LAS VEGAS • The wife of former world heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks has asked for prayers for her husband amid a media report that he is in a Las Vegas hospital in a serious condition.

"It's been a tough year for us," Brenda Spinks wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday night.

"Leon has endured a lot of medical problems.

"I'm reaching out to ask you to kindly pray for my beautiful husband Leon. So that he may overcome the obstacles that have crossed his path."

Celebrity gossip website TMZ also said Spinks was "fighting for his life" with an undisclosed condition, although Reuters could not immediately confirm the accuracy of the report.

The 66-year-old, who won the light heavyweight gold at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, will forever be known for beating Muhammad Ali two years later in their world heavyweight title fight, one of boxing's greatest upsets.

He has, however, endured several health problems in recent years, and in 2014, underwent abdominal surgery after swallowing a piece of bone from a chicken wing.

Spinks, who was inducted into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame in 2017, comes from a line of respected pugilists - his younger brother Michael went 31-0 before retiring after suffering a first-round knockout by Mike Tyson in 1988.

His son Cory was also a boxer and won the undisputed welterweight title in 2003 before retiring in 2013.

REUTERS