The Big Fight

by Sugar Ray Leonard

  In round six, I set out to prove that Hagler had inflicted no lasting damage in the preceding round and that I was still controlling the action. Hagler stayed aggressive but I counterpunched effectively, and, as it turned out, won the round on all three of the judges’ cards. I was putting Hagler in a hole, and the fight was already half over. A lot of people assumed I would be on the canvas by this stage, if not a stretcher.

  In the seventh, my legs began to go. They had carried me this far, longer, perhaps, than I had any right to expect. I would now have to rely on my will and intelligence to contend with a fresher Hagler, who pinned me against the ropes again and connected with a series of good shots.

  “I want you off the ropes,” Angelo said during the break. He wasn’t the only one.

  The eighth passed without much incident, and I was grateful. I needed to pace myself for the final four rounds. Hagler was going to throw everything he had. He had waited a long five years for the chance to shut me up and he was running out of time.

  In the ninth, I fought flat-footed too much, and paid the price. I was caught by the ropes once more, Hagler firing away repeatedly, landing a series of stinging lefts and rights to my head. I saw those punches coming, yet there was little I could do about them. At no point, however, did I become discouraged. I knew I would dig deep, and that’s what I did, unleashing, in rat-a-tat fashion, one punch after another to curtail his momentum. I did not win the round, according to two of the judges, or hurt Hagler, but the speed and fury of my blows fired up the fans, reminding them of the boxer I used to be. The bell rang.

  “We got nine minutes,” Angelo said.

  Nine minutes is a lifetime in boxing. Did I have them in me?

  For that matter, as round ten got under way, how much did Hagler have left in the tank? Everyone had focused on my three-year hiatus from the sport, but there were some who had observed signs of Hagler’s decline in the fight with Mugabi. I did not necessarily subscribe to that point of view, although there was little doubt that Hagler was growing weary as well. He trained for about two months in Palm Springs. Would it mean the difference over the last three rounds?

  Fortunately, in rounds ten and eleven I found my second wind and stopped being a stationary target. When the fighting reverted to the inside, I gave as good as I received, impressing the crowd, and the judges. I was feeling confident enough that late in the eleventh, hands by my sides, I stuck my chin out several times to taunt Hagler as I taunted Duran in New Orleans.

  One round to go. I sat on my stool awaiting Angelo’s final words of encouragement. He didn’t let me down.

  “We got three minutes,” he said. “New champion! New champion!”

  I jumped up and raised both gloves in the air. The fans roared. Many had not been with me at the start, but the fact that I was still standing in the ring with the invincible Hagler won them over. All I had to do was stand until the end and I’d be a winner, with the public and myself, whether the judges saw it that way or not.

  I walked toward the center of the ring. I had claimed the spot since the opening round and I was not about to surrender it now. As the bell rang, I could not resist getting inside Hagler’s head one last time.

  “Wanna fight me now?” I said. “Wanna fight me?” They were the only words I said to him the entire fight. I started the last round as I did the first, dancing, searching for any openings to score before skirting out of his range. Hagler kept stalking, looking to land the one punch he might need to save the day.

  Halfway through the round, I glanced toward my corner. Before the fight, I had instructed Ollie to shout “Thirty” whenever there were thirty seconds left in a round. I would then throw as many flurries as possible in hopes of leaving the judges with a positive impression that might help me secure the round. But in the twelfth there was no signal from Ollie, not yet, the seconds taking forever to go by. I must have glanced over two or three times until, finally, he shouted the magic word. I summoned whatever energy I had left, and it was not much, Hagler doing the same, the noise deafening, the bell coming at last.

  I walked back to my corner—stumbled, was more like it—Ollie and Janks keeping me from falling to the canvas. With the ring filling up in a hurry, I found Hagler and we hugged. We were partners once more.

  “You’re still the champ to me,” I told him.

  Now it was up to the three judges, and it would not take long, both Hagler and I confident that we deserved the decision.

  Before the verdict was read, the ring announcer said it was a split decision. I got a knot in my stomach.

  The first card belonged to Lou Filippo, who scored the fight 115–113 in favor of Hagler. Next was Jo Jo Guerra, who gave me the nod, 118–110, generating a fair amount of criticism later, mainly because of the onesided margin, and even I had to agree there was no way I took ten of the twelve rounds. One judge was left, Dave Moretti.

  The announcer prolonged the suspense as much as possible, revealing the point totals (115–113), and, finally, the winner . . . “and new middleweight champion of . . .”

  The word new was all I needed to hear. I climbed to the bottom strand of the ropes and raised my arms. I had done it. I had done what no one, including members of my own team, my own family, thought was possible. I had dethroned the mighty Marvin Hagler.

  The celebration began and did not end for days, if not weeks. I don’t remember if I slept that night, and if I did, it could not have been for more than an hour or two. There would be plenty of time to sleep later.

  Of all the beautiful memories from that evening and the next morning, two stick out. One took place shortly after the fight. James Anderson put me on his shoulders and carried me through the front entrance of Caesars, people cheering as we went by. I could have stayed on his shoulders forever. The other occurred during breakfast. I was sitting with Juanita when John Madden, the pro football commentator, walked over to our table and sat directly across from us. Madden, who had been convinced that I would be destroyed by Hagler, looked me in the eye for at least thirty seconds without making a sound. He shook his head two or three times.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said, and walked away.

  In retrospect, nearly a quarter century later, the victory in 1987 means as much to me now as it did then, maybe more. If the fight with Tommy was my greatest achievement in the ring, the fight with Hagler was my proudest. I was not at my best. I was nowhere near my best ever again after I beat Tommy. I don’t care who you are. You can’t take three years off in this sport, which asks for everything you have, and expect to come back and be the same. Ali couldn’t. I couldn’t. Yet the will deep inside me did come back, for one night, and that was enough. People have said I was lucky the fight was scheduled for twelve rounds instead of fifteen, but I prepared for twelve and I would’ve prepared for fifteen. Making it twelve meant the task was mentally easier. It was not why I won the fight.

  Many don’t believe I actually did win the fight, and there is nothing I can say to change their minds. Leading the charge is Hagler himself. He became outraged the moment the decision was announced and he has been upset about it ever since, blaming the same Vegas bias that he felt had led to the draw with Antuofermo in 1979. Hagler even claimed that when we embraced in the ring, I told him, “You won the fight.” I said no such thing. Why would I? The reality is that he was devastated and needed an explanation. The one man he wanted to beat most in his life beat him.

  If Hagler felt the bout was stolen from him, it begs the obvious question: Why didn’t he ask for a rematch? Mike Trainer and I were open to the idea, but we never heard one word from him or his representatives. He took off for Italy and his dreams of an acting career.

  I hoped Hagler and I would become friends again, just as Tommy and I did. Boxing is a business that is done with us before we realize it, when we are replaced by men younger and stronger and faster who can make more money for the people who run it, which is fine. There is still the rest of our lives to enjoy, if
we’re lucky, if we didn’t take too many punches in the wrong places or put our money in the wrong hands. We could sit back and reflect on what the two of us did together, and that could be special, too. Yet Hagler has never been interested in a friendship with me. I took away more than his title. I took away a part of him.

  I bumped into Hagler in the men’s room at a club in Las Vegas about six months after our battle and tried to make polite conversation. He threw water on his face, gave me a cold stare, and walked off without responding.

  “Fuck you,” I said. “I don’t need to be your friend.”

  Eventually, he would speak to me, although the resentment was still there. In September 1999, I saw him at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas after the duel between Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad, which Trinidad won in a narrow decision.

  “Marvin,” I said, “I can’t believe Oscar lost that fight.”

  Hagler did not miss a beat.

  “I can,” he said. “You know Vegas, right?”

  The upset over Hagler put me back in the spotlight—and in a way I could have never imagined. About two months after the fight, I got an urgent call around 10 on a cold, rainy night from the police asking for my help in a case involving a man who had kidnapped an eighteenmonth-old girl but wouldn’t tell them where he left her. He would only tell Sugar Ray Leonard, his idol. At first, I thought it was one of my boys pulling a prank. Two minutes later, I knew it was no prank—a squad car had pulled up in front of my house. An officer asked if I would go with them to the kidnapper’s apartment. I was assured the police would be close enough in case he tried to harm me.

  When we arrived, he was excited to see me, recalling the details of some of my biggest fights. I smiled. The idea was to humor him for as long as possible.

  “That’s cool man,” I said. “We should have dinner and talk about this. But, first, let’s go find the baby you took. Is that okay with you?”

  “I’d like that a lot,” he said.

  He took me and the police to a nearby park where we wandered around for about ten minutes until we heard someone crying in the distance. The baby had been tied to a tree. Thank God she was not seriously hurt. The guy was immediately taken away.

  I couldn’t sleep when I got home. I realized there was a lot more to being famous than I thought.

  11

  Finding Love Again

  In the months after the Hagler fight, all it seemed anyone wanted to know was: Who is next? Who is next? Didn’t the reporters hear me when I said the Hagler fight would be my last, win or lose? They did, but they knew me too well, and couldn’t imagine that I would ride off into the sunset again at the age of thirty, fresh from pulling off the upset of the year, if not the decade. That isn’t very old for a boxer, especially given my general inactivity over the previous five years, and with the potential paydays on the horizon, I stood to make another fortune. Nonetheless, on May 27, I did it again. I retired. I made a promise to the fans that I felt I had to keep. I had broken too many already.

  As for the vows to my wife, they were worth the usual amount, nothing. The win over Hagler sent my ego into the stratosphere, and with no need to run five miles at Mount Motherfuck or spar for an hour in the gym, I went back to the life I’d put on hold: alcohol and women. I felt more entitled to these rewards than before, and who would deny them to me? The only good sense I showed was not doing any more coke, and that was because of James. Besides Mike and Ollie, James was probably the only member of my team who could speak his mind without fearing the consequences. He could land another job in five minutes and I’d be a fool to let him go.

  “Ray, think of the harm that you would do to your kids if you were arrested for drug possession,” he pointed out. “The damage would last forever.”

  I didn’t respond, but after he took off, I went to my room and cried for an hour. I haven’t done coke since.

  Still, the arguments with Juanita became nastier and my conduct more inexcusable. I didn’t need cocaine to be an asshole.

  “That’s it,” she said one night in late 1987 after I told her I would not stop drinking. “I’m leaving, and the kids are going with me.”

  I couldn’t let that happen. Even with the alcohol in my system, I came up with a plan, just as I did in the ring whenever I felt my advantage slipping away.

  I retrieved the .38 automatic I kept in a little box and fired a series of shots at the TV set in the bedroom, pieces of glass scattering everywhere. If Juanita feared that I might kill myself, I was sure she’d run up the stairs and not leave my sight. She never came. The next sound I heard was the slamming of the car door. I assumed for years that she didn’t hear the shots, but she heard them loud and clear. She didn’t come upstairs because she was afraid I was just crazy enough to shoot her.

  Yet, after a few days, Juanita was back home, granting me another chance. I blew it, of course, as I did the others, and when she again threatened to leave after the next altercation, I took a can of kerosene from the garage and poured its contents on the floor in the foyer. I was nothing if not creative.

  “If you leave me, I promise I will burn this house down,” I said.

  She left. She knew I was bluffing. I was always bluffing.

  The house smelled of kerosene for days. Yet she returned once more. Juanita was either foolish or a saint.

  The night that finally ended our marriage fit the pattern perfectly: me wasted, her ranting. I demanded she hand over her wedding ring, which I then placed on my finger. As the argument grew more heated, I gave her a little shove, accidentally scraping Juanita on the forehead with the ring’s large diamond. Blood trickled down the bridge of her nose. I was horrified. How could I have done this to the woman I loved? At the same time, she had pushed my buttons, but that’s no excuse. I prefer to believe that was the alcoholic in me, not the real me.

  Juanita did not panic. She calmly packed her bags, rounded up the boys, and loaded them into the car. I went outside to try to stop them. I didn’t have a prayer.

  “Leave my momma alone!” Jarrel, three, yelled. “I hate you. I hate you.” His words hurt worse than any punishment I ever absorbed in the ring. Ray Jr., fourteen, also defended his mother, his eyes filled with anger.

  As I stood in the dark watching them drive to the front gate, I realized the sides had been drawn. It was no longer merely a fight between husband and wife. It was three against one. I never felt so alone in my life.

  Juanita didn’t come back after a few days this time. She never came back.

  Ray Jr. did. At first, I figured he came back for me, to prove he was on my side after all, and to see if we could establish the closeness that had always been missing from our relationship.

  Once again, I was deceiving myself. Ray came back because Potomac was his home, where his friends were and where he was a star running back in high school. Although we lived in the same house, Ray and I might as well have been living in different counties for the amount of time we spent together. While he was out with his buddies, I remained in the bedroom, as if I were the victim. I cried in bed every night, and didn’t wake up till ten or eleven.

  And there were women. There were always women. But the women meant less to me than before, and never stayed the night. I hated the house I used to love, its large rooms and hallways empty, depressing, a prison. Without Juanita around, I did not know whom to trust. No matter how often she and I fought, she was the only person I could count on and now I couldn’t anymore. It was no coincidence that once she left for good, I began to entertain the notion of returning to the ring. Where else was I to go?

  In August 1988, I made it official: I was coming out of retirement for the third time, which had to be a record. If there were those who thought I was breaking a promise and risking damage to my legacy—and I was guilty on both counts—I didn’t mind. I missed the ring. I missed having a place to release my anger.

  My opponent would be an unknown from Canada, Donny Lalonde. I liked Lalonde from the moment I met him in Mike T
rainer’s office. Goodlooking, with long blond hair, he seemed more like a surfer than a fighter. He held the World Boxing Council light-heavyweight title, though the fighters he beat were as anonymous as he was. At stake besides the belt would be the WBC’s new super-middleweight crown at 168 pounds, meaning if I won, I’d become only the second boxer to capture world titles in five divisions, assuming that Tommy Hearns got past James Kinchen a few days before my fight. The money was irresistible: $12 million up front, with a chance for another $3 million. The bout was scheduled for November 7 at Caesars.

  The only negative in returning was that I’d have to do it without Angelo. I don’t recall the specifics, but I believe that Angelo was not pleased with his earnings from the Hagler fight, and refused to work for me again unless he received a formal contract. I felt bad about the break, but I trusted Mike and I was with two trainers—Jake and Janks—who had known me for almost twenty years. I appreciated Angelo’s contributions, especially in the corner during the Hearns and Hagler bouts, but boxing was a business and he knew it as well as anyone.

  I trained hard for Lalonde, realizing the key to winning was the same as it was against Hagler, forcing Lalonde to miss. The more he missed, the more he would doubt himself, and I’d be in command. He would also be intimidated by the atmosphere at Caesars, which he had never come close to experiencing. Still, I wasn’t about to take Lalonde lightly. I made that mistake with Kevin Howard and found my ass on the canvas. Yet, once again, I had trouble getting motivated and snapped at members of my team more than usual. The difficulties in my personal life were clearly getting to me. Two weeks before the bout, I woke up in the middle of the night after a premonition—which I believe in—that I would be knocked down.