Perhaps fittingly on an evening honoring recently departed heavyweight champion Joe Louis, Larry Holmes will face a challenger whom critics doubt would qualify as a member of The Brown Bomber's "Bum of the Month Club" -- Leon Spinks.
Other than one historic, albeit well-timed, evening, the 1976 Olympic gold-medal winner's professional career has been light on accomplishment, but loaded with disappointments.
In just his eighth pro fight, Spinks took advantage of Muhammad Ali's lackadaisical approach to what he thought would be a meaningless defense, as well as marked decline in the champion's physical skills.
After winning the crown via split decision in February 1978, Spinks adopted Ali's laissez-faire approach to training, adding heavy alchohol and drug use to the mix.
He was quickly stripped of the undisputed portion of his world champion's title. The World Boxing Council, largely subservient to Don King, bowed to the promoter's pressure and insisted that Spinks defend his new crown against Ken Norton, rather than take on Ali in a much more lucrative rematch.
Already a favorite punchline for Johnny Carson's monologues by the time of the rematch seven months later, Spinks was out-jabbed, out-thought and out-worked by a rejuvenated Ali.
Nine months after losing a one-sided 15-round decision to Ali, Spinks returned to face Gerrie Coetzee in Monte Carlo as part of the four-man tournament set up by the WBA to fill the vacancy left by Ali's retirement.
Despite showing up in decent shape, Spinks was caught cold by Coetzee's "Bionic Right" and dropped three times in the first two minutes, triggering an automatic TKO.
Spinks rebounded six months later against Alfredo Evangelista in Atlantic City, rallying after being hurt in the second to stop the former European champion in what The Ring called "a caveman punchout."
After fighting to a draw with Eddie "The Animal" Lopez, Spinks stopped Kevin Isaac in eight to earn a title eliminator match in October 1980 against Bernardo Mercado, who had gotten off the deck to stop Earnie Shavers seven months prior. Spinks surprisingly surprised Mercado's power and stopped the Colombian in the ninth to earn the shot at Holmes.
Former Spinks trainer George Benton, who was so disgusted with his pupil's performance in the second Ali fight that he left the Superdome while the fight was still underway, was apparently impressed by the showing against Mercado and will be back in the corner tonight.
Holmes, meanwhile, has fought just once since hopefully ending Ali's career the same night Spinks beat Mercado, winning a one-sided 15-round decision over Trevor Berbick.
Holmes is said to still be fuming over being forced by King to take a purse of $2.5 million, compared to $8 million for Ali, despite being the defending champion. Any irritation didn't show against Berbick, though, as Holmes won a shutout on one card, with the other two judges giving the challenger only four rounds each.
"I've been working for Don for years, so I know Ali didn't get no $8 million, anyway," Holmes said during a pre-fight press conference.
Holmes did, however, quietly get up and walk out of the publicity session, held in Detroit a week ago, when King answered a reporter's question about the unbeaten WBC champion by talking about how great Michael Dokes is going to be.