By the way – Sunday Blick column: Crime against Billy Collins

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In a few days it will be 40 years since one of the most shameful and heinous crimes in the history of sports.

Madison Square Garden in New York, the mecca of boxing. June 16, 1983. 22-year-old ambitious Billy Collins Jr. meets seasoned Puerto Rican native Luis Resto. You expect a spectacle and want to see this talented Collins. Legends like Muhammad Ali and Floyd Patterson sit in the audience. There are 20,000 people there.

Billy Collins from Nashville. Trained by his father, he has won all fourteen of his professional fights to date, eleven by knockout. He’s a boxing prospect. An “Irish gold mine” is a name given to a person who has made his way from the bottom to the top in a short time. Now he can qualify for a world title fight against Resto. Solved problem.

It turns out differently. Collins is already badly marked after the first round. “Dad, he’s a lot stronger than I thought,” he says in the corner of the ring. His worried father wants to give up. Fighter Billy shakes his head.

Padding removed from glove

The drama is on its way. With each lap, Collins’ injuries are getting worse. “Dad, it looks like he has stones in his gloves,” Billy complains. Father wants to give up again. Billy shakes his head again.

In the final round, Resto continues to hit. Collins is knocked out while standing, but does not fall. His face is like a burst melon, he can hardly see anything. And later he says he can’t remember the end of the fight.

After the fight ended, Resto approached Collins in the corner of the ring. Papa Collins grabs Resto by the glove. He is hard as a rock. “Inspector, Inspector, the damn gloves don’t have a lining,” he shouts.

Shocking crime solved

The judges go to the locker room with Resto and his coach, Carlos “Panama” Lewis, who, along with the betting mafia, bets big money on his protégé Resto’s victory. Billy Collins is being taken to the hospital. There, doctors discovered irreparable damage to the optic nerve. It is predicted that he will go blind in one eye and never be able to box again.

A shocking crime is uncovered in the catacombs of Madison Square Garden. Half padding removed from Resto boxing gloves. The armbands were made from plaster before the fight. It didn’t just look like stone slaps, it was stone slaps. Luis Resto and his coach are banned for life.

Collins’ life ended tragically.

Billy Collins Jr. It does not help. His life is destroyed. The father blames himself, Billy resorts to alcohol. On March 6, 1984, less than a year after the fight, a drunken and depressed Collins drove his car into a river bed. And takes his own life.

At the funeral, his tearful sister delivered a farewell speech. “Even if you break him and insult him, he will never walk away as a loser,” she says.

The tombstone reads: “Irish Billy Collins. Great fighter.”

Source: Blick