The Big Fight

by Sugar Ray Leonard

  Why did Juanita stick around? Why not leave me and find a man who would treat her with the proper respect? In her early twenties, she was more beautiful than ever and, just as in high school, could have attracted anyone she wished for.

  Maybe it was because of our son or because she’d invested so much time in us already. Whatever her reasoning, it was a miracle that she didn’t blow my brains out. If it had been the other way around, I would not have been as forgiving. When we were teenagers, I routinely beat up guys if they even looked at her the wrong way. I sent one kid under a jukebox, another almost through a windshield. In the mid-1970s, during a period when we weren’t seeing each other, I went crazy when I heard she was dating somebody else. I stopped by her house at about three in the morning, practically pushed her into the car, and after driving about three or four miles, told her to get out and walk home by herself. Within a minute or two, I regained my senses and turned around to pick her up. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that she stopped trying to save our marriage. I could not blame her. She gave me more chances than I deserved.

  Meanwhile, with every fight—every hike in prize money—came the growing realization that to my family and friends I was no longer Ray the son, Ray the brother, or Ray the buddy. I was Ray the bank.

  I was the one with riches they never dreamed of, and believed they were entitled to as well. One day, somebody might need three hundred dollars. Another day, five hundred dollars. Rare was the day that a member of my family or a friend did not seek some type of bailout, promising to pay me back, although we both knew he or she never would. We both knew they never could. It reached the point where I told them not to pay me back. Did I resent being my own private welfare state in Palmer Park, Maryland? You bet I did. I might have felt differently if they had made a genuine effort to earn the money themselves, however degrading the work might have seemed. They didn’t. They weren’t proud, like my dad, who busted his butt at a job with no chance to ever move up.

  Of course, why would they be like Pops? Why would they look for honest work when they knew I’d come to their rescue every time?

  “What’s a little money to you, anyway?” they said. “You’re going to make another fortune in six months.”

  All they needed was to see the signs of my success—the Mercedes Benz, the six-bedroom home in the suburbs, the television in almost every room—to know I could afford to give them whatever they wanted. They were never going to break Ray the bank.

  They didn’t seem to recognize when it had been only a week or so since their most recent withdrawal. If they did, they didn’t care. All they cared about was squeezing another dime out of me. They went through the cash almost faster than I could give it to them, and they weren’t savvy enough to use it as an opportunity to improve their lives over the long haul. Money was, like a lot of things, something they couldn’t handle. Fortunately, they are better off today than they were thirty years ago because they had the good sense to marry spouses who taught them how to be responsible in middle age.

  My friends and family members told the bleakest stories. Too bad Oprah wasn’t around in those days.

  “Ray, you know, my car is broken down,” one friend said, “and there’s no way for me to get to work without it. It’s too far to walk.”

  “Ray, I’m way behind on the rent,” another said, “and the landlord is threatening to kick me out if I don’t pay right away.”

  Rent was a regular hook, not food or clothes or other basic necessities.

  On and on it went, forever, it seemed. One friend had the nerve to suggest I pay him the exact sum he owed Uncle Sam. He was not kidding.

  They didn’t come right out and ask for money. That would be too bold. Yet the subtext of the “conversation” was obvious from the second they walked through the door.

  Roger was assertive enough to ask, though not for cash. He asked for chickens—each chicken the equivalent of one hundred dollars.

  “Ray, can you spare me a couple of chickens?” he’d say.

  I have always wondered whether asking for chickens was Roger’s clever way to make it appear like he was not seeking a handout from his younger brother. If it was, I wasn’t fooled for one moment. Kenny, meanwhile, came to me with dozens of schemes to make a quick buck. He was like Ralph Kramden from The Honeymooners. Not one idea made any money, or sense.

  The amounts to satisfy their needs, at least for the short term, were manageable, never larger than two thousand dollars, which I could easily produce from the cash in my safe. Or I simply wrote a check. Either way, it’s not as if I missed the money.

  My accountant, Don Gold, didn’t quite see it that way.

  “If you give away two thousand dollars a hundred times,” Don said, “that’s a lot of money.”

  Mike Trainer was more emphatic. “Ray, when you start saying no to these people, when you start being an asshole, that’s when you will be happy,” he said. He was right. He later came up with the ingenious concept of hiring family members and friends as independent contractors in training camp, allowing me to deduct their expenses from my income.

  On the other hand, what was I supposed to do? If I turned them down, I would come across as the black man who made it big in whitey’s world and then forgot where he came from and the people who helped him get there. Giving them money was also a heck of a lot easier than squabbling. Rewarded for my fighting skills, I still did whatever I could to avoid any conflicts outside the ring. The memories of my parents’ brawls were never far beneath the surface.

  On occasion, I handed over more money than they wanted, and sometimes when they did not want any at all. If someone needed a few bucks for gas, I would pull out a Ben Franklin without a second thought. When Kenny mentioned he was going shopping for a new suit, I would tell him to buy whatever he preferred, money being no object. He might spend close to a grand. One time, I went to visit my sisters without notice and took them to Saks Fifth Avenue, and gave each a five-thousand-dollar limit.

  I could never be the asshole Mike suggested, except once. It happened when Roger walked into my office. I knew what he wanted and did not let him get the words out before I flashed him the same cold stare we got whenever we disappointed our father. He could see I was in no mood to make another contribution to the Roger Leonard Emergency Fund. His face turning red, he ran off without saying good-bye.

  I bought homes and cars for my brothers and sisters, and for countless others. When a group went to dinner, whether there were five, ten, or twenty of us, I picked up the check. Everyone expected it. Helping to sort out the multitude of gifts was Mike’s trusted assistant, Caren Kinder. Caren was my gatekeeper for decades, protecting me to no end. She was invaluable in determining what I needed to know and when I needed to know it.

  More distressing than the loss of cash was the loss of closeness. No one bothered to ask: “Ray, how are you?” They came to me to fix their problems, never to hear about mine.

  I wanted to shout: “You guys do not get it, do you? I’m in great pain, too, and my pain is just as important as your pain.” After they left, their needs met, I closed the iron gates and felt alone.

  Looking back and trying to make sense of this period from their perspective, I wonder if being alone was simply the price I was meant to pay for my success. They put me on a pedestal as well, and I felt just as lousy then as I did when they came for money. When the family gathered for dinner and I was running late, my mom would say, “We can’t eat till Ray gets here.” Momma would not have waited for any of her other kids, but since I was Sugar Ray Leonard, I was to be treated differently. It was never what I wanted. I was suspicious enough already of people’s motives in the outside world, not knowing if they liked me for who I was or because of my popularity. At home, I figured I would be loved for simply being myself, a son and a brother. That’s not what happened, and it was my loss. It’s hard to blame them too much. After all, it was up to me to let them know how I felt, and I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  I coul
dn’t because of the pressure I felt living up to the image I had worked tirelessly to create. I was incredibly blessed, especially for a young black man from Palmer Park, Maryland. How could I then tell my family, or anyone, of that pain—that darkness—inside me? So I did what I always did. I buried it, which made me feel even worse.

  To be fair, none of us, and that included me, had the slightest experience dealing with sudden, unimaginable success. White folks from the middle and upper classes coped much better whenever one of their own struck it rich. Money wasn’t a strange, new object to them as it was for poor folk.

  There were problems I couldn’t fix with money, such as Roger’s addiction to drugs, which dated back to the early 1970s.

  Heroin was his drug of choice. Perhaps I could have made a difference if I had paid more attention to him, but there was only one person I paid attention to, and his initials were SRL. Instead of love, I gave Roger money, even if we both knew where it was going. I’m ashamed to admit I was worse than his dealer.

  Similar to my friend Derrik Holmes, Roger, who turned pro in 1978 as a light middleweight, was loaded with natural ability. There is no question in my mind, and I don’t believe there is in his, that if he had been able to conquer his demons, he, too, would have been a world champion. Roger was clever, elusive, fearless. His opinions regarding the strengths and weaknesses of my opponents were invaluable. There was little my brother could not do, except stay clean.

  “You can’t be a part-time fighter,” I often told him. “You will never make it that way.”

  He didn’t learn. Roger registered sixteen victories and only one defeat before he, like Derrik, quit for good in 1982. Unlike Derrik, he never fought for a title, and he has only one person to blame.

  In the early eighties, Roger enrolled in a rehab center in Atlanta but was back on drugs within a week of his release. I went to see him in rehab, but I was high myself and in no position to offer any advice. I was incredibly embarrassed and hoped he didn’t notice. It was not until about a year later, when he checked into a center on his own in D.C., that he made progress. He dropped by my house to inform me of his plans.

  “Don’t tell anyone, Ray, but I’m going in,” he said.

  I handed him a one-hundred-dollar bill, which he spent on heroin, though it was the last time he did any drugs. He’s been clean for almost thirty years and today counsels others not to make the choices he made.

  Roger wasn’t my only sibling addicted to heroin. So was my sister Sharon. I was quite upset but there was little I could do—until I got word while training for my fight with Johnny Gant that one of my sparring partners, Henry Bunch, had supplied her with drugs.

  I decided to teach Bunch a lesson. I extended the rounds of sparring from three minutes to five and, ultimately, seven, for the sole reason that I could hurt him over and over. He was busted up pretty good by the time we were done. Many years later, I found out Bunch had not given her drugs. I felt awful.

  A few weeks after the Price fight, I started to train in earnest for Benitez. He was sure to be my stiffest challenge to date. When summing up the 1970s and 1980s, boxing experts routinely cite Duran, Hearns, Hagler, and me among the era’s best fighters, yet too often fail to include Benitez. He is overlooked because he was never in another memorable match after he fought me. Nor did he possess the charisma I displayed nor was he as intimidating as the other three. That doesn’t mean Benitez wasn’t truly gifted. He just happened to be born at the wrong time.

  The youngest of three brothers who fought professionally, he was only seven years old when he made his debut in the Puerto Rican Golden Gloves. At thirteen, he won the national AAU title, and two years later, knocked out Hiram Santiago in the first round of his first pro fight.

  At seventeen, Benitez shocked veteran Antonio “Kid Pambele” Cervantes to capture the WBA junior welterweight crown and become the youngest boxing champion in history. Seventeen! When I was seventeen, I was three long years away from competing in the Olympics. At twenty, he won the WBC welterweight championship by beating Carlos Palomino. He knocked out Randy Shields in six rounds. I couldn’t put Shields away in ten, and was fortunate to earn the decision. In thirtynine fights, a draw vs. Harold Weston was the only blemish on his record.

  Outside the ropes was an entirely different matter, and that’s where he was vulnerable. His weakness? The same as many fighters: the opposite sex. His father, Gregorio, became so annoyed with Wilfred’s lack of discipline that he predicted that it would likely cost him his belt.

  “Both my wife and I are very disgusted with Wilfred,” the elder Benitez said. “Even if they gave me $200,000 to work in the corner, I would not . . . he has not listened to anything I have told him . . . he would rather be out somewhere—anywhere—than in the gym. I have told him many times that Leonard will be in top shape and in top form, and that Leonard will beat him if he doesn’t train.”

  Gregorio, who managed his son before he sold his interest to Jim Jacobs, the noted boxing film collector, later claimed he was merely trying to motivate him (“If I say he is going to win, then he no work”), although that type of psychological ploy wasn’t something my father would ever have needed to motivate me. As much as I adored women, I knew my priorities, which was why Juanita spent very little time at our training camps and why, with one exception, the two of us did not have sex in the months leading up to a big fight. Ali couldn’t say I was a “bad nigger” anymore.

  I didn’t pay attention to anything Gregorio Benitez said. I always felt that the write-ups in the papers did nothing to enlighten me about a fighter’s strengths or weaknesses. I saw what I needed to see on film, and it was not just their footwork and punching tendencies that provided important clues. It was the words they chose and the tone they adopted in interviews. Was there the slightest sign of fear in their voice, or in their eyes, and if so, how could I take advantage of it? It was risky, however, to frame too much of any strategy on these celluloid images. How Benitez fought Palomino would no doubt be different from how he would cope with my habits. I didn’t move my feet the way Cervantes did or attack like Weston. No two fighters are the same.

  In breaking down Benitez from head to toe, his assets were impossible to overlook. What impressed me the most was how elusive he was, moving his head at the last possible instant to avoid direct contact. He was a very effective counterpuncher with each hand, which prevented his foes from being too aggressive, and switched easily between a righthanded and southpaw stance. When pinned against the ropes, he was extremely dangerous, and though he was not regarded as a knockout puncher, he placed his shots well. The final blow receives most of the attention from boxing fans, but it’s usually the accumulation of punches that sends a fighter to the deck. Benitez, from what I heard, was also in excellent condition. Perhaps the master psychologist Papa Benitez knew what he was doing after all.

  Nonetheless, I knew there was a way to beat him. There was a way to beat everybody.

  One clue I picked up on film was that Benitez didn’t like his opponents dictating the fight to him. If he was not in control, he became a little unsure of himself. Benitez was able to regain the upper hand—he survived three knockdowns against Bruce Curry during their 1977 bout in winning a split decision—but I planned to keep him on the defensive the whole night. I would attack from every conceivable angle, changing speeds the same way a pitcher does on the mound. Exploiting a small advantage in reach, I would use the left jab to score points and wear him down. He also had a tendency to dip his head as he threw his left, leaving him open to my uppercut. In my favor, too, was the fact that I’d fought eight times already in 1979, while Benitez had been out of the ring since March, when he beat Weston in their rematch.

  As for my own work in the gym, my sparring partners got the better of me during the first week or two. That was not unusual. Once the rust was gone, I took command and put the hurt on them. I was serious when I sparred. A lot of fighters don’t mind if others hit the bags or make loud noises in
the background while they’re in the ring. Not me. In order to totally concentrate, I needed everyone else to stop what they were doing. Sparring is not just to develop the muscles; sparring is to develop the mind.

  The fight being held in Vegas, I’d have another key advantage over Benitez: Vegas was my home away from home, where I had already fought four times and felt at ease among the high rollers and celebrities. Benitez, despite his Playboy reputation, had never been on a stage quite like this and was likely to get distracted, if only slightly, and fights are often lost when one of the competitors is not completely focused on the man who will come at him from the other corner determined to beat his brains in. You can’t wait until the day of the fight to enter that zone. You must be in it for days, if not weeks. It’s no different, really, from the leading man who must memorize his lines in rehearsal and get into character before the cameras roll.

  Another place I felt at home was on national television, and the fight was to be broadcast by ABC and Howard Cosell. Beginning with the Games in Montreal and my pro debut against Vega, I was on TV regularly. Benitez was not.

  Then there was Caesars. It was boxing’s new mecca, replacing Madison Square Garden in New York, which had held that honor for most of the twentieth century. By the late 1970s, Caesars was where the money was and where boxing was much more than a sport. It was a spectacle, with the boxers’ names on the marquee in giant black letters, like Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

  Nothing compared to Caesars: the aroma of cigars and booze, the parking lot packed with Ferraris and Rolls-Royces, the sexy outfits and fancy jewelry the gorgeous women wore at ringside, the organized-crime figures you could spot from a mile away, the Hollywood celebs who showed up to be seen. I wouldn’t choose to fight anywhere else.