After being knocked down just twice in his career before he met Hagler, Leonard was dropped on several occasions (including twice by Hearns) over his last few fights, but was never knocked out. (The only fight he failed to finish, his final one against Camacho, was halted by the clemency of the referee.)
Duran had engaged in eighty-two fights before he was knocked out in one−by Hearns, in 1984.
And while Hearns was stopped by both Leonard and Hagler, it could be reasonably argued that on both occasions it was not his chin, but his legs, that betrayed him.
“Ray was always going to beat Tommy,” Angelo Dundee once told me. “For one reason−balance. Some guys are blessed with it, some guys aren’t. You give Tommy Hearns Ray’s balance and he probably beats them all.”
Those only casually acquainted with the sport seem amazed when they watch two boxers beat each other within an inch of their lives, only to warmly embrace when the final bell rings. The bond of mutual respect, and even genuine affection, between men who have experienced this unique form of combat can be bewildering to those outside the fraternity. So it is with Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, and Duran, who not only shared a glorious decade on the world stage together, but made one another rich. It’s hard to carry a grudge under such circumstances.
“We still all run into each other now and then,” said Sugar Ray Leonard. “When I see Hagler, it’s civil, like, ‘How you doing? ’ but that’s all. Marvin now is like Marvin then. He was always old-school. He never had an entourage; he carried his own bags. He’s like that today. He does things his own way. He marches to his own drummer. Marvin and I talk, but it’s short talk.
“Tommy Hearns was at my wedding, and I see him at birthday parties and boxing events, and we have a good time together. Tommy’s always smiling and joking and happy-go-lucky, but somewhere in the back of his mind I know he’s still hoping I’ll come back and fight him for a third time, even after all these years.
“And when Duran and I are together we can even joke around a bit,” said Leonard.
The subject of No Mas has never come up between them, and, says Leonard, it never will. But a few years ago the two did find themselves together in Mexico City for a WBC convention. Leonard was having breakfast in the coffee shop when Cholo walked in.
“Hey, Roberto,” Leonard beckoned with a smile, “come over here. Come over here and sit down, goddamn it!”
As the two old rivals sat across the table from one another, Leonard said, “I need to know something. We’re older, we’ve got kids and grandchildren, so you can tell me now. Did you really hate me as much as you seemed to hate me back then? ”
“Ray, Ray, no no no no!” said Duran, looking offended. “I was only acting.”
“Acting? ” Leonard laughed. “Well, you must have been a damned good actor, then, because you sure convinced me!”
(finis)
Afterword and Acknowledgments
Although I was an eyewitness to all nine fights between Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, and Duran and have relied on (and quoted from) my notes, recollections, and clippings of well over a hundred stories I wrote at the time−for the Boston Herald and Herald American , as well as for several boxing magazines−I am indebted to a number of secondary sources.
Remarkably, only one of the subjects treated herein has been the subject of a comprehensive biography encompassing his entire ring career, and Christian Giudice’s Hands of Stone was a valuable resource in filling out the enigma that is Roberto Duran. I have attempted to credit him where I have quoted directly from that book, but I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the critical nature of Giudice’s work in recounting the background, and dispelling some of the tales, surrounding an almost mythic figure.
Sugar Ray Leonard was the subject of several biographies, three of which were written for the children’s market. Bert Rosenthal’s Sugar Ray Leonard: The Baby-Faced Boxer and James Haskins’ Sugar Ray Leonard, both written for a juvenile audience, were published in 1982. A children’s book also called Sugar Ray Leonard, authored by S.H. Burchard, was published in 1983 and concluded with the 1982 Baltimore retirement ceremony. Alan Goldstein’s excellent A Fistful of Sugar was published even earlier, and while it takes the reader as far as the first two Duran fights, it was rushed into print to emerge before Leonard’s 1981 fight against Hearns, too early, alas, to capture the critical second phase of Leonard’s career. Sam Toperoff’s Sugar Ray Leonard and Other Noble Warriors is not, as the title suggests, exclusively about Leonard, and gets its subject only as far as the 1984 Kevin Howard fight. (It would have been interesting to see how Toperoff dealt with Leonard’s subsequent encounters−with Hagler, Hearns II, and Duran III.)
Marvin Hagler was also the subject of a short (forty-eight pages) biography written for younger readers. Published in 1985, Carolyn Gloeckner’s Marvelous Marvin Hagler emerged before the Hearns and Leonard fights had taken place.
Happily, though, the era is well represented in the work of a number of outstanding contemporaneous boxing scribes−Michael Katz, Hugh McIlvanney, John Schulian, Budd Schulberg, Dave Anderson, Vic Ziegel, and the late Harry Mullan among them−and revisiting their coverage of the fights between the Four Kings (along with Pat Putnam’s and Bill Nack’s Sports Illustrated accounts) was invaluable in the preparation of this book.
When I began to cover the sport, record-keeping was decidedly imprecise. The Ring ’s record book was often unreliable, and in many cases newspapers abetted exaggerations by accepting promoters’ often-fanciful estimates of a given fighter’s record. That situation was improved considerably by the emergence of FightFax in the 1980s, and has been rendered virtually obsolete by today’s online resources−particularly Boxrec.com, which I found myself consulting almost daily as I worked on this book.
The author would also like to express his gratitude to each of the following for sharing their time, expertise, and memories: Ray Charles Leonard, Thomas Hearns, and Roberto Duran; Seth Abraham, Mike Acri, Dave Anderson, James Anderson, Bob Arum, Amiri Baraka, Al Bernstein, Teddy Blackburn, J.D. Brown, Kevin Buckley, Michael Buffer, Prentiss Byrd, Angie Carlino, Nick Charles, Jose “Pepe” Correa, Lou DiBella, Ray Didinger, Dan Doyle, Angelo Dundee, Ollie Dunlap, Steve Farhood, Leonard Gardner, Julius “Juice” Gatling, Christian Giudice, Bobby Goodman, Randy Gordon, Ross Greenburg, Bob Halloran, Pete Hamill, Thomas Hauser, Stan Hochman, Jerry Izenberg, Michael Katz, Jay Larkin, Jim Lawton, Hugh McIlvanney, Wally Matthews, Larry Merchant, Leigh Montville, Mike O’Hara, Reinaldo Oliveira, Andy Olson, Goody Petronelli, Freddie Roach, Lee Samuels, Rick Sennott, Budd Schulberg, Ed Schuyler, John Scully, Emanuel Steward, Steve Taub, Jose Torres, Mike Trainer, Steve Wainwright, Jeff Wald, Alex Wallau, and Jim Watt.
Thanks as well to Joe Fitzgerald, Mike Carey, Tom Gibbons, Jack Thompson, Peter Drumsta and Bob Sales, my old bosses at the Boston Herald, who at various times were responsible for paying my way to cover all nine fights between the Four Kings, as well as to Michael Gee, Tim Horgan, Richie Thompson, Eddie Gray, Frank Dell’Appa, Kevin Cullen, and Mike Globetti, Herald colleagues who rode shotgun on some of those journeys, and to Marvelous Marvin Hagler, who made it all possible.
Colin Wilkins of the library staff at the Boston Herald was particularly helpful in retrieving and assembling my own newspaper coverage of the fights described here, as was Richard O’Brien of Sports Illustrated, who rooted out back issues containing that magazine’s coverage of the era. Thanks as well to Jim Mahoney of the Boston Herald, Karen Carpenter of Sports Illustrated, Janet Indelli and Pam Waring of HBO, and Scott Mosher of Ambient Studios for helping me to pull the illustrations together, and of course, to ace boxing shutterbugs Teddy Blackburn, Angie Carlino, Stephen Green-Armytage, Will Hart, John Iacono, Heinz Kluetmeier, Richard Mackson and Manny Millan, whose photos grace these pages.
The book publisher who is also a boxing buff is a rare bird indeed, and I count hooking up with Alex Skutt as my good fortune. My thanks also go to McBooks editors Chris Wofford and Jackie Swift for th
e countless hours they spent editing the manuscript.
Two Dr. Kimballs−my wife, Marge, and my mother, Sue−proofread the manuscript and typeset pages, and Emily Snider coordinated some difficult logistics to arrange sit-downs with Ray Leonard in some far-flung and unlikely locales.
My everlasting gratitude to the Wolf Man, who, as ever, had my back at each step of the way, and to Tom Frail of Smithsonian, my old editor from the Boston Phoenix, whose editing of the manuscript made this a much better book. Thanks as well to Farley Chase of the Waxman Agency, who encouraged me at every turn and shepherded Four Kings from concept to finished product.
And thanks to Patrick Francis Anthony Nolan Putnam, R.I.P.
George Kimball
New York City
Appendix
Ring Records of the Four Kings
Ring Record of Sugar Ray Leonard
Career record 36-3-1; 25 KOs
1977 Feb. 2 Luis Vega, Baltimore W6
May 14 Willie Rodriguez, Baltimore W6
June 10 Vinnie DeBarros, Hartford TKO3
Sept. 24 Frank Santore, Baltimore KO5
Nov. 5 Augustin Estrada, Las Vegas KO5
Dec. 17 Hector Diaz, Washington DC KO2
1978 Feb. 4 Rocky Ramon, Baltimore W8
Mar. 1 Art McKnight, Dayton TKO7
Mar. 19 Javier Muniz, New Haven KO1
Apr. 13 Bobby Heyman, Landover RTD3
May 13 Randy Milton, Utica TKO8
June 3 Rafael Rodriguez, Baltimore W10
July 18 Dick Ecklund, Boston W10
Sept. 9 Floyd Mayweather, Providence TKO10
Oct. 6 Randy Shields, Baltimore W10
Nov. 13 Bernardo Prata, Portland W10
Dec. 9 Armando Muniz, Springfield RTD6
1979 Jan. 11 Johnny Gant, Landover TKO8
Feb. 11 Fernand Marcotte, Miami Beach TKO8
Mar. 24 Daniel Aldo Gonzalez, Tucson KO1
Apr. 21 Adolfo Viruet, Las Vegas W10
May 20 Marcos Geraldo, Baton Rouge W10
June 24 Tony Chiaverini, Las Vegas RTD4
Aug. 12 Pete Ranzany, Las Vegas TKO4
Sept. 28 Andy Price, Las Vegas KO1
Nov. 30 Wilfredo Benitez, Las Vegas TKO15
Won WBC Welterweight Title
1980 Mar. 31 Dave Green, Landover KO4
Retained WBC Welterweight Title
June 20 Roberto Duran, Montreal L15
Lost WBC Welterweight Title
Nov. 25 Roberto Duran, New Orleans TKO8
Regained WBC Welterweight Title
1981 Mar. 28 Larry Bonds, Syracuse TKO10
Retained WBC Welterweight Title
June 25 Ayub Kalule, Houston TKO9
Won WBA Light-Middleweight Title
Sept. 16 Thomas Hearns, Las Vegas TKO14
Retained WBC and Won WBA Welterweight Title
1982 Feb. 15 Bruce Finch, Reno TKO3
Retained WBA and WBC Welterweight Titles
1983 Inactive
1984 May 11 Kevin Howard, Worcester TKO9
1985-1986 Inactive
1987 Apr. 6 Marvin Hagler, Las Vegas W12
Won WBC Middleweight Title
1988 Nov. 7 Donny Lalonde, Las Vegas TKO9
Won WBC Super-Middleweight and Light-Heavyweight Titles
1989 June 12 Thomas Hearns, Las Vegas D12
For WBC and WBO Super-Middleweight Titles
Dec. 7 Roberto Duran, Las Vegas W12
Retained WBC Super-Middleweight Title
1990 Inactive
1991 Feb. 9 Terry Norris, New York L12
For WBC Light-Middleweight Title
1992-1996 Inactive
1997 Mar. 1 Hector Camacho, Atlantic City TKOby5
Ring Record of Marvelous Marvin Hagler
Career record 62-3-2; 52 KOs
1973 May 18 Terry Ryan, Brockton KO2
July 25 Sonny Williams, Boston W6
Aug. 8 Muhammad Smith, Boston KO2
Oct. 6 Dornell Wigfall, Brockton W8
Oct. 26 Cove Green, Brockton TKO4
Nov. 17 Cocoa Kid, Brockton KO2
Dec. 6 Manny Freitas, Portland TKO1
Dec. 18 James Redford, Boston KO4
1974 Feb. 5 Bob Harrington, Boston KO5
Apr. 5 Tracy Morrison, Boston TKO8
May 4 James Redford, Brockton TKO2
May 30 Curtis Phillips, Portland KO5
July 16 Bobby Williams, Boston TKO3
Aug. 13 Peachy Davis, New Bedford KO1
Aug. 30 Sugar Ray Seales, Boston W10
Oct. 29 Morris Jordan, Brockton TKO4
Nov. 16 George Green, Brockton KO1
Nov. 26 Sugar Ray Seales, Seattle D10
Dec. 20 D.C. Walker, Boston TKO2
1975 Feb. 15 Dornell Wigfall, Brockton KO6
Mar. 31 Joey Blair, Boston KO2
Apr. 14 Jimmy Owens, Boston W10
May 24 Jimmy Owens, Brockton WDQ6
Aug. 7 Jesse Bender, Portland KO1
Sept. 30 Lamont Lovelady, Boston TKO7
Dec. 20 Johnny Baldwin, Boston W10
1976 Jan. 13 Bobby Watts, Philadelphia L10
Feb. 7 Matt Donovan, Boston TKO2
Mar. 9 Willie Monroe, Philadelphia L10
Jun. 2 Bob Smith, Taunton TKO5
Aug. 3 D.C. Walker, Providence KO6
Sept. 14 Eugene Hart, Philadelphia RTD8
Dec. 21 George Davis, Boston TKO6
1977 Feb. 15 Willie Monroe, Boston TKO12
Mar. 16 Reggie Ford, Boston KO3
June 10 Roy Jones, Hartford TKO3
Aug. 23 Willie Monroe, Philadelphia TKO2
Sept. 24 Ray Phillips, Boston TKO7
Oct. 15 Jim Henry, Providence W10
Nov. 26 Mike Colbert, Boston KO12
1978 Mar. 4 Kevin Finnegan, Boston TKO9
Apr. 7 Doug Demmings, Los Angeles TKO8
May 13 Kevin Finnegan, Boston TKO7
Aug. 24 Bennie Briscoe, Philadelphia W10
Nov. 11 Willie Warren, Boston TKO7
1979 Feb. 3 Sugar Ray Seales, Boston TKO1
Mar. 12 Bob Patterson, Providence TKO3
May 26 Jamie Thomas, Portland KO3
June 30 Norberto Cabrera, Monte Carlo RTD8
Nov. 30 Vito Antuofermo, Las Vegas D15
For WBA and WBC Middleweight Titles
1980 Feb. 16 Loucif Hamani, Portland KO2
Apr. 19 Bobby Watts, Portland TKO2
May 17 Marcos Geraldo, Las Vegas W10
Sept. 27 Alan Minter, London TKO3
Won WBA and WBC Middleweight Titles
1981 Jan. 17 Fulgencio Obelmejias, Boston TKO8
Retained WBA and WBC Middleweight Titles
Jun. 13 Vito Antuofermo, Boston TKO5
Retained WBA and WBC Middleweight Titles
Oct. 3 Mustafa Hamsho, Rosemont TKO11
Retained WBA and WBC Middleweight Titles
1982 Mar. 7 William "Cave Man" Lee, Atlantic City TKO1
Retained WBA and WBC Middleweight Titles
Oct. 30 Fulgencio Obelmejias, San Remo KO5
Retained WBA and WBC Middleweight Titles
1983 Feb. 11 Tony Sibson, Worcester TKO6
Retained WBA and WBC Middleweight Titles
May 27 Wilford Scypion, Providence KO4
Retained WBA and WBC and Won IBF Middleweight Titles
Nov. 10 Roberto Duran, Las Vegas W15
Retained WBA, WBC, and IBF Middleweight Titles
1984 Mar. 30 Juan Domingo Roldan, Las Vegas TK010
Retained WBA, WBC, and IBF Middleweight Titles
Oct. 19 Mustafa Hamsho, New York TKO3
Retained WBA, WBC, and IBF Middleweight Titles
1985 Apr. 15 Thomas Hearns, Las Vegas TKO3
Retained WBA, WBC, and IBF Middleweight Titles
1986 Mar. 10 John Mugabi, Las Vegas KO11
Retained WBA, WBC, and IBF Middleweight Titles
1987 Apr. 6 Sugar Ray Leonard, Las Vegas L12
Lost WBC Middleweight Title
&
nbsp; Ring Record of Thomas Hearns
Career record 61-5-1; 48 KOs
1977 Nov. 25 Jerome Hill, Detroit KO2
Dec. 7 Jerry Strickland, Mt. Clemens KO3
Dec. 16 Willie Wren, Detroit KO3
1978 Jan. 29 Anthony House, Knoxville KO2
Feb. 10 Robert Adams, Detroit KO3
Feb. 17 Billy Goodwin, Saginaw TKO2
Mar. 17 Ray Fields, Detroit TKO2
Mar. 31 Tyrone Phelps, Saginaw KO3
June 8 Jimmy Rothwell, Detroit KO1
July 20 Raul Aguirre, Detroit KO3
Aug. 3 Eddie Marcelle, Detroit KO2
Sept. 7 Bruce Finch, Detroit KO3
Oct. 26 Pedro Rojas, Detroit TKO1
Dec. 9 Rudy Barro, Detroit KO4
1979 Jan. 11 Clyde Gray, Detroit TKO10
Jan. 31 Sammy Ruckard, Saginaw TKO8
Mar. 3 Segundo Murillo, Detroit TKO8
Apr. 3 Alfonso Hayman, Philadelphia W10
May 20 Harold Weston, Las Vegas TKO6
June 28 Bruce Curry, Detroit KO3
Aug. 23 Inocencio De la Rosa, Detroit RTD2
Sept. 22 Jose Figueroa, Los Angeles KO3
Oct. 18 Saensak Muangsurin, Detroit TKO3
Nov. 30 Mike Colbert, New Orleans W10
1980 Feb. 3 "Fighting Jim" Richards, Las Vegas KO3
Mar. 2 Angel Espada, Detroit TKO4
Mar. 31 Santiago Valdez, Las Vegas TKO1
May 3 Eddie Gazo, Detroit KO1
Aug. 2 Pipino Cuevas, Detroit TKO2
Won WBA Welterweight Title
Dec. 6 Luis Primera, Detroit KO6
Retained WBA Welterweight Title
1981 Apr. 25 Randy Shields, Phoenix TKO12
Retained WBA Welterweight Title
June 25 Pablo Baez, Houston TKO4
Retained WBA Welterweight Title
Sept. 16 Sugar Ray Leonard, Las Vegas TKOby14
Lost WBA Welterweight Title
Four Kings Page 37