Forty years ago today, on the undercard of the Roberto Duran Vs. Davey Moore fight in New York, two men at opposite ends of their careers met in a ten round light-middleweight fight. What followed forever changed the lives of both men, while the events in the ring that night also changed the sport of boxing.
21-year-old Billy Collins Junior was a 14-0 prospect who was expected to go places. Promoted by Bob Arum and trained by his father, former fighter Billy Collins Sr, the young warrior from Tennessee was matched with a tough but not too dangerous fighter named Luis Resto. Resto, a 27-year-old Puerto Rican with a so-so 19-8-2(8) record, would, in time, become one of the most infamous fighters in all of boxing. The same can be said of the fight that Resto “won.”
Trained by Panama Lewis, Resto, to the shock of everyone, was beating Collins Jr up. Not known as an especially hard hitter, Resto was taking the action right to the usually aggressive and exciting to watch Collins. And soon, Collins was showing real facial damage, with both eyes swelling rapidly, with his cheekbones and forehead also gruesomely deformed come to the end of the bout.
Collins had taken a real going over, yet he had managed to hang tough to the final bell. It was only afterward, when people knew what had gone on, that fans could truly appreciate just how tough Collins had been. The two men met in the ring center after the decision had been announced and, as Resto went to give Collins his respect. Collins Sr shook hands with the man who had just beaten up his son, and Instantly he noticed something was wrong – there was, he could feel, almost no padding in the gloves of Resto.
The trainer/father instantly raised the alarm bell, and Resto did all he could to pull away, this while looking over in desperation at his own trainer Lewis. There had indeed been some serious tampering with Resto’s gloves, with approximately one ounce of padding removed from each glove, and, perhaps even worse, some plaster had been applied to each of Resto’s wraps. The beating Collins Jr took is now seen by the world as the simply horrific thing it really was, Resto denied any wrongdoing. It was all Panama’s doing, Resto claimed. He had messed with Resto’s gloves without the fighter’s knowledge.
Only he hadn’t.
Years later, in 2009, when the superb and powerful documentary “Assault in The Ring” from Eric Drath came out, Resto finally admitted to knowing about the gloves, about the plaster, and about a drug Panama gave him that aided his breathing during the fight, thus allowing him to get a second wind; Resto stating that the drug was something that asthma patients were administered.
All of this was some years ahead, and for now, both fighter and trainer paid the price. Panama was jailed for one year, Resto for two-and-a-half, while both men had their licenses taken away. Resto would never fight again; Lewis would never again be permitted to enter the ring as a trainer. But for Collins Jr, it was much worse. Falling into a fit of depression, his career ripped from him due to the severity of his facial injuries, the father and husband began drinking heavily, and, by accident or on purpose, he crashed his car into a creek near his home, dying at the scene. This was on March 6, 1984. Billy was just 22 years old.
The events that took place inside Madison Square Garden 40 years ago have never been forgotten, and they never will be. How could such a thing have been permitted to slip through the rules and regulations? How could such a disgraceful act of barbaric cheating not have been detected? Panama, we found out from Resto in the Wrath film, attended to his evil-doing in the bathroom of the dressing room. Resto, who has shown, and continues to show, real remorse over what happened, has clearly suffered. That said, the hate some people have for the former fighter remains.
Lewis, who passed away in September of 2020, never showed any remorse, nor did he ever admit to any wrongdoing. There were no obituaries written when Lewis died.
A man’s life was all but taken on the night of June 16, 1983, while a promising ring career was cruelly taken. Some people firmly believe Panama Lewis was the real bad guy, the man behind the sickening plan, yet others say Resto was in on it and was just as guilty. Panama knew what he had sent his fighter out to do, and that was to inflict what he must have known would be excruciating pain, via illegal violence, on another boxer. While Resto surely knew he was fighting with a deck that was so very heavily stacked in his favor and that he was hitting his opponent with doctored gloves.
Would Billy Collins Jr have forgiven either man had his life not ended so prematurely and so tragically? We will never know. But there are plenty of people out there who will never forgive Lewis or Resto. And who can blame these people?
