The Big Fight

by Sugar Ray Leonard

  A short time later, Juanita and I left the courthouse together, smiling and holding hands as the reporters and camera crews crowded around us. We’d soon no longer be husband and wife, but despite all the arguments, we loved each other and that would never change.

  She got into her car. I got into mine. The following day, I flew to Los Angeles.

  Bern was waiting for me.

  12

  Peace at Last

  What else was waiting for me, I could not be sure. The smart thing to do was to leave the fight game for good. I had beaten them all—Benitez, Duran (twice), Hearns, Hagler—my position as one of the all-time greats secured forever. In addition, unlike too many of my colleagues, I was not showing any ill effects from the hits I had taken. The years I lost due to the detached retina, which I long thought of as a curse, were actually a blessing. After beating Bruce Finch in February 1982, I appeared in the ring only five times for the rest of the eighties, for a total of fifty-four rounds. If I had not suffered the eye injury, there is little doubt I would have fought twice as often, and the damage those extra blows might have caused is frightening to consider.

  Naturally, I didn’t do the smart thing. I rarely did.

  Instead, in late November, I signed on to fight Terry Norris, the WBC super-welterweight champion. I was very excited. For the first time, I would be fighting in Madison Square Garden. I always felt I’d missed something by not competing in the Garden, where Dempsey and Louis and Marciano and Robinson and Ali had fought. At last, in the twilight of my career, I would get a chance.

  As for my opponent, I wasn’t too worried. Norris had definite strengths. At twenty-three, he was fearless, fast, and could attack with either hand. But taking on John Mugabi at the Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida, or Tony Montgomery at the Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California—they were two of his recent foes—would not be the same as a duel in the Garden against the conqueror of Duran, Hearns, and Hagler. The fight, for which I was guaranteed $4 million, was set for February 9.

  In December, I began to work out across the street from the same Palmer Park gym where, twenty years before, I took up the sport. Of the three men who taught me back then, only Pepe was with me, determined that I train as diligently as I did in preparing for Duran. Keeping me on my toes was Michael Ward, nineteen, a welterweight from the D.C. area with a promising future. As the weeks went by, my body grew stronger. I had not been in this kind of shape since the Hagler fight. Poor Terry Norris would not know what hit him.

  Neither would I. One day in camp, Ward dropped me with a shot to the chin. He also rocked me in the ribs. The fact that he got through my defenses was proof that my reflexes were not as sharp as I assumed.

  The ribs were cracked, which meant I should have asked for an immediate postponement. I didn’t. I’d required a postponement against Kevin Howard, and it disrupted my rhythm. I decided the Norris fight would take place on February 9 or not at all.

  Donning a flak jacket similar to the type quarterbacks in the NFL wear, I kept training, the sparring partners instructed to avoid hitting me anywhere near the ribs. I put a sweatshirt on over the jacket to keep the press in the dark. If news of the injury leaked, the fight would be postponed for sure.

  Cracked ribs or not, I figured to make short work of Norris. His day would come, just not in my era.

  I was right—well, partially right. His day came sooner than I expected.

  I knew it the moment I walked down the aisle, much like a frightened groom who does not want to go through with the wedding. I loved everything about fighting but fighting itself, and it is fair to suggest that, except for the Hagler bout, the passion had been mostly missing for a full decade, since I beat Hearns. Only, I was too stubborn to admit it. Instead, I kept coming back and would continue to until someone would help me see the light. That someone would be Terry Norris.

  As I climbed into the ring, I was no longer in pain due to the shots I received in the dressing room. It’s a shame there were no shots to alleviate the other pain I was feeling.

  A few days before the fight, I was sent a cassette from Juanita, featuring a ballad from the well-known R&B singer and songwriter Peabo Bryson. I thought I was long over her, but I obviously wasn’t. I knew she was dating Peabo and that sending the tape was her attempt to hurt me as badly as I had hurt her. It worked. If that wasn’t bad enough, she gave the four ringside seats I had set aside for her to her attorneys and accountant.

  Once the bell rang, Norris could do whatever he wished. Overwhelmed by the occasion? Hardly. He embraced it, not backing off for a second, displaying a combination of speed and power reminiscent of the warrior I used to see in the mirror. I was the one who looked lost, the old, pathetic fighter I promised myself I would never become, hoping to survive the full twelve rounds and be spared the humiliation of ending my career on the canvas of Madison Square Garden.

  Norris dropped me in the second, a left hook doing the work, and again in round seven with a right. I landed my share of blows, but there was no power or speed in them and I never put Norris in any real trouble. So inevitable was the outcome that my dad, sitting near the corner, wanted to throw in the towel. He was overruled.

  I prefer to think healthy ribs would have made a difference. Who was I kidding? My era was over. It was over after I upset Hagler. Putting away a less-skilled Lalonde and outdueling a thirty-eight-year-old Duran didn’t prove a damn thing, and in between was the loss to Tommy Hearns, no matter what the judges said. Now, facing a talented younger opponent, I didn’t stand a chance. The surprise was not that I lost. The surprise was that it took this long.

  After the verdict was announced, Norris winning easily on every card, I saw no point in waiting a week or two to see how I might feel about the future once the bruises started to heal. I could wait a month or two, and it wouldn’t matter. I took the microphone from the ring announcer and made it official: I was retiring as a pro for the fourth, and final, time.

  I had been wrong about so many things for so long, and here, with my announcement, I was even wrong about myself. I thought that retirement would devastate me, but to my surprise, I felt overwhelming relief. If I had kept winning and raking in the money, there would have been no incentive for me to quit. I could now move on with the rest of my life.

  At least, I thought I could. In late March, nearly two months after the Norris loss, I was reminded the past is not always easy to leave behind. Especially the past I lived.

  I was in Los Angeles one afternoon when I received the call from Mike Trainer.

  “I need you back here,” Mike told me.

  “I just got here. I’m with Bern. Can’t this wait a few days?”

  “No, Ray, it can’t wait.”

  The Los Angeles Times was coming out with a story indicating that, according to the court records from my divorce, I admitted to drug and alcohol abuse between 1983 and 1986. It would be pointed out as well that in 1989 I appeared in antidrug public service announcements on TV.

  “You need to be ahead of the story,” he said. “You need to talk to the press right away.”

  I never heard such urgency in Mike’s voice. He said he would have a private plane take me back to Maryland in a few hours.

  After I hung up, the news began to sink in. I had to know this day would come, that I couldn’t keep my secret life secret forever. Still, when he told me, I was totally unprepared. Bern volunteered to accompany me to the press conference, but I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea. I got myself into this mess, and it was up to me to get out of it as best I could.

  The flight back to D.C. seemed to take days instead of hours. I thought I’d go nuts playing out a million different scenarios, wondering: What do the reporters know? And what do I tell them?

  I had a few drinks. The irony doesn’t escape me—getting wasted while preparing to seek forgiveness for my abuses—but I knew no other way. I was terrified. I was used to fighting for a title, but not for my credibility. A limo driver picked me up at Dulle
s Airport and took me to my house in Potomac. Mike came over after I settled in. The press conference was set for the next day at the Touchdown Club, the same D.C. establishment where I first met Ali back in 1976.

  “I’ll write a speech,” I told Mike.

  “You can’t,” he said. “You have to speak from the heart. If you try to read from a sheet of paper, people won’t believe you.”

  He was right, as usual. He warned me that the consequences of these revelations would be severe.

  “Don’t even think about any endorsements after we do this thing,” Mike said.

  I didn’t sleep the whole night. In the morning, during the ride to the club, Mike and I hardly spoke. No magic words came to me, just as none did in the hospital on the night before my eye operation. In no time, we were there.

  I took a seat near the podium. I was shaking. I would rather have taken on Mike Tyson than this assignment. I looked at the writers, spotting a lot of familiar faces from much happier times. The day was almost as torturous for some of them as it was for me. They didn’t want to bring me down. They were my friends. But they had a story to write.

  Gathering my nerves, I stood up and did just what Mike suggested. I told the truth. I said what I did was wrong, and that I was ashamed for letting down my family and fans.

  “I can never erase the pain or the scars that I have made through my stupidity,” I said. “All I can say is I’m sorry, but that’s not enough.”

  At times I struggled, but I kept my composure. I was surprised at how liberated I felt. I wasn’t aware of the energy it took to live a lie all those years. Then, just like that, the session was over, the writers rushing to file, Mike and I left to assess the fallout. Luckily, it was minimal, and he deserved the credit. By strongly urging me to come clean immediately, instead of waiting for the press to probe deeper, we took control of the situation. The public forgave me and so did corporate America. In time, I was doing endorsements again.

  Back in Los Angeles, Bern and I were growing closer. I was spending so much time in California, I bought a condo in Santa Monica. For years, after the pain I caused to Juanita and the children, I told myself I would never marry again. I obviously was not very good at it. Then came Bern, and I couldn’t imagine not sharing the rest of my life with her.

  For her birthday in April 1992, we were with about a hundred friends at a party on the pier in the D.C. area when I proposed in front of everyone. She said yes. I was never happier. In August 1993, we tied the knot in the gardens of our lovely new house in California. With my fighting days over, I worked on an exercise video and a Nintendo video game, and kept up my responsibilities as a member of the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. I also hadn’t given up on the idea of acting. I had done my share of it in the ring.

  The future was without limitations. No one could hurt me. No one except myself.

  I continued to drink, heavily at times. Having a woman who loved me was not enough. It wasn’t the first time, either.

  I embarrassed myself more often than I care to remember. Once, in Monte Carlo, it was arranged for me to meet Nelson Mandela the following morning at eleven. I could not have been more excited. I knew of no greater man for how he survived all those years in prison and yet emerged without any desire for revenge. All he wanted was peace and equality for the country he loved.

  So what did I do to prepare? I got plastered, naturally.

  At 11:15 the next morning, I heard someone banging on my door. Before I was fully awake, several members of Mandela’s security detail had broken in.

  “Mr. Mandela is waiting for you,” one of them said.

  I had overslept. I had stood up Nelson Mandela!

  I jumped in the shower, combed my hair, and somehow arrived in his suite before noon. I probably set a record for apologies. He was incredibly understanding.

  “That’s okay, son,” Mr. Mandela said when he embraced me.

  He went on to say how much he admired me. I stopped him before he went any further.

  “Sir,” I said, “you are the one who is to be admired.”

  Over the years, Bern tried to get me to stop drinking, and for brief periods I did. But I always went back.

  In the fall of 1996, I chose a new outlet—or, rather, a familiar one. I decided to fight again.

  What was I thinking? At forty, I was an old man in a young man’s sport. For that matter, I was an old man when Norris whipped me in 1991. What made me believe the outcome would be any different more than five years later? If anything, my reflexes would be slower, my footwork less fluid, my body less able to absorb pain. I was lucky to walk out of the Garden in one piece. I might not be as lucky the next time.

  In looking back, though, I told myself Norris defeated me because of the injury to my ribs, not because he was a superior fighter. I also was a victim of my own success, the victory over Hagler convincing me I could pull off another shocker anytime I put my mind to it. The public would think I was deluded. The press would predict disaster. Come fight night, I would be the one standing, my arms raised in the air, overcoming the odds once more, the skeptics left to scramble for an explanation.

  For several years I had attended a lot of fights and almost always walked away with the same conclusion: I can beat that guy.

  One of those guys was Hector “Macho” Camacho. I was doing the TV commentary in June 1996 when Camacho won a decision over a forty-five-year-old Duran in Atlantic City. Afterward, Camacho proposed that he and I fight next. I did not give it much thought but J. D. Brown did, and by October we had a deal, the match slated, after an initial delay, for March 1, also in Atlantic City, with my purse being a guaranteed $4 million plus a share of the pay-per-view revenue. People said I came back for the money. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I came back for the challenge. That’s what fighters do. It’s what we do better than anything else.

  As usual, almost everyone around me was opposed to my return, including Bern.

  “We have a great life,” she told me. “You don’t need to do this.”

  Bern didn’t understand. She couldn’t. Only fighters know what it feels like to yearn for that place we go to when preparing for battle. There is no place like it.

  Yet I found a way to get her on board, just as I did with Juanita when she was opposed to my comebacks. I agreed to work with Billy Blanks, a fitness and martial arts expert, who built up the strength in my upper body and legs by having me lift weights for the first time. Blanks was a strict believer in the Tae Bo workout, as was Bern, which combines tae kwon do and boxing.

  I also put in my normal amount of time in the screening room. I was encouraged by what I saw. Despite being six years older, I was quicker and stronger than Camacho, the International Boxing Council middleweight and welterweight champion. With the body shots I planned to throw, I’d wear him down just as I outlasted my sparring partners every day at camp in Chandler, Arizona, near Phoenix. It made no difference that since my most recent retirement he’d fought twenty-eight times, for a total of 219 rounds. I beat Hagler after being away for three years, and Camacho was no Hagler. In his youth, Camacho was filled with a lot of promise. His youth was a long time ago.

  Things could not have been going any better, until, suddenly, they could not have gotten any worse. On January 31, doing an exercise Blanks taught me in which I stepped onto a bench with weights on the back of my shoulder, I felt a sharp twinge in my right calf.

  I saw a doctor that very afternoon. The diagnosis was a torn muscle.

  “You should be out of action for four to six weeks,” he said, “but then you will be fine.”

  “Doc, you do not seem to understand,” I said. “I’m fighting in six weeks. Just give me something so it doesn’t hurt.”

  As with the cracked ribs before the Norris fight, there was little doubt that I should have asked for an immediate postponement, but I wasn’t going to give in this time, either. The bout had already been put off due to problems with the original promo
ters, forcing us to make a new arrangement with Titan Sports, the pay-per-view firm operated by wrestling’s Vince McMahon. Another postponement, and it’s possible I would have come to my senses and used the injury as an excuse to back out for good. I preferred fooling myself. That was one of my best talents.

  It became necessary to fool the press and the public as well while I rested the leg. If word of the torn muscle got out, there would be calls for the fight to be delayed, if not canceled. I couldn’t let that happen.

  The idea we came up with was brilliant, practically out of a Hitchcock film. We closed camp, pretending to work on a secret strategy. A number of fans managed to peek through the cracks in the tent, believing they saw me working out. What they really saw was Roger in a hood. I was on the other side of town visiting the doctor to build up the muscles in my leg. I sneaked in much later to do any interviews. No one ever found out. The leg gradually improved, though it was still far less than 100 percent, keeping me from running or sparring for weeks. The extent of my exercise was riding on a stationary bike. J.D. suggested I have the doctor give me a few shots, but I told him to wait until fight night. I needed the leg to be good for only an hour, maybe less.

  Those final days were strange. The entire original cast was gone, including Juice, Ollie, Joe, and Pepe, who was replaced by my new trainer, Adrian Davis. Adrian was certainly capable, though there was no real trust between us. There couldn’t be. Trust takes years, not weeks. Even Mike Trainer was not around. He looked over the contract, but that was all he did.

  The night was a total disaster—and it started long before the opening bell.

  For some unknown reason, my mom and dad and siblings were given seats about five rows from ringside, while Bern sat in the front row. My parents were never that far back for any of my fights. My mom, to no one’s surprise, was furious and didn’t hesitate to make her feelings known. Neither did my sister Bunny. I didn’t see what took place, though from what I was told, Bunny attempted to slap Bern in the face, believing she had been responsible for the seating arrangement. She wasn’t. It was J.D. who made the error. It didn’t matter. When she couldn’t get her way, Momma left and missed the whole fight.