Peter buckley, an English boxer from three to four, retired in 2008 with a singular record: losing 256 bouts of the 300 in which he participated. Buckley belonged to that lower class of fighters so necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff. What is known in English as a ‘journeyman‘, a word that (de) qualifies this type of veteran ring workers. They are the ones who test the promises of boxing and serve as a sparring partner for a champion to get back in shape. They are there to lose by a handful of dollars, as their rivals prepare to break the bank. Only their ‘trade’ is worth theirs, they have nothing more to offer, but their toughness makes them essential to move to the next level. That class struggle is what was at stake on the night of June 16, 1983 when Billy collins jr, a promising young woman of Irish descent who was astonishing experts, faced Luis Rest, a Puerto Rican ‘journeyman’ who did not want to be one. The most scandalous fight in boxing history.
Luis Resto’s second chance
Nobody in boxing wants to be a ‘journeyman’ and Luis Resto was no exception. The career of this Puerto Rican without many lights, raised in a tiny apartment in the Bronx with his single mother and four siblings began in a meteoric way. It was boxing or the street, and he threw himself into the former. As an amateur, he won the Golden Gloves and made the American Olympic team. As a professional, in only five bouts with full victories, he achieved his first outstanding fight, in the Madison Square Garden from New York, the equivalent of fighting in Las Vegas today at a time when boxing was a mass-moving sport. He won it against a rival, Anthony Daniels, which came with a 17-0 sign. But his decline was just as dizzying, with four losses in the next six fights, three of them in a row. They were his landing on earth and Resto did not know how to fit in. What little money he had made he wasted overnight.
No one understood what they saw in him Carlos ‘Panama’ Lewis, a successful and outspoken manager who trained several champions, to pick up their crumbs. Somehow he convinced Resto that his had been a bad pothole as a result of a badly run career. He could get him out of there and show that he wasn’t a regular fighter. With it, the Puerto Rican improved his technique, refined himself and recovered his physique. He again believed and won a boxer with some renown, but he did not convince anyone but himself and, supposedly, Panama Lewis that he was a champion. For the rest it was straw. Although he was very good, it was evident that he did not have the most precious gift in boxing: the punch.
Panama Lewis and Luis Resto with their lawyer
Collins the golden boy
Billy Collins Jr was a very different boy from Resto, but with one thing in common: Boxing was his only plan to get out of misery. His father, of the same name, and last name of course, was a former boxer who had aimed high, but never got a shot at the belt. He ended up living in a cabin isolated from everything in Tennessee in which he raised his son, a small blond with an innate talent for boxing. At the age of 19 Billy made his debut and in two years he had already accumulated 14 bouts with full victories, 11 of them by KO.
Billy Collins Jr was a boxing promise
Collins took longer than Resto to get to Madison Square Garden, but he finally made it after wowing in the casinos of Atlantic City with his green Irish breeches. This one and a robe with a shamrock were the nod to his ancestors that completed a perfect pack: charisma, courage, all the movements of boxing and the gift, the punch, in the form of a tremendous ‘uppercut’. Billy built a gold mine. A future champion. He only lacked a bit of experience, a ‘journeyman’ before opting for the title. That was Luis Resto.
That June 16, 1983, Madison Square Garden was packed to watch the super welterweight title bout between Davey moore and Roberto ‘Stone Hand’ Durán. The experts just wanted to have fun with the performance of Billy, 21, in that environment because no one doubted that he was going to win. Only three people knew that it would not be like that, Panama Lewis, Luis Resto, who arrived with 7 losses and 22 victories, and a cocaine drug dealer who had bet a fortune on the Puerto Rican.
Surprise and scandal
Rang the bell. The fight started as everyone expected, with a courageous exchange of blows. But the expected fun ended up being hell for the young Collins and for the world of the ring. It is easy to see it now, once consummated, but no one noticed during the biggest heist in boxing history that Billy’s face was already tremendously swollen at the end of the first round, while Resto’s was still almost intact having more or less exchanged the same blows. “It is much stronger than I expected. Much stronger, ”he said incredulously to his father on the corner. Something was wrong, but he continued to the end.
Resto, 28 years old, relentlessly hammered Billy’s face, and that because he did not have the gift he was used to winning by scratching points with blows to the body. It was the most appropriate tactic, but today it had the punch. Billy endured all ten rounds on his feet, as only a champion could have. That cost him the race. The Puerto Rican from the Bronx with a mediocre record had just defeated the unbeaten Irish golden boy on points, consoled by his father in the corner, enduring the pain with a disfigured face without yet understanding what had happened. Ni Resto was aware then that while demolishing Collins, he was actually shredding their future.
[+] Relive the brutal combat in this summary:
Gloves without padding and plaster on the cuffs
It is when the fight ends, when Billy Collins senior realizes the scam. Just at the moment in which Resto is going to give the kiss of Judas to his son in his corner when the coach takes his gloves to congratulate him and notices something very strange in them, they lack the padding. Quickly notify the commissioner of the fight. “His gloves, his gloves, all the padding is out of his damn gloves,” he yells. Anyone who is a boxing fan knows what it means to fight without padding. Imagine giving to …