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Assault in the Ring is a documentary for HBO The film revisits the June 16th, 1983 boxing bout at Madison Square Garden where Puerto Rican boxer Luis Resto fought Irish Billy Collins Jr in a 10 round fight. At the end of the 10 rounds, Collins’ eyes had swollen shut and Resto was declared the victor. When Collin’s father shook the hand of his son’s opponent, he noticed that the boxer’s gloves contained little to no padding. Resto’s trainer Panama Lewis had removed one ounce of padding from each of his fighter’s gloves and put plaster under his wrappings, leading to Resto’s imprisonment when he was found guilty of assault, criminal possession of a weapon (Resto’s hands) and conspiracy. Panama Lewis to me is a straight up clone of Don King just a bit dumber.

Through out the film he professes his love to Luis like a cheap Hanoi Hooker. Luis as punch drunk as he is plays everyone for a fool always denying that he knew anything about the gloves being tampered with. Yeah right!! In the end he conveniently remembers when the filmmakers find transcripts of his conversation with the police. We didn’t see that coming, but if we want to be nice about it at least he came clean. I was watching this documentary with my buddy Jerry and one thing did stick with me it was when Jerry made the comment “He has a good family” that struck a chord with me. It’s true because in less than 5 minutes the family went from defending him and claiming that Luis was innocent to saying “If he did it at least he’s coming clean with it” no one else is admitting to anything. He is being man enough to admit it and he did his time…(record scratching) …what? are you fucking kidding me? I invested an hour and a half to this shit to find out that he knew all along, Luis made a trip to confront Panama Lewis only to be shut down with nonsense about how Lewis loves him like a son. Lewis promises he is going to take care of Resto when things get better, mind you he is saying all this as he is all Pimped out in gold from head to toe. This to me comes off as Lewis telling Resto “Shut the fuck up and I’ll throw you a bone” Why did Resto waste our time? He went to confront a guy he clearly knew was guilty. Has he no shame after all the shit these two jerk offs put the Collins family through. There are no winners in this story. Collins will never come back then again for that matter neither will Resto.