.
February.
I don't know.
Okay, last time you were on the show, we had a limousine.
Pick you up from the hotel, bring you to the show.
After the show, take you back to the hotel.
And I enjoyed it.
Boy, did he ever.
Now, Leon, you had the limousine from 7.30 p.m. until 10.39 a.m.
Can I ask you about a couple of these places?
Yeah.
All right.
You went to the stage diner.
Yeah.
Dinner, I guess.
Yeah.
Have a nice meal?
Yeah.
Okay.
Then, a couple other stops, some addresses I won't mention.
I don't know where they are.
You go to a place called The Outfielder.
I forgot where I had left an outfield somewhere.
Yeah.
All right.
Then you went to a place called The Cellar.
Yeah.
Some other place to party.
Yeah.
And, let's see, went up to Yonkers, go up and see the horses run, probably?
Probably, yeah.
And then you got back at about 10.40 the next morning.
Well, I left.
And then you left.
Sure, you did.
But all of that's behind you now.
All right.
All right.
We're going to do a commercial here.
And I'll tell you what, we'll be right back with Pearl Burnett.
Listen, Leon, good luck to you.
Thank you.
And come back and see us after the fight.
Leon Spinks, folks.
And come back and see us after the fight.