How did Leon Spinks get a title fight with Ali with a 6–0–1 record?

Muhammad Ali signed to fight the winner of Leon Spinks vs Alfio Rhigetti. Spinks won and The WBC agreed to sanction Ali vs Spinks as a legit title defense IF the winner would fight Ken Norton. Ali lost and Leon rematch Ali instead. Bob Arum promoted it

 

Ali was coming off of a tough fight with Ernie Shavers where he took some punishment. His team looked at Spinks as a somewhat safe fight due to Spinks lack of size and punching power. Spinks also had some popularity due to being an Olympic Gold medalist which at the time was a big deal.

Remember, Ali took gold in 60', Frazier took Gold 64', Foreman took gold in 68' and then Stevenson ended the streak. Even though Spinks won gold at light heavyweight it was still a gold medal against communist countries and a big deal during the cold War era. Easy figjt to promote Having the new Olympic gold medalist challenging the old.

 

The same way Loma got one being 1-1.

Hype and a brilliant amateur career.

 

Because he was that damn good!!

 

If a champion is fighting enough they will push anyone into the title fight picture to fill the date, and Spinks was a commodity obviously.

 

Pete Rademacher was too old.

 

And he wouldn't sign a contract with a rematch clause.

 

And Leon was a Marine as well. Good Man, Leon

 

It was a cherry pick gone wrong, nobody knew just how far down Ali had slipped

 

Ali was borderline shot and was looking for an easy victory.

 

For all the boxing reasons listed above.

Also, back when there were only three national television channels in the US and no cable or satellite TV to speak of, the US television networks used to have a thing called "sweeps weeks."

The amount of money they charged for 30-second commercials for the upcoming quarter (or whatever measure they were using) depended on how many viewers watched their channels on specific weeknights and weekends.

"Sweeps weeks" were the weeks the networks would try to do something special to boost ratings artificially, so they could charge more. Especially if they weren't the highest rated network at the time. They had "special guest stars" on their TV sitcoms. They'd compete with each other to show popular movies that hadn't been seen since they played in theaters.

For a couple years in the late 70s, the networks used to try to get Muhammad Ali (the biggest name in sports at the time) to fight on their channel during Sweeps Week. They'd give Ali $2 million or $3 million (which was a ton back then) for one night's work. It didn't matter who Ali fought, as long as the opponent stuck around for a couple rounds so they could play some commercials and the networks could get an idea of how many were watching.

It was a way for networks to boost ratings on otherwise slow nights.

That's why Ali fought Jean Pierre Coopman on CBS on Friday night, Februay 20, 1976 and fought Leon Spinks on Wednesday night, February 15, 1978 on CBS. That week in February was the network's February "Sweeps Week."

(That's also why Ali fought Richard Dunn and Alfredo Evangelista both on NBC both in May in 1976 and 1977, because those was NBC's sweeps weeks those years.)

And that's why Ali also famously said to the CBS announcers during round one of the Coopman fight, "You guys aren't going to get all your commercials in." Because Ali could tell Coopman didn't have anything right off the bat. But he let Jean Pierre stick around for a couple rounds.

Ali had previously considered fighting Righetti over Evangelista in 77. So he was a name they had. But Leon had signed with Top Rank. Leon was already having personal problems. He'd fought to a draw with Ledoux. Arum was going to promote the Ali "sweeps" fight on CBS. So Arum got Leon a fight with Righetti (also on CBS) to determine who got the fight with Ali on CBS in February.

It didn't really matter to Ali who he fought. He kind of wanted Righetti, because Ali wanted to do a Rocky-Apollo Creed type promotion with the Italian. When Leon won over Righetti, Ali kind of lost interest.

It should also be noted that in Floyd Patterson's biography, Floyd says Ali's team CALLED FLOYD and asked him if he'd be willing to come out of retirement and fight Ali a third time on CBS in February 1978. Floyd hadn't fought in five and a half years, since he lost on cuts to Ali in 1972. He'd never officially retired, but he was like 42 at the time (which isn't a big deal now, but it was then).

The angle would be Floyd trying to come back and become the oldest man to win the title and become the first three-time champ.

But Floyd declined. I always found that interesting.

 

Spinks was unbeaten and ranked number 9 ,and after a war with Shavers, Ali was looking for an easy one.

 

Not quite the same as Rademacher but similar.

 

Yep Leon had a No. 9 rating in Ring Magazine’s end-of-year rankings for 1977.

While he had few fights, he did fight an accelerated schedule for a from-the-amateurs guy in those days. A drew with LeDoux and win over Righetti (undefeated at the time) were good results for a novice pro; even a first-round KO of Pedro Agosto wasn’t bad (he had lasted into I think the fourth with George Foreman and was a decent gatekeeper/journeyman with a couple of fair wins, including one over Joe “King” Roman).

“Deserving” of a title shot? Arguably not, but probably would have been within a year at the pace he was going. But I’d say he was “worthy” and certainly “sellable” as a challenger given his Olympic gold medal background.

@Dubblechin explains the circumstances very well.