VERNO PHILLIPS W12 (split) CORY SPINKS

It has been a fantastic month for boxing's old guys. After the big wins by 36-year-old lightweights Nate Campbell and Joel Casamayor, along comes 38-year-old Verno Phillips to take the IBF junior middleweight title from Cory Spinks in Thursday’s internet fight that was offered free by promoter Don King.

It was human-interest drama to see the underdog veteran get such a close decision in Spinks’s hometown of St. Louis. All that spoiled the show was the incredibly misleading commentary by Bob Sheridan, who had Phillips winning only one of the 12 rounds.

There were at least four rounds that Phillips won clearly and three what I would call “swing” rounds — rounds that could have gone either way.

I thought that Spinks had probably done just enough to get the decision — watching a computer screen is not ideal for scoring a fight accurately — but it was by no means shocking that Phillips got the verdict in a bout that could have gone either way and was just one round on one card from ending in a draw.

Spinks was getting rocked and staggered in a number of rounds. When his new trainer, Buddy Shaw, told Spinks after the 10th that he needed the last two rounds, it was obvious that this was too close for comfort for the defending champion.

What surprised me was that Spinks, the defensive specialist, was so easy to hit, not just by Phillips’s right hands but by the hooks.

Spinks did some good scoring, though, with his straight punching down the middle. This might have been the most crowd-pleasing fight that Spinks has ever waged. When he backed up Phillips on the ropes and let the punches fly it was something we hadn’t seen before — Spinks bringing pressure and trying to hurt his opponent.

I do not think that this was so much Spinks fighting the wrong fight as realising that he needed to do something to try to take control of a deteriorating situation. When he tried to stand back and box he was getting caught too easily, and Phillips was punching hard.

It was an inspired showing by Phillips, who sports a Korean flag and lettering on his trunks to honour his wife’s heritage. The former champion has fought well in the past and turned in some terrific performances but this, of course, topped them all.

I had some doubts about Spinks before the fight but comments were made to me off the record and I decided not to update the preview. I was worried, though, when I learned, after the preview had been written, that Spinks had fallen out with his longtime trainer Kevin Cunningham. I tried to get Cunningham on the phone but this time he was not returning calls — not mine, anyway — and I do not feel comfortable using hearsay in an article.

One thing I alluded to in the preview was a possible problem with Spinks coming back down to junior middle after looking big and strong as a middleweight in the bout with Jermain Taylor. Fighters just do not seem the same when they bulk up and then come down again — think of Antonio Tarver, Roy Jones Jr., Kassim Ouma and now Spinks. When Sugar Ray Robinson was having his long-running series with Jake LaMotta he did not pack on extra muscle — in those fights the fabulous Sugar Ray was basically a welter fighting a middle, and a strong, tough and relentless middleweight at that.

Despite some vaguely disquieting things I had been hearing, I thought Spinks would at the worst eke out the win. He almost did — but Phillips wouldn't be denied. As Phillips's delighted promoter Art Pelullo told him: “You did a terrific job.” He did, too — although not if you believed what you were hearing on the commentary.