Four Kings

by George Kimball

  The judges’ scorecards were indeed a surprise to most ringsiders (“As far as I was concerned,” wrote British scribe Frank Keating, “each of them was as daffy as Don King’s barber” ), but Hearns claimed afterward, “I thought I was ahead.”

  My own scorecard had the fight dead level going into the fourteenth, meaning that I’d have had Leonard ahead by at least two points with a round to go if Pearl hadn’t stopped the fight.

  Even Pearl, who didn’t have a vote, seemed appalled when he viewed the scorecards.

  “I figured Hearns was winning all those light-hitting rounds,” the referee told Pat Putnam. “But Leonard was doing all the heavy damage. I thought it was close. Jeez, what if I had let the fight go on and Ray just barely won the last round and they gave Hearns the decision? Caesars wouldn’t have had to tear the stadium down for the Grand Prix. The people would have done it for them.”

  Years later, having viewed the videotape of the Hearns-Leonard fight on numerous occasions, Duane Ford would admit, “I was off in that fight−but Chuck was way off!

  “But that fight actually changed the scoring system in Nevada,” said Ford, who would later become the chairman of the NSAC. “We’d just gone from the five-point system to the ten-point must system, and the way the rules read in 1981, we weren’t allowed to score a 10-8 round with no knockdown.”

  In an early-edition story written before the fight, Katz had noted that Mike Trainer had expressed concern that the judges might be predisposed against Leonard. His theory was that there might be some residual resentment over the way he and Leonard had altered the dynamics of big fights by letting the boxers, and not the promoters, call the shots.

  “[Trainer] was very correct,” recalled Katz. “Chuck Minker was later rewarded by being made the executive director of the Nevada commission.”

  “I have no qualms about the referee’s decision,” recalled Emanuel Steward. “Some people said because Tommy was ahead on the scorecards he should have been given a chance to finish the fight, but the truth is, if he’d made it out of that round he couldn’t even have made it back to the corner, much less lasted another one. His legs was gone. He was cooked.

  “I saw Thomas Hearns hurt, and I never saw that before,” added Steward, apparently as mesmerized as the rest of us by what had taken place. “I saw Ray Leonard outboxed, and I never saw that before, either.”

  “When I returned home, a friend thanked me for touting Leonard in my New York Times articles,” recalled Katz in a remembrance for TheSweetScience.com a quarter-century later. “In those enlightened days, Times reporters were not allowed to make predictions, and, frankly, I didn’t have a clue. What I did write, though, was that the fight might resemble a mirage in the desert−that Thomas Hearns would be the boxer and Ray Leonard the slugger.

  “I got that part right, and my friend took it to mean that Leonard would win and was able to cash in. But having forecast the role reversals didn’t mean I thought the slugger would win−and there was ample evidence that wonderful night that Hearns indeed could have outboxed Leonard to win a decision.”

  When they appeared together at a post-fight news conference that night, Leonard and Hearns sounded downright affectionate. Ray even apologized “for some of the things I said about Tommy−like that he didn’t have any brains.

  “There was room for only one of us,” said Leonard. “We both stood our ground. In my book, we both are still champions. He’s a superior athlete.”

  Added Hearns: “I gave my best. I just made a couple of mistakes, and you can’t afford to make mistakes against a fighter of Ray’s caliber.”

  When Leonard ruefully noted that Hearns had landed “some really solid shots,” somebody asked him if he’d ever been in trouble.

  “I knew I was in trouble,” replied Leonard, “the moment I signed the contract for this fight.”

  Leonard didn’t look much like a man who’d just won a fight. His face was a mess. Later that night, Putnam was with Leonard in his suite when the boxer’s seven-year-old son entered the room and got his first look at his battered father. Wrote Putnam:

  Little Ray bit his lower lip, blinking away the tears in his

  bright eyes. “Daddy, why do you keep on fighting? Why

  don’t you take up another sport? ”

  “Like what? ”

  “Like basketball.”

  The all-night gamblers were still out in force the next morning when Hearns and Leonard made their separate ways through the casino to meet with the press. Hearns wore a gold Kronk warmup suit, while Leonard was dressed in white trousers and shirt, a white yachting cap perched atop his head. Both wore sunglasses to mask the evidence of the carnage of the previous evening.

  As the two sat side by side, one scribe was moved to note that the pair of them looked like the aftermath of “a bad night on Gilligan’s Island.”

  “My face,” Leonard recalled later, “looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s.”

  There was little discussion of a rematch. Leonard, noting that he had the option of defending either the undisputed welterweight title or his WBA 154-pound championship, seemed disposed to the former, and pointedly invited junior welter champion Aaron Pryor, whom he accused of talking too much, to move up and challenge him.

  “Aaron Pryor says he wants to get into the ring with me,” said Leonard. “He wants to be able to retire−and he will, for health reasons.”

  Although an obvious big fight loomed against Hagler, Leonard didn’t sound eager to have it happen anytime soon.

  “I think I’ll be a middleweight in a year or two,” said Leonard. “I figure the longer I wait, the older Hagler will get.”

  What about Hearns and Hagler, then?

  Leonard didn’t even wait for Hearns to answer.

  “Tommy can have him,” he smiled.

  When Angelo Dundee was congratulated for his inspirational work in the corner that night, he shrugged and said, “Thanks, but Ray did the fighting.”

  Both Leonard and Hearns would go on to win bigger battles, and earn even more money than they did that night in 1981; years later they would even fight one another again. Yet that magical evening in the desert remains, in the estimate of most boxing historians, the greatest welterweight fight of all time. I’ve covered nearly four-hundred world title bouts since, but with all its fascinating nuances, Hearns-Leonard I remains the best fight I was ever privileged to watch.

  Chapter 5

  Toughing It Out

  Duran–Hagler

  Caesars Palace, November 11, 1983

  By late 1982 Duran’s stock had tumbled even further than after the No Mas fight. He had lost a decision to Wilfred Benitez (who had by then anglicized his given name by dropping the “o”) in a challenge for the WBC junior middleweight title, and then been solidly outpointed by Jamaican-born journeyman Kirkland Laing.

  After the Laing fight in Detroit, Don King had stormed into the loser’s dressing room to unleash an obscenity-laced, ten-minute tirade, at the conclusion of which he angrily told Duran he would never promote him again.

  At thirty-one, Manos de Piedra hadn’t even been placed on waivers. He had been handed boxing’s equivalent of his outright release.

  Just as his entourage of once-faithful “friends” had all but abandoned him, virtually every associate who had shared his journey to the top had deserted. Freddie Brown had quit in a dispute over money after the No Mas fight. After washing his hands of Duran in New Orleans, Ray Arcel had relented and returned to work Cholo’s corner against Benitez, but had been so disappointed in the result that he subsequently sent Duran a heartfelt letter recommending that they both retire.

  Carlos Eleta no longer even phoned, and appeared to have lost all interest. Only Plomo−Nestor Quinones, Duran’s boyhood trainer−remained from the old days.

  Luis Spada was a courtly Argentine who had for many years done business as a matchmaker in Panama. Years before he had told Duran that if he ever needed an extra spit-bucket carrier, he w
ould be his man.

  As he contemplated his future, Duran telephoned Spada.

  “I don’t want you to carry the bucket,” he told him. “I want you to be my manager.”

  Spada contacted Eleta, who confirmed that he was through with Duran and wished him luck.

  In the fall of 1982, Duran presented himself at the offices of Top Rank.

  “He was worthless, not worth a plugged quarter,” said Bob Arum, who was disinclined to take on the reclamation project, but did so at the urging of Teddy Brenner. The deposed president of Madison Square Garden Boxing had, after an unsuccessful fling at promoting, resurfaced as Arum’s matchmaker.

  During Brenner’s Garden tenure he had staged many of the Panamanian’s early fights. He argued that, at thirty, Duran hadn’t absorbed a lot of physical punishment in the ring, and that if he could only rekindle the fire that had once made him the most feared man in boxing, he might prove a profitable acquisition for Top Rank.

  (It was a transaction that would have ramifications for years to come. Prior to signing Duran, Arum had underestimated the Hispanic boxing market, but his experience with Duran’s resurgence led to subsequent alliances with Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya, and ultimately, to the contemporary crop of Top Rank boxers−a roster that includes the likes of Miguel Cotto, Erik Morales, Jose Luis Castillo, Humberto Soto, Jorge Arce, Antonio Margarito and Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., along with the Spanish-speaking Filipino Manny Pacquiao. Top Rank regularly markets fights to Telefutura, and Arum employs a full-time Spanish-language publicista, Ricardo Jiminez, to work alongside press agent Lee Samuels.)

  Duran’s first fight under the Top Rank banner, a lackluster decision over Briton Jimmy Batten on the Aaron Pryor-Alexis Arguello card in Miami that November, didn’t do much to enhance his image, but there were few witnesses. The main event had ended chaotically, and the Batten fight was the walk-out bout of the evening. By the time it started I was filing my story from the football press box high above the Orange Bowl, so far from the ring that it was difficult to see what was taking place, but the boos and catcalls from what remained of the crowd spoke volumes.

  In January 1983, on the eve of Super Bowl XXVII in Los Angeles, Duran scored a stunning knockout of Pipino Cuevas at the L.A. Sports Arena, dropping the former welterweight champion twice before stopping him for good in the fourth. The Cuevas fight represented a giant leap forward in Duran’s comeback plans, but it nearly sparked a riot at the venue. The boozy, mostly Mexican-American fans had been solidly pro-Cuevas, and they were outraged over what they considered a poor effort. Eddie “The Animal” Lopez, a Chicano heavyweight from East Los Angeles, stood on the apron of the ring, cursing at Cuevas.

  As the fighters and their entourages milled about in the ring, a network cameraman on hand to capture Duran’s post-fight interview was struck squarely in the back by an object heaved from the stands and immediately felt warm moisture spreading across his back. He feared at first that it might be his own blood, but when he looked down to the canvas, he realized he had been hit by an East L.A. hand grenade−a makeshift water balloon consisting of a condom filled with freshly produced urine. It had presumably been intended for Pipino.

  Arum had told Duran that if he could beat Cuevas he would arrange a shot at WBA junior middleweight champion Davey Moore. The promoter was able to make good on his promise sooner than expected. Tony Ayala, the unbeaten young Texas junior-middleweight in line for a mandatory challenge to Moore, was arrested on rape charges (he ultimately spent nearly seventeen years in prison), clearing the way for Duran.

  The fight against Moore was initially scheduled to take place at the Sun City Casino in the South African “homeland” of Bophuthatswana, in combination with a Ray Mancini-Kenny Bogner lightweight title match. Both bouts would be prelims to the pièce de résistance of the evening, a concert by Frank Sinatra.

  “Sinatra had agreed to perform because he was a big fan of Boom-Boom Mancini,” recalled Arum. “Then, a couple of weeks before we were to fly to South Africa, Mancini broke his collarbone. When that fight was canceled, Sinatra canceled too.

  “We had to find a new site for the Moore-Duran fight, and New York seemed a natural. Moore was a native New Yorker who’d won multiple Golden Gloves titles at the Garden. Duran always had a big following among the Hispanics of New York, so we rented Madison Square Garden and put the fight there.

  “In retrospect,” added Arum, “it may have been the best thing that ever happened to Duran. If he fights Moore in South Africa, I’m not even sure he wins.”

  (Michael Katz disputed Arum’s contention on this point: “That’s bullshit,” said the Wolf Man. “He thumbs Moore in the eye no matter where they are.” )

  While Duran was preparing for the June 16 Moore fight, Hagler was training in Provincetown, getting ready for a May 27 title defense against Wilford Scypion at the Providence Civic Center.

  Under normal circumstances, once Hagler put himself “in jail” you couldn’t have gotten him out with a bomb, but he had agreed to break camp for a day one week before the fight to participate in a boxing skit with Sugar Ray Leonard as part of Bob Hope’s televised 80th Birthday Special at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

  The appearance was meaningful to Hagler for a couple of reasons. Not only did the celebrity role with Hope represent the sort of recognition he felt was long overdue, but for one night, at least, it would put him on equal footing with Leonard, whom he continued to regard as his nemesis.

  After defeating Hearns, Leonard made just one defense of the undisputed welterweight title, a third-round TKO of Bruce Finch in Reno in February 1982. He was to have met Roger Stafford in Buffalo that May, but a routine pre-fight physical revealed a detached retina in his left eye. The Stafford fight was canceled, and Leonard returned to Maryland, where he underwent surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

  A quarter-century ago a detached retina was usually considered to be a career-ending injury, but laser techniques were just becoming available, and this was Sugar Ray Leonard.

  Leonard booked the Baltimore Civic Center for November 9, a week after his return from Italy, where he had gone as part of the HBO broadcast team for Hagler’s October 30 rematch against Obelmejias. (Obelmejias II had initially been scheduled for July 15, but had been postponed after Hagler incurred a rib injury while sparring in Provincetown.)

  Ray had chosen the site of his pro debut for what he promised would be an “historic announcement.” Over ten thousand tickets had been sold to the public (the proceeds would be donated to the Boys Clubs of Baltimore), and another 2,000 “special guests” had received invitations. Among those on the guest list were Guarino and Pasquale Petronelli and Marvelous Marvin Hagler.

  That night in San Remo Hagler finished Obelmejias off in five, belting him with a right hand that left the Venezuelan sprawled on the deck. Obelmejias was still struggling to regain his footing when referee Ernesto Magana counted him out.

  “As soon as I hit him,” Hagler recalled afterward, “I knew he wouldn’t get up. Well, he’d have been a fool if he’d tried to.”

  Among the first in the ring to congratulate Hagler was Leonard, who interviewed him for HBO. Once they had disposed of their recap of the fight itself, Marvin turned to Ray with a grin and teased him:

  “Let’s go for the big one,” Hagler told him. “The people want to see you, Lenny. They don’t want you to retire.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Leonard replied with a laugh.

  That night, as he made his way out of the Teatro Ariston in San Remo, Pat Petronelli ran into Leonard.

  “Pat,” he whispered, “I’m going to deny it, but there’ll be a fight.”

  “I did tell him that,” Leonard recalled with a smile a quarter-century later. “I guess I said it like a politician: I said there would be a fight. I just didn’t say when .”

  Not even Leonard’s closest associates were sure.

  “I don’t know,” said Ollie Dunlap, “and to tell you the
truth, I really don’t think Ray’s made up his mind, either.”

  The Hagler camp already had dollar signs dancing in their heads. Bob Arum, having discovered what he described as a “mother lode” in the South African “homeland,” supposed that he could sell Hagler-Leonard in Bophuthatswana for “a trillion dollars.” (Whether either Hagler or Leonard could have been persuaded to perform in a venue that represented a veritable monument to apartheid is a question that never had to be answered. Frankly, I doubt it.)

  Hagler’s promoter was even contemplating how to get around the nettlesome problem posed by Tony Sibson’s impending mandatory challenge, which, according to WBC rules, needed to be formalized within a week or two.

  Not–yet Marvelous Marvin Hagler, circa 1970

  “I had to show him how to hold his hands to pose. He was completely green.”

  —Angie Carlino

  Duran–Leonard I, Montreal, 1980

  “The man became a legend, and the boy became a man.”

  —Red Smith

  Duran–Leonard II, No Mas in New Orleans, 1980

  “Leonard could not have shamed Duran more thoroughly if he had reached over and pulled down his trunks.”

  —Ray Didinger

  Hearns–Leonard I, 1981

  “I made a couple of mistakes, and you can’t afford to make mistakes against a fighter of Ray’s caliber.”

  —Thomas Hearns

  Duran–Hagler, 1983

  “Fighting all those years for peanuts finally paid off. I finally got the big one.”

  —Marvelous Marvin Hagler

  Duran–Hearns, 1984

  “I tried to get under those long arms, and he knocked me crazy with that right hand.”