In the world of sports, some stories never escape the spotlight. For some reason, often tied to the magnitude of the tragedy, they keep coming back. Of these stories, the Billy Collins-Luis Resto fight is one of them, and the events of June 16, 1983, find their way back onto the headlines.
Luis Resto grew up in Juncos, Puerto Rico, where he had lived with his single mother. At nine, he migrated to New York’s northernmost borough. He remembers how much he cried, not wanting to leave his stepfather and home in Puerto Rico. But when he arrived in the city, “the tall buildings and the pizza” amazed him so much that he ate pizza every day until he couldn’t take it anymore
For what it’s worth, Resto had quite a troubled childhood: humble yet volatile. The streets of New York’s northernmost borough were chaotic. People often chased Resto around for causing trouble, just like they did most of the kids. At some point during eighth grade, he elbowed his math teacher in the face and spent six months in a mental health rehabilitation center.
It wasn’t long until he built a fierce reputation inside the local Police Athletic Boxing Club. Soon enough, he was an amateur, a very successful one with numerous Golden Glove accolades attached to his growing profile. Resto dreamed of the Montreal Olympics. As he’d mentioned in a 2019 documentary, “All I wanted to do was become champion.”
But everything Luis Resto has done is secondary – and always will be – to the role he played years back. Mention his name and no one thinks of his Golden Gloves wins or his winning record. Everyone remembers him for what happened at Madison Square Garden on June 16th, 1983
A Promising Beginning
Long before Billy Collins Jr. had the boxing world at his feet, and way before the murderous fight against Luis Resto, he was just a pale, red-haired kid from Tennessee. The second of four children to Billy Collins Sr. and Betty Collins. Both father and son were named Billy Ray, but the family called the father Billy and the son Ray.
Even as a child, Billy ‘Ray’ Collins carried an unshakable certainty of what he wanted to become: a boxer. It was a fixation so consuming that it felt less like a choice and more like a calling. The sport found him not long before his thirteenth birthday. And it took only a moment for him to know it was what he wanted.
From that point on, Billy Collins gave himself to it completely, shutting out every other path. As his father described it, one year after Billy Collins drove his 1972 Chevrolet into the headlights in 1984, “My son was trying to get me out of this. He’d tell us, ‘Mom and Dad, I’m going to buy you a house, and all we’ll have to do is lay back.’”
He wanted to be somebody.
The Lore Behind His Obsession
Although Ray could have easily followed a more conventional path, living a normal life, his path into boxing was anything but far-fetched. The lore of that ambition was largely shaped by the shadow of his father’s career in the sport.
Billy Collins Sr. had been a pretty good boxer in his day as well, and it was a crucible where familial legacy met personal ambition. Though modest by world-championship standards, Billy Collins Sr’s career embodied the tutelage a budding 13-year-old Ray needed.
By the time Billy ‘Ray’ Collins turned 19, his transition to the professional circuit did not come as a surprise, particularly to those who had watched him train at the gym with an ex-professional. Turning pro at that age is not a common milestone for fighters. In his first fourteen professional fights, Ray compiled an unbeaten streak, ten by knockouts, including a stunning victory against future world champion Bruce Curry.
Earning the breaks from the very beginning of such a meteoric career was bound to propel him toward the bright lights of Madison Square Garden, where titans who now dominate Boxing history once stood, such as Mohammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Roberto Durán.
Slowly, the life Billy Ray Collins Jr. dreamt about with his father was already taking shape.
The Fight Against Luis Resto
It is said that the darkest part of the night is just before dawn. Perhaps that could also mean that the brightest days occurred before the darkest night.
No one ever thought the fight between Billy Collins Jr. and Luis Resto to be a ‘fair’ contest. The former was on the precipice of becoming the next big thing, boxing’s poster boy with a 14-game unbeaten streak. On the other hand, Resto was a light puncher who had gone from hot prospect to boxing afterthought after a loss to Bruce Curry. Not to mention, excessive partying coalesced with Resto facing higher-level opposition in places like Venezuela and Norway, and this nightmare combination saw him fall from 4-0 to 7-4-1 within two years.
While handlers polished the young red-haired Irish-American from Tennessee for glory, Resto dwelt on the undercard, earning small purses to quench expensive thirsts. He needed a fresh start.
But a fresh start would soon turn into a foul conspiracy.
Read: Will There Ever Be Another True Golden Era of Boxing?
Many expected Collins to win that bout, but for some inexplicable reason, some boxing insiders felt Resto could pull off an upset. Over 20,000 spectators gathered in the Garden on the night of June 16th, 1983. It was the biggest boxing crowd in over a decade.
Before Billy Collins stepped into the squared circle for what would go on to become his last, boxing legend Muhammad Ali made a surprise appearance to the roar of fans.
Though favoured, Collins took a ten-round battering from a man transformed. By the final bell, the 21-year-old looked nothing like the cherub-faced fighter who had entered the ring 45 minutes earlier. His eyes puffed and shut; a gross swelling distorted his forehead. To make matters worse, the 21-year-old suffered his first loss as a professional.
The turnout was not what most people anticipated. A classic scenario of an underdog finding a second wind. So most people thought.
After the fight, as Resto headed over to Collins, giving him the “Judas kiss,” it was as if preordained that this victory would be short-lived and that Resto’s celebration wouldn’t last so long.
The Shocking Discovery
As Resto lingered near, Ray’s manager and father, Billy Collins Sr., shook Resto’s gloved hand to congratulate him, but what he found was a mitt without padding. He grabbed Resto’s left palm, and he wouldn’t let go.
“These gloves, these gloves!” he shouted, calling for the inspectors.
Resto, who obviously sensed the danger from the older man’s motions, signaled to his corner to come.
Panama Lewis, Resto’s trainer, threw himself into a fit of defensive rage. “Those were the gloves they gave us! Those were the gloves they gave us!!”,’ he yelled.
The gloves were impounded by the New York State Athletic Commission and sent to the New York State police laboratory at Newburgh, where it was determined that half the 2-ounce horsehair padding in each 8-ounce glove had been removed through holes cut in the inner lining.
The commission, after a hearing that produced no witnesses who saw the gloves tampered with, permanently revoked the licenses of the two men in charge of Resto’s corner, Carlos (Panama) Lewis and Pedro Alvarado, to train or manage fighters. His eyes puffed and shut; a gross swelling distorted his forehead. To make matters worse, the 21-year-old suffered his first loss as a professional.
In addition, Resto’s boxing license was suspended for a minimum of one year, and the fight was declared “no contest.”
Because Resto’s gloves contained almost no padding, each blow that struck Collins’ face was magnified. The young fighter, between rounds, had complained to his father: “It feels like he has a rock in his gloves.”
It wasn’t a rock; it was the cold, hard reality of a conspiracy that would eventually cost Billy Collins Jr. his career and eventually his life.
A Career Cut Short
The damage to Billy ‘Ray’ Collins was permanent. A jagged cut under his right eye never truly healed; it seeped pus until the day he died. The trauma had also torn his iris, leaving him blind in one eye. And when the doctor delivered the ultimatum that he must never fight again, the world, as Ray knew it, collapsed.
Like that, a once-promising star was extinguished. Billy Collins Jr. “fell apart,” as his father described it. The transition from being “somebody” in the ring to “nobody” shattered his young psyche.
For the first time in his life, Ray took to drinking. He had to take his first job outside of boxing, painting. However, it lasted less than two months, because his employers could not risk putting a vision-impaired worker on scaffolding.
With no job and the weight of being a provider who could no longer provide, pushed him to the edge. In a heated argument, Billy Collins did what he had never done before: he struck his 18-year-old wife, Andrea.
It was the final straw in a life already in pieces.
Andrea took their infant daughter, Alicia, and moved back with her parents. With no job, no wife, and no child, the once-vibrant Billy lived alone in his dampened apartment in Tennessee.
Life After Boxing and a Fatal End
After Billy lost the painting job, he remained in the barren apartment. Even the cupboard was bare. At one point, he had to borrow his brother-in-law’s pair of shoes because he could no longer afford one. The shoes didn’t fit, so he rolled some toilet paper and stuffed it inside.
‘He was too proud to ask for money,’ his father said.
On March 6, 1984, Billy and his father were at Ann’s house. Ray was drinking. The father said it wasn’t that much, but it was enough for him to deny Ray the keys to drive home. His father insisted that Billy’s acquaintance, Johnny Duke, drove the car. About 11:30 at night. Billy Collins Sr. pulled into his driveway, debating with his wife, Betty, whether to drive after his son.
”But then his car went past, real slow, and I figured everything was all right, so I went inside,” he said.
He was wrong. A driver change was made right before; Ray was on the wheel.
A few minutes later, the sirens started. Billy Collins Sr. was not alarmed, but his other son, Lacy, felt an eerie sense of unease. Lacy followed the ambulance and police cars down to Collins Creek. A few minutes later, he delivered the bombshell. ”Ray’s dead.’’
Billy Sr. remained haunted by the tragedy, believing his son’s death wasn’t a simple accident. He believed Billy had deliberately swerved, perhaps not to die, but out of a desperate need to punish himself for a life he felt he had failed. “I think everything just piled up,” he reflected. “He just forgot about the ditch.”
Perhaps the cruelest irony of the tragedy is the fact that Billy Collins Sr stood just feet away from the ring, forced into the role of a witness to a slow-motion murder of his son. Less than a year later, he was feet away again as that destruction reached its terminal point.
Silence, Denial, and a Later Confession
For years, Luis Resto and his trainer, Panama Lewis, maintained a wall of silence. Resto spent decades, even after Billy Collins’ death, denying he knew the gloves had been tampered with. It wasn’t until 2007 that he finally broke. He owned up to it all.
Resto knew that Lewis had removed the padding right before the fight. He had also soaked his hand wraps in plaster to harden the blows. To this day, Resto is a man haunted by the ghost of the boy he broke, living with the weight of a “win” that cost a man his life. Years later, after his return from jail, he discovered the fight was all part of a bet.
“A bet had gone on me, and I had to win the fight no matter what.”
As well as halting his fighting days, Resto’s actions that night have also suffocated any chances he had of going into the corner to lend the next generation his wealth of experience. It was an understandable decision by the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC).
The story of Billy Collins Jr. remains a grim pillar of boxing history, a reminder of what happens when greed corrupts a match. It highlights the catastrophic regulatory failures of the era where a trainer could hide a “loaded” glove in plain sight.
The legacy of the fight is one of profound loss. Had the gloves stayed fair, Billy ‘Ray’ Collins might have become a world champion; instead, he became a martyr for fighter safety. His story remains a stark reminder of how a single act of deceit could ripple out to destroy families, careers, and lives.
Who wrote this?
Mahbubat Salahudeen is a Sport Journalist with a primary focus on Youth-Athleticism and women's football.
She is currently pursuing a degree in Media Communications and Public Relations. While much of her experience lies in Sports communications, she has honed transferable skills in strategic communication, audience engagement, and digital media production that transcend industries.
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