The Big Fight

by Sugar Ray Leonard

  He never looked at a person’s color, only his character. Too bad the same cannot be said for the friends and family members who constantly urged me to dump him over the years.

  “Ray, he’s a white man,” I was told, as if that fact had somehow escaped me. “He doesn’t know what it’s like to be a nigger, and you’re a nigger.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to remind me who I am,” I shot back.

  Besides, white wasn’t the color on their minds. Green was, and they blamed Mike when they felt they weren’t receiving their fair share. They figured I would never deprive them, so it must be the white manager in charge of the purse strings.

  During the two decades Mike and I spent as business associates, we never signed a contract. A handshake was good enough.

  I was the champion in the ring, and in the box office, which meant that we could set the parameters for the Duran negotiations. At the same time, Mike recognized that Bob Arum, an expert in closed-circuit television, could be very valuable to the bottom line. How these two strongwilled men, along with Don King, who enjoyed a tight relationship with Duran’s people in Panama, joined forces was a textbook example of the behind-the-scenes intrigue that could occur only in boxing. You could not make this stuff up.

  In April 1980, Mike, Janks Morton, and Arum were sitting in the VIP lounge of Braniff Airways at JFK Airport, waiting to board a flight to Panama to meet with Carlos Eleta, Duran’s manager, when, out of nowhere, Don King appeared. King had not been invited, but the man knew everyone. King, for the most part, ignored Arum. They got along as well as Ali and Frazier.

  “You sure you’re doing the right thing?” King said to Arum at one point.

  “What are you talking about?” Arum responded.

  “I don’t think the people are going to be real happy seeing you down there.”

  King went on to suggest to Arum that he might get shot when he walked off the plane because he was interfering with the fight. Mike assumed he was kidding, but with King, one never knew. By the look on Arum’s face, he wasn’t sure, either.

  After a certain point, Mike couldn’t tolerate their juvenile behavior any longer.

  “I made a deal for this fight and we’re going to sign it, with or without the two of you,” he said.

  Arum and King got the message and agreed to be co-promoters. The deal was unprecedented. I was guaranteed a minimum of $7.5 million, with a chance to earn a few more million, depending on the closed-circuit revenue, while Duran would receive $1.5 million. By contrast, Ali and Frazier made $2.5 million apiece for their “Fight of the Century” in 1971. The Duran bout was slated for June 20.

  As for the venue, we settled on the city where I became famous, Montreal. Next to fighting in D.C. or Vegas, there wasn’t a place I’d feel more comfortable. I was treated well by the Canadians in 1976 and there was no reason to think I would not be given the same warm reception north of the border again.

  When it came to Duran, there was nothing warm about him.

  His nickname was “Manos de Piedra” (“Hands of Stone”), and with good reason. He did not defeat his opponents. He demolished them, his lone setback coming in a 1972 decision against Esteban DeJesus, which Duran avenged twice, with knockouts in 1974 and 1978. One story goes that after his defeat, he pounded the walls in his hotel bathroom till his hands were filled with blood. I wouldn’t be shocked if that was true. Another nickname given to him was “El Animal.” He deserved that one as well.

  Take his lightweight title duel in June 1972 against the champion from Scotland, Ken Buchanan. Duran, only twenty-one, piled up a ton of points during the first twelve rounds and was nine minutes away from winning the belt. He needed only to keep Buchanan from landing a knockout blow. But that was not Roberto Duran. Duran always went for the knockout and was angry with himself, and the world, if he didn’t get it. Perhaps it was his difficult upbringing—his father abandoned him when he was a kid, forcing him to drop out of school and scrounge for food on the streets—but whatever was behind that familiar rage of his, it controlled him as much as the other way around.

  In the thirteenth round, as referee Johnny LoBianco attempted to pull Duran away, he nailed Buchanan. It happened to be a low blow and came after the bell. Buchanan was finished for the night. The Duran legend was just beginning.

  Speaking of legends, assisting Duran in his corner were two of the fight game’s most respected lifers, Ray Arcel and Freddie Brown. Arcel, eighty, worked with Hall of Famers Benny Leonard, James J. Braddock (“the Cinderella Man”), and Ezzard Charles. Brown, an ex-fighter, had been around since the twenties, serving as a cut man for Rocky Marciano, among others. No one was better. If there was an edge to be gained, physical or psychological, there was a good chance Arcel and Brown would find it. The two first hooked up with Duran in the early seventies.

  By the spring of 1980, however, with Duran approaching the age of twenty-nine, there were those who thought he had lost something since relinquishing his lightweight crown to join the welterweight ranks in the late seventies. As a welterweight, the power in Duran’s punches was the same. The difference was that heavier men could more easily absorb them.

  I didn’t buy into the perception of a less deadly Duran. He was like me and other fighters at the highest level. We may promise to give 110 percent every time, but it’s almost impossible to be totally motivated if the competition doesn’t match up. We are not robots. We save our best for the best.

  I thought back to what the great comedian Jackie Gleason said to me when I ran into him two years earlier in Vegas. He could not have been more impressed with Manos de Piedra.

  “I’m going to fight that guy someday,” I told him.

  For a change, Gleason was in no joking mood.

  “Sugar, listen to me,” he said. “Don’t you ever . . . ever fight this guy. He will kill ya.”

  It was a lot like the day in the Olympic Village screening room when someone said Andres Aldama was going to destroy me. I wasn’t afraid then and I wasn’t afraid when Mr. Gleason said it.

  Maybe I should have been.

  The first occasion where Duran and I spent any real time together was at the April press conference to officially announce our fight. It was staged at the glamorous Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Manhattan. The top boxing writers were in attendance, geared up to begin promoting what promised to be the biggest fight since Ali vs. Frazier III five years earlier.

  I looked forward to these gatherings. They gave me a chance to mingle with reporters I respected and show off my superior communication skills. I also saw an opportunity, as Ali did, to get inside my opponent’s head, to win the fight before the fight. I won every time.

  Well, not every time.

  Early in the proceedings, Duran jabbed me softly with an oversized glove that’s commonly used for promotional purposes. The photographers ate it up. For a while, I went along with the unrehearsed bit, anything for the show. Except Duran didn’t know when to stop fooling around. Or he kept going just to irritate me. Either way, the playful taps got harder and harder. I gave him an angry glance. It did no good and was probably the dumbest thing I could have done. He saw that he was getting under my skin and now he would never shut up.

  He called me a “motherfucker” and a “son of a bitch” and a “marica” (Spanish for “homosexual”) and told me to kiss his balls. No one had ever spoken to me like that, not even in the hood. For the longest time I stood there like a statue, though it ran counter to every impulse in my body. I should have insulted him back and put my head squarely in his face. It was not as if I didn’t know the language of the gutter as thoroughly as he did. But with Mike Trainer’s mantra—“always smile for the cameras”—echoing in my ears, I was the perfect gentleman, until I could take the abuse no longer.

  I told the press I would “kill” Duran in June. The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. I was never so cocky before a fight, and because it wasn’t my natural behavior, I didn’t hit the proper note
s. I came across more frightened than fearless.

  The trick to Ali’s prefight bragging, besides the fact that he usually backed it up, was how he injected humor into each situation with his silly playacting and clever rhyming. He could make the most outrageous predictions and say the most demeaning things about the proud warriors he fought and somehow seem endearing.

  There was nothing endearing about me on that day at the Waldorf. Round one went to Duran.

  On the plane back to D.C., instead of feeling great joy about the largest fight, and payday, of my career, I felt naked. Duran had stripped me of my manhood. I did not talk during the entire flight.

  Why was Duran furious with me? What did I ever do to the guy? Nothing, except perhaps have the nerve to enjoy the fame and fortune he believed should have been his all along.

  Duran was no different than Hagler and others I fought, falling for the portrayal of me as the TV-manufactured spoiled brat who never had to overcome adversity to make something of himself, as they did. Duran obviously had never spent a night in Palmer Park. He didn’t hang by the mall and watch the drug dealers make a score. He didn’t talk to the hordes of young men without work, and without hope. And he certainly did not observe the struggles in my own family, the man of the house working twelve hours a day, six days a week, his wife raising six children before leaving for a job herself every evening. All Duran saw were the fruits of my labor, not the labor itself. All he saw were the commercials on television and the size of the purses. All he saw was what he wanted to see, and it was not as if Duran were applying for welfare. He wore the most expensive jewelry and ate in the finest restaurants. He enjoyed the good life just as much as I did.

  Besides, it wasn’t my fault that Howard Cosell adopted me or that the public embraced me. It wasn’t my fault that I was articulate and charismatic, the heir to Ali in an era when boxing fans preferred artistry over aggression. Did I notice that vacuum, and do everything I could to fill it? Absolutely, and there was nothing wrong with that. Many felt I was being phony. I was not. I was merely bringing out a part of myself—the part that wished to please. I could never have pulled it off if it wasn’t real. I wasn’t that good an actor. Only later, much later, when I carried the role of Sugar Ray too far, harming those closest to me, did I feel any doubts about who I had created.

  Still, I could never have made it to the top of my profession if I didn’t put in the work. I worked like crazy, just as my father did, to be the best fighter I could be, and wasn’t that the American way? I beat Wilfred Benitez fair and square, as I beat the men I fought before him. The title wasn’t handed to me. I took it.

  For years I didn’t understand Duran, and the confusion was a factor in the animosity I felt toward him. I figured out Benitez. I figured out Hearns and Hagler. Understanding the essence of the opponent I was facing made it easier for me to beat the living daylights out of him, and, when the fight was over, show genuine empathy. With Duran, however, it wasn’t until the last several years that I figured him out. He wasn’t a madman. He only pretended to be one. He was like me, searching for a way, any way, to stand out from the rest. Boxing is a form of entertainment, and, like Hollywood, to generate the most headlines, and dollars, one must develop a strong persona. Mine was Sugar Ray, the innocent charmer. His was Hands of Stone, the macho brute. Duran and I took on these roles without hesitation, and rarely stepped out of character. At least, not until our fighting days were long gone.

  In the weeks that followed the press conference, I was determined that Duran would not seize the advantage in any future head-to-head encounters. I could not have been more naïve. I was a rank amateur compared to him. Trying to match his crudeness was like trying to compete with Ali in a battle of wits. I came up short each time and it reached the stage where I dreaded the next face-off. I had to show up, however, to meet with the press. It was in the contract.

  A few days before the fight, Juanita and I were taking a postdinner walk in downtown Montreal with Angelo and his wife, Helen, when we bumped into the Duran party.

  Away from the cameras, perhaps I would see a composed and civil Duran, and perhaps we could both revel in the ridiculous amount of money we were due to collect for forty-five minutes, or less, of work. There must be a decent human being in there somewhere, right?

  Perhaps not. There was nothing civil about him. I saw the same Duran from before, the madman.

  He cursed me again and demonstrated, by a series of obscene gestures, where he planned to strike me in the fight. Why wait any longer? I was ready to rumble right there on the street—no referee, no gloves, no handlers, no rules, nothing. I wanted the immediate gratification of knocking him to the ground. Luckily for Duran, I pulled myself together.

  At the weigh-in, Duran was more crass than before, though it hardly seemed possible. He gestured to Juanita that after he was done fucking with me in the ring, he was going to fuck her. She was outraged. I somehow kept my emotions in check again. My chance to make him pay was coming soon enough.

  During those final days, I saw Duran everywhere.

  I saw him when I was jogging before dawn. I saw him when I was pounding my sparring partners who wore T-shirts with his name printed on the front. I saw him when I was watching comedies on TV. I even saw him in my dreams. Never did another fighter penetrate my psychic space as much as Duran, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Each time I saw him, he was where he belonged, on the floor, and after dissecting hours of film, I knew precisely how to put him there: I would box him to death. That was the best way to get inside Duran’s head. The previous fighters who adopted a similar strategy were not able to make it work because they didn’t possess my fast hands and feet. Yet Edwin Viruet forced Duran to go the distance twice. Edwin Viruet!

  I would shift from side to side, exploiting a five-inch reach advantage to score with the left jab, and not allow Duran to lure me inside with his assortment of dirty tricks—he utilized his head as a weapon, shoving it into an enemy’s chest—or establish any rhythm with his combinations. He was the only boxer I ever saw who used his head to hit the speed bag. I would steer clear of the ropes, where others were most vulnerable against his lunging attacks, and aim for the body—to go downstairs, as it’s called. The media, though, was off base when it described the contest as another classic duel between the slugger and the boxer. Duran was a better boxer than he was given credit for, slipping punches almost as well as Benitez. I would not make the same mistake.

  As fight night edged closer, in late May and early June, my body gradually rounded into shape. Every morning at five, wearing combat boots, I jogged five miles around nearby Greenbelt Park, navigating a steep hill that we affectionately labeled Mount Motherfuck. Listening on the transistor to my favorite D.C. radio station, I was at peace, singing along, until, after a mile or two, I didn’t catch a single word or note. My mind was elsewhere, on Duran. I couldn’t wait to shut him up.

  When I first started jogging, Roger and Kenny beat me to the finish line and wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. As my legs grew stronger, I picked up the pace and flew by both of them. It was my turn to brag.

  I conquered Mount Motherfuck. The real motherfucker would be next.

  After breakfast, wonderfully prepared by my father, who I placed on the payroll, and a shower, I took tap-dancing lessons. I can’t recall what I was thinking at the time, but I must have figured that dancing would give me a little more flexibility in the ring. Around noon, I began my workouts in the basement of the Sheraton in New Carrollton, a few miles from Palmer Park. Roughly two hundred spectators paying one dollar apiece cheered me on as I did some sparring, hit the bags, and jumped rope. I hung out afterward to sign autographs.

  By then, I had stopped having sex with Juanita. I needed to save every ounce of energy for Duran.

  There was a great deal more, no doubt, to preparing for a match than working out in the gym and watching film, and that’s where things got out of control once we arrived in Montrea
l in early June. I take full responsibility.

  A training camp must function as a single, cohesive unit, each member assigned a specific task, willing to sacrifice individual goals for the benefit of the only individual who mattered, the fighter, the one who would, presumably, keep employing them as long as the wins, and dollars, kept coming. That was not the case in this camp, and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

  The problem was one I was quite familiar with: I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t tell one of Kenny’s friends or Roger’s friends or my friends that they couldn’t join us in Montreal. After all, this would be the biggest fight of my life. I might hesitate for a moment, but it was only to watch my brothers squirm.

  Before I knew it, there were too many people—several dozen, at least—with too many selfish agendas. Normally, we got by at camp with three cars and a minivan. In Montreal, we rented a bus. It was like a rock tour.

  Janks Morton was in charge. He tried to insulate me from the petty disputes, but the stories trickled back to me, as they always do in a small, enclosed environment, and interfered with my preparation for Duran. The last thing I needed was to hear about one of my boys asking to borrow a car or a few extra bucks. They couldn’t resist the nightlife an international city such as Montreal offered. It was almost impossible to get some of them, and that included Roger and Kenny, to cover the two-hour shifts guarding my hotel suite between ten P.M. and two A.M. The clubs were still open. They were thinking about dancing instead of Duran.

  The night of June 20, billed by the French Canadians as “Le Face-à-Face Historique,” was here at last.

  I went through my last-minute preparations in the dressing room, staring, as usual, into the mirror, searching for signs of the performance to come.

  What I saw was troubling. My eyes looked vacant, disinterested. I tried to ignore it. I had no choice.