JOEY SPINA vs JESSE BRINKLEY

ESPN’s Wednesday Night Fights has had a good run of interesting fights but this week’s show is outstanding, with Jimmy Burchfield’s Classic Entertainment & Sports featuring two intriguing 12-rounders.

In one of these the tough and colourful Joey Spina of Providence, RI, meets former Contender aspirant Jesse Brinkley, who moves up to 168 pounds for the title fight.

Spina (17-0-1, 12 KOs) was once just a raw slugger but he has improved his technique under the training of ex-champ Eddie Muhammad in Las Vegas. The unbeaten 28-year-old had an excellent win last June when he pounded out a unanimous 10-round decision over Carl Daniels, almost stopping the veteran southpaw in the last round. In his last fight, though, Spina was a bit disappointing when being held to a 10-round draw by Jose Spearman: although Spearman is a competent journeyman this was a fight that Spina was expected to win. A win over the high-profile Brinkley, though, would be a significant step forward for Spina.

Brinkley (26-3, 17 KOs) has his own ideas, though. Generally perceived as lucky to get the decision over his old Contender rival Anthony Bonsante in his last fight, Brinkley sees the match with Spina as a chance to make an immediate impression in his new weight class.

Speaking over the phone, Brinkley said he was killing himself getting down to 160 pounds. “I couldn’t make it no more," he said. “You make it to prove that you can, I guess, but it’s too brutal. The fight becomes making the weight — the fight’s not between the fighters, it’s between you and the scales. I moved up to 168 and we’ll see how it goes."

How does he feel at the new weight? “I don’t feel dead on my feet right now," he replied somewhat laconically.

Brinkley said he has never seen Spina fight. “I know nothing about the guy at all," he said. “We’ll see what happens when the bell rings. I’ll probably keep my hands up and respect him early because he calls himself the KO Kid so obviously he believes in his punching power — if he believes in it obviously it works for him — but I’m not respecting him to the point where I won’t throw nothing back."

He still feels disappointed at the reaction to his win over Bonsante last October, when he weighed his heaviest ever 164 pounds. “It was the easiest fight I’ve ever had in my life," he said. “I don’t understand what he gets the credit for — he ran, he held, he’d throw his punches and he’d get scared. When I’d get off, I’d hit him hard. It was just a total one-sided commentated fight — people didn’t realise what I was doing. I felt good at 164 and I thought: ‘I’m going four more pounds up.’ I’m completely confident that anything that Joey throws and anything that Joey does I’ll have seen it and dealt with it before in my career."

As for boxing on Spina’s turf, he said: “It doesn’t bother me a bit — I’m looking forward to fighting here. I’m looking forward hopefully to knocking this guy out in a nice, fashionable manner, take him into deep water, box him, hit him with shots, let him wear himself out with him trying to knock me out all night. He might not even try and do that, he knows he’s in there with someone who ain’t going to go right down, so he might even try boxing. Hopefully I can get a nice win and rebuild my name on TV."

Brinkley is now back with his Las Vegas trainer Miguel Diaz after boxing in the Contender and then being trained for the Bonsante fight by Peter Manfredo Sr. in Los Angeles.

Diaz said over the phone that Brinkley has been boxing well in the gym and is “very comfortable" at super middleweight. “I think my boy’s got more experience than Spina, he’s fought better fighters, he’s stronger and he’s got more experience in the big fights," Diaz said.

Brinkley has been struggling of late, though, with two losses in his last three fights. The 29-year-old from Yerington, NV, became a sort of minor celebrity after his Contender appearances but is now at the place in his career where he needs a win or be relegated to “opponent" status.

I think a lot will depend on how much Brinkley really wants to fight. I would say he has better technical ability than Spina but the Rhode Island fighter is the bigger man and probably heavier handed: The 6ft 1in Spina is three inches taller than Brinkley and he started his career as a light-heavy whereas Brinkley was a welterweight when he turned professional.

The size of Spina could give him an advantage, whether on the inside or if he does indeed try to use a “boxing" style on the outside, although from what I have seen of Spina his style is based on aggression and letting his hands go.

Even though Brinkley got the decision over Bonsante he was, I thought, far too conservative in the matter of punch-output. He landed the heavier blows but Bonsante was constantly pecking away at him. In his last two fights before this, when he lost to Sergio Mora and Alfonso Gomez, Brinkley couldn’t keep up with the pace set by his opponents, but we do not know how much of this was due to weight-making problems.

The fight with Spina should tell us a lot about Brinkley — as it will about his opponent.

Brinkley can win but he is going to have to fight a lot harder than he has been doing lately because Spina most definitely is going to be giving it his all.

I find myself leaning a little bit towards Brinkley to pull off a minor upset, with his counter punching perhaps bringing success against a hittable opponent, but this really could go either way. If Brinkley lets Spina outwork him and falls well behind on the scorecards in the early rounds he might not be able to turn the tide against a very determined and gutsy local favourite who does not lack for self-confidence.