The Big Fight

by Sugar Ray Leonard

  I first realized how tough Tommy would be when I attended his fight against Cuevas at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit in August 1980. Tommy belted Cuevas, a monster puncher in his own right, at will, feeding off the excitement of his beloved fans. The bout was over in just under six minutes. I knew Tommy was good. I didn’t know he was that good.

  He had yet to leave the ring and was already lobbying for his next fight. “Come on, Sugar, let’s do it,” he said, pointing his finger at me.

  The people in the nearby rows said the same thing. All I could do was smile and wave. I couldn’t make any promises until I avenged my loss to Duran, and that was far from automatic.

  I respected Tommy Hearns but I did not fear him. I did not fear anyone.

  In my opinion, and I wasn’t alone, there were doubts about his stamina. Of his thirty-two fights, thirty ended by a knockout, the first fourteen, from November 1977 until January 1979, decided before the fifth round. Conversely, ten of my first fourteen went past the fourth, five lasting the distance. If I had beaten my opponents as swiftly as Tommy did, I could have spared myself a lot of sleepless nights. The next ten were no less taxing, six going at least seven rounds.

  In retrospect, though, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. With every strong test against accomplished foes such as Marcos Geraldo, Adolfo Viruet, and Ayub Kalule, I learned to be a better fighter. I learned to dig deeper when I thought there might be nothing left. If the path had been too easy, I might not have gained the confidence to win the title on my first shot, knocking out Benitez in the final round when the outcome was still very much in doubt. I proved I could cope with any predicament. In my lone setback, I battled Duran to the end, growing stronger as the night wore on. No one doubted my stamina.

  In late July, I began to train in Phoenix, moving later to Los Angeles, and, finally, to Vegas, with the fight set for my familiar venue, Caesars Palace.

  I was rusty in the beginning of camp, my sparring partners repeatedly connecting with lefts and rights to the head and body. I wasn’t worried. As usual, it took a week or two for me to develop my rhythm.

  Though Tommy looked like an ice cream cone at six feet one with only a thirty-inch waist, nobody in the welterweight division, or perhaps the entire sport, possessed a right like his. It made no difference that many of his opponents were not big-name fighters. They were professionals, each one punch away from pulling off the upset. At the same time, he wasn’t as one-dimensional as it was assumed from the destruction he caused. His remarkable seventy-eight-inch reach, longer than some of the premier heavyweights in history, allowed Tommy to keep other men at bay. Just as the press failed to respect Duran’s boxing abilities, they made the same error with Tommy. Of his 155 amateur victories, nearly all were by decision. The Hitman did not become the Hitman until he turned pro.

  Once he acquired his reputation as a knockout artist, the adulation was not far behind. Boxing fans have forever been infatuated with fighters who could annihilate the opposition with a single blow. Many live vicariously through their heroes in the ring, and nothing is as heroic as one human being sending another to the floor, the bloodier the better. On many occasions, after my own battles and the ones I did commentary for on television, I’d scan the crowd and catch people attempting to copy the shots they just saw. A young fighter such as Tommy, only twenty-two, was most appealing. His followers could climb on board early, and hold on for what they believed would be a long ride. The fact that he lived in Detroit, the home of Joe Louis, might have also contributed to his swift rise.

  When I wasn’t in the gym, I watched film, breaking down frame after frame to identify Tommy’s weaknesses. He had his share. Every fighter does.

  One was that he didn’t know how to force a clinch. He never needed to; his fights were over too fast and he was always on the offense. Being aware of when and how to stop the action, if briefly, during crucial moments of a bout can’t be overstated. The extra three seconds can be just enough time to clear the senses. That’s why trainer Ray Arcel had been concerned with referee Carlos Padilla in the first Duran fight. Any clinches would be to my benefit. They would disrupt the mauling tactics Duran thrived on.

  Tommy was also susceptible to body shots. The way to beat him, I deduced from the films, was to chop him down like a tree by going to the midsection as often as possible. He, like Benitez, would become increasingly frustrated with the fact that he was forced to respond to the action instead of dictating it, and the left hand would get lower and lower. Before he knew it, the fight would be well into the late rounds, and he would be running out of answers. It took him twelve rounds in April to beat Randy Shields, and Shields was not in the division’s upper echelon. Another disadvantage would be that the pressure on fight night would be unlike anything Tommy had ever faced. There is no way to know what that pressure will feel like until you walk down the aisle, and by then there is nothing you can do about it.

  Everything was proceeding according to plan until, about two weeks before the bout, one of my sparring partners, Odell Hadley, accidentally struck me on my left eye with his elbow. Odell was a lanky, six-feet-two middleweight who would go on to compile a fairly decent record during the eighties. He was brought into camp, like several others who were tall, because his style and build resembled Tommy’s, especially in how he threw his left jab. The objective, with daily repetition, was to develop the muscle memory so that I would instinctively avoid Tommy’s jab, which was like a twelve-gauge shotgun that never stopped firing. It was a shot that blinded you for an instant, setting up his money punch, the right, though with Tommy, the left was a potent weapon on its own.

  I didn’t blame Odell. He was doing his job. By the next morning, my eye started to swell, and there was talk about possibly postponing the fight. Trying to beat Tommy Hearns would be hard enough, let alone with an eye that was less than 100 percent.

  There would be no postponement. I was determined to fight on September 16 as long as I could breathe. To be ready for battle is not simply a matter of running five miles a day, hitting the bags, jumping rope, and sparring. It is about transporting one’s mind to a place in which no thoughts except those related to winning the fight must be allowed to enter. Going to that place, as painful as it is, is necessary, and the thought of leaving it and trying to pick up a few weeks, or perhaps months, later where I had left off was out of the question. That was why I was always opposed to any postponements, even in the twilight of my career, when the injuries were more severe. By early September, in preparing for Tommy, I was there, whatever there meant. I couldn’t start over.

  My assistant, Craig Jones, asked me before one fight: “Boss, where the fuck are you?”

  “Somewhere you’ll never go,” I told him. “Somewhere you don’t want to go.”

  Fortunately, the shiner I received from Hadley’s elbow went away quickly, and after a short time off I was back on schedule.

  My feelings toward Tommy were nothing like the animosity I felt toward Duran, which was to my advantage. With Duran, my emotions steered me to a fight strategy doomed from the beginning. There was no chance of that happening against Tommy. My motivation came more from a desire to elevate my standing in the sport, in the era that I occupied, and in history, than to bring down another man. I respected and liked Tommy. That didn’t mean I would take it easy on him if the opportunity presented itself. I didn’t take it easy on anyone. The beast in me, never far below the surface, would emerge at the appropriate times. It meant I wasn’t consumed with anger, as many fighters feel they need to be, no matter whom they face.

  There was one person on the Hearns team who did make me angry. That was Dave Jacobs.

  Jake and I had not spoken since he told me the system would prevent me from avenging the loss to Duran. I could forgive him for that. What I could not forgive him for was lending his support to Tommy.

  What kind of man could do that? How could it be that everything Jake and I went through over the years—the sparring and strategy sessions, th
e hours of watching films, the pep talks over the phone, etc.—now meant so little to him? I was sure of one thing: If Emanuel Steward believed that putting Jake on the payroll might give Tommy an edge, he did not know me as well as he thought. Jake joining Tommy’s camp only made me more determined.

  Several days before the fight, a surprise visitor showed up to watch me spar in Las Vegas. Dozens of fans flocked to his side. It was Ali.

  While I watched him clown around, as only he could, it hit me: Muhammad Ali is at my camp! I have made it now! All the money and fame in the world could not provide the validation I received from his presence. Looking back, it was almost as if the torch were being officially passed, with Ali’s last fight, against Trevor Berbick in the Bahamas, only three months away. I don’t believe we spoke that day. There was no need. He was there for me and that was enough.

  On the evening of September 15, with the fight less than twenty-four hours away, I went to sleep confident that I had done everything in my power to be ready for Tommy Hearns. But did I? And, if not, what did I miss and would it cost me the crown?

  As usual, there was only one way to find out. I got up and went into the bathroom to look in the mirror. I checked the muscles in my arms and legs. They were bulging. I checked the speed of my flurries. They were fast. I began the final check, the one to tell me if I would be Sugar Ray or Ray.

  I got the answer I was praying for. My eyes were wide and clear.

  When Tommy took off his robe and stepped onto the scale at Caesars for the weigh-in on the morning of the fight, I was stunned. He looked like a famine victim from Africa. Officially, he came in at 145, two full pounds under the welterweight limit. I felt the difference against Duran in Montreal, and I was convinced the lesser weight would make Tommy weaker as well.

  I am going to kick his ass, I thought. I glanced at Angelo and Janks. I could tell they felt the same way.

  After the weigh-in, I went upstairs to my hotel suite for a meal and some rest. The main event was only hours away.

  I did a lot of thinking in those hours. The fight was billed in the press as “the showdown,” which made sense given that Tommy, who held the WBA crown, and I, the WBC belt, were each attempting to become the undisputed welterweight champion of the world. But when I considered what the confrontation truly symbolized for me, I came up with another word, and had it stitched on the back of the robe I would wear into the ring. The word was deliverance. In the dictionary, the definition is “liberation, salvation, rescue.” That summed it up.

  Taking on Tommy Hearns was my chance to acquire the respect that I was being denied by a number of the veteran boxing writers who still saw me as a fighter created by television who had yet to defeat a star opponent. In their view, Benitez was not in that class. Duran was, but they argued that the outcome in New Orleans was more about him surrendering than my causing him to surrender. Conversely, they saw Tommy, with his devastating power, as a legitimate fighter who earned his way to the top without being coddled by Cosell. The commercials I appeared in reinforced this point of view. I sold soda. Real fighters didn’t sell soda.

  Some even framed the duel as a clash between the boxer who abandoned his roots to prosper in the white culture (me) and the one who stayed true to his heritage (Tommy). I didn’t get riled up at the time, recognizing that these reporters were no different from the promoters, manufacturing a conflict to drum up more interest in an event. Years later, I came to realize how absurd their argument was, and how much it disturbed me. It wasn’t just during the buildup for the Hearns bout when I heard such nonsense. At various times in my career, I was criticized for trying to act white, for “selling out.”

  What was my crime? It was that I had the nerve to be well-spoken, which went against the perception of the illiterate black fighter. The fact is that I never thought of trying to act white, whatever that meant. I was simply interested in bettering myself, inside as well as outside the ropes. A boxer’s career is not long, and I wanted to be certain I’d still make a decent living when I put the gloves away for good. Besides, I grew up in Palmer Park, trained in Watts and Detroit, and spent plenty of time in Harlem. I felt as comfortable in the projects as I did in the boardrooms. I cared about the injustices committed against my race, even if I did not speak out publicly, as Ali and football star Jim Brown did. I donated my share to black causes. I just didn’t need to have my picture in the paper to prove it.

  About eight or nine hours after the weigh-in, I was stunned again.

  The Tommy Hearns I saw when I entered the ring around 7:30 P.M. was not the same fighter from the morning. He looked as if somebody had pumped him up with air. He clearly had spent the whole afternoon hydrating himself. Any illusions of an early knockout on my part were put aside. Caught off guard, I needed to do something, and quickly. Tommy was on his way toward the center of the ring. It came to me just in time.

  I bounced up and down as the ref, Davey Pearl, issued his instructions. By not staying flat on my feet, Tommy was unable to fully appreciate the height difference between us, which was at least three inches. It was no secret that he was taller, but I hoped to put a little doubt in his mind. Despite our God-given talents, we were also human, and that meant being prone to insecurities like anybody else, especially as we prepared to enter a place in which there would be no escape from the opponent, and ourselves. I retreated to my corner, confident that I’d gotten inside Tommy’s head once more.

  Another thought occurred to me during those final critical seconds. It came as I scanned the seats at ringside. I noticed the usual entertainment stars who loved the fights, as well as other high rollers, among the nearly twenty-four thousand spectators squeezed into a temporary outdoor stadium adjacent to the hotel’s parking lot. With the revenue from pay-per-view television and the closed-circuit distribution, the fight would gross more than $35 million, a record at the time for a sporting event.

  The person, however, who captured my attention was Muhammad Ali, wearing a tie and jacket, in the third row. I decided that, for this one night, I would be Ali—at least, a facsimile of Ali. There could be only one Ali. Why Ali? With his bravado and footwork, he blended the ideal skills to outfox Tommy Hearns. If I could channel “the Greatest” for the next hour or maybe less, I would be the undisputed champ.

  I rose from my stool, said a prayer, and took a deep breath.

  The bell sounded.

  During the opening three minutes, the “showdown” was a standoff, both of us getting acclimated to the opponent and the surroundings. The temperature in Vegas was a serious factor, having been in the 100s all week long and still in the low 90s when the fight got under way, which made pacing oneself more crucial than usual. No matter how good the shape Tommy and I were in, neither of us could sustain a maximum effort under these conditions for the whole night.

  Speaking of hot, that’s what Tommy was because of what I did after I heard the bell ending round one. I told myself I was going to be Ali and I meant it. I touched Tommy lightly on the side of the head with my right hand.

  “I gotcha, sucker,” I said.

  He responded with his own right, which was quite a bit harder than mine. It was the exact reaction I was aiming for. Tommy deserved the round. He landed more punches. Yet sometimes you don’t need to capture a round to advance your cause. This was one of those times. When a fighter is angry, and Tommy was no exception, he doesn’t think clearly, as I learned the hard way in Montreal. The more I could take him out of his rhythm, the more he might leave himself open to my attacks.

  Tommy was not the only one who was upset. So was Roger, who began to shout from the corner after Tommy’s retaliatory strike. I love Roger with all my heart, and I know he was only trying to stick up for his “little” brother, but he was also high as a kite.

  “Get him out of here!” Janks yelled.

  My brother Kenny replaced Roger. Kenny was more subdued than Roger. Who wasn’t? It was the right move. I had enough to worry about.

  Round two wa
s similar to the first, with no serious blows exchanged. While Tommy landed his jab effectively, I was trying to figure out how to penetrate his defenses to operate on his body, and to do it from close range. If I tried to attack consistently from a long distance, I might wind up like Pipino Cuevas. Exploiting his four-inch reach advantage, Tommy would be able to throw lefts from his favorite angles, and those jabs, besides scoring points, would do damage. He was awarded the second round as well, which meant I faced another early deficit, as I did in the first Duran fight. I was also worried about my eye, still not healed from the errant Odell Hadley elbow. The belts from Tommy weren’t helping.

  “You’ve got to get closer to him,” Angelo pleaded. “You’ve got to start fighting.”

  Easy for Angelo to say. Trying to get close to Tommy Hearns carried its own risks. I wasn’t fighting Davey Boy Green or Larry Bonds or Ayub Kalule. I was fighting the Hitman, and he wasn’t called the Hitman for nothing. I had no choice. Either I hit him or I’d return to Palmer Park with another defeat. The first few days after losing to Duran were perhaps the worst days of my life, and I’d die before I went through that again.

  While I was more aggressive over the next couple of rounds, I didn’t come close to putting Tommy in trouble. On the other hand, although he landed plenty of good shots, he didn’t come close, either. Seeing my head snap back on several occasions, many of the fans at Caesars, and no doubt on the closed-circuit telecast, thought he had scored more frequently, but some of the blows were glancing, not direct. Either way, the judges were impressed, giving Tommy valuable points.