Before a fight Ray usually sequestered himself, almost as if he put a "Do Not Disturb" sign up, remaining unavailable to the press. He left it to his publicist, Charlie Brotman, to handle his statements. When Charlie approached him and asked for his prefight comment to relay to the media, Ray told him to tell the press, "I'm going to fight him flat-footed."
Hearing that, Duran's trainer Ray Arcel, who had been around forever and seen and heard everything, told his fighter: "You won the title right there."
Normally the dressing room before a fight is tense and expectant, waiting for what seems like hours but is only a few minutes for that inevitable knock on the door signaling the fighter to the ring. This time Ray, who usually approached every fight with a surgeon's emotional detachment, was especially edgy, anxious to get into the ring to exact his revenge on Duran for all the indignities he had suffered at his hands.
Since it was the prerogative of a champion to enter the ring last, challenger Duran would be the first to make the "perp"-like walk down the aisle and into the ring. Going back, almost to David versus Goliath, that had been the custom. The only time it was not so honored was when James J. Corbett played a game of "hokey-pokey" (you know, "you put your left foot in, then you take your left foot out... ."), faking his entry into the ring before champion John L. Sullivan. Thinking Corbett had already entered when in fact he was standing on the apron of the ring, Sullivan actually went into the ring first, which so aggravated the great John L. he wanted to kill Corbett on the spot.
You could hear the cheers for Duran reverberating through the hallways as he made his way down the aisle on his way to the ring—a looooooong walk. As he climbed into the ring, sportswriter Dave Anderson, catching sight of the scruffily-bearded Duran, almost snorting fire, his black eyes ablaze with fury, leaned over to Joe Frazier and asked the former heavyweight champion who the man alternately nicknamed "El Diablo" reminded him of, thinking Joe would answer "me." Instead, after studying Duran for a few seconds, Frazier said, "Charles Manson."
Then, uncharacteristically, Duran beamed at the crowd, evoking a great roar. And when his entourage unfurled the Quebec Liberation flag, it ignited an even more deafening din from the Quebecois in the upper reaches of the stadium who now joined the cheers of Duran's 2,000 countrymen who had flown up from Panama to cheer on their hero.
Then it was Ray's turn. As he came into view there was polite applause, but less raucous than that which had greeted Duran. Entering the ring, he bowed to the crowd from all four corners of the ring, bringing cheers of adulation—and even, incredibly, a few boos—from those in the crowd of 46,317, most of whom remembered him as the darling of the Montreal Olympics four years earlier.
As I stood in the corner with Ray, I chanced a look across the ring and couldn't help but notice my counterparts, Duran's trainers Ray Arcel and Freddie Brown, in a huddle with referee Carlos Padilla. What the hell was that all about? I asked myself. What I found out later was that Arcel, who knew that Padilla was famous for breaking fighters whenever they got close enough to touch, was lobbying Padilla, telling him something along the lines of: "You're good. But this is a fight everyone wants to see. I only hope you let my boy fight."
Little did I realize how well Arcel's prefight psyche job on Padilla would work when all was said and done.
From the opening bell and Duran's first bull rush, several things were obvious. One, referee Padilla had let Arcel bullshit him and was going to take a hands-off policy, letting Duran turn the fight into a wrestling match. Two, Duran had drawn an Alamo-like line in the sand, forcing Ray to fight on his territory, the ropes, rather than on Ray's territory, the middle of the ring. And three, Ray had it in his head that he was stronger than Duran and had decided to play a game of machismo with Duran, abandoning his prefight game plan of slipping in and out and giving Duran angles.
For the first couple of rounds, Duran charged, pushed, bulled, and punched his way inside, forcing Ray into the ropes and keeping him there—once, in the second, driving Ray across the ring and into the ropes—while referee Padilla stood by, refusing to break the two if there was anything resembling a loose hand showing. Duran mauled Ray and forced him to fight reflexively. Beginning with the third round Ray began to land some punches underneath Duran's charges, scoring heavily with his patented flurries as he caught Duran coming in. Still, Duran kept Ray pinned against the ropes, taking away his advantages of hand and foot speed.
By the middle rounds the action had heated up with both landing nonstop punches, Duran the aggressor and Ray meeting Duran's unrelenting aggression with his own furious flurries. As the two went at it toe-to-toe, the crowd got caught up in the pace and excitement of the fight—Ray's wife, Juanita, overcome with emotion, fainted. Ray closed the gap and may even have been ahead slightly, with the only marks on either fighter were the rope burns Ray sported on his back, compliments of Roberto having almost glued him to the ropes.
Coming down the stretch Ray landed several good shots to the untrimmed jaw of Duran, but all he got back in return was a sneer from Duran before he tore back into my guy for more of the same. The pace and noise continued unabated throughout the last two rounds as Duran, now so sure of imminent victory, virtually conceded the rounds to Leonard.
At the bell ending the fifteenth and final round, Ray extended his hands to Duran to congratulate him, but a disdainful Duran spurned them with a scornful "get-the-hell-out-of-here" wave of his glove and then threw a mock punch at the man he hated with a passion that burned deep within his macho heart. Walking past Ray, he jumped into the air in exultation.
The exultation was premature. But correct. For after a couple of minutes of correcting the incorrect scorecards, the decision was announced as 148–147, 145–144, and 146–144—including 19 "draw" rounds on the three cards—all for the new "Campeon del Mundo," Roberto Duran. It had been as exciting and close a fight as boxing had seen in years. Afterward Ray said, "I surprised a lot of people with my tactics. I fought Duran in a way I thought I could beat him." It was a mistake he wouldn't make again.
You never know what effect that first loss will have on a fighter. Some fighters, like Joe Louis—who coincidentally, like Ray, suffered his first loss in his twenty-eighth fight—pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again. Louis came back to fight Jack Sharkey two months after being KO'd by Max Schmeling and won. Then there was Sugar Ray Robinson who suffered his first loss in his forty-first fight against Jake LaMotta and came back just three weeks later to avenge his loss in the same ring. Others, however, have had their careers completely derailed by one loss, their surety in their invincibility and their confidence in their ability lost along with the fight itself. Now I honestly didn't know what Ray would do, come back or just pack his bags and go home.
After the fight, with Juanita's pleas for him to retire ringing in his ears and his body throbbing in pain, Ray stood in front of the dressing room mirror studying his battered features. Then, after a minute or two of contemplation, he turned around and announced, "That's it. No more. I gave it everything I had ... but that's it!"
However, in what might be the shortest retirement in boxing history, Ray soon changed his mind. He couldn't close the curtain on his career with that ugly letter "L" following his name in the record books. More important, he wanted to avenge his loss to Duran and gain revenge against the man who had not only beaten him but abused both him and his wife.
All greats learn from previous fights. Take Sugar Ray Robinson, for example. After meeting and beating Fritzie Zivic, Robinson said, "Fritzie taught me a lot. He was about the smartest I ever fought. He even showed me how you can make a man butt open his own eye. He'd slip my lead and then he'd put his hand behind my neck and he'd bring my eye down on his head. Fritzie was very smart."
Just as Zivic had taken Robinson to school, so, too, had Duran taken Leonard. But if experience is learning from one's mistakes, then Ray had learned from his and chalked it up to experience. This time he would employ an
all-new strategy, one as far removed from the one that failed in the first fight as New Orleans, the site of the second fight, was from Montreal. This time Ray knew how to solve the puzzle that only one of Duran's seventy-two previous opponents, Esteban De Jesús, had ever mastered—he knew how to beat Duran. Ray would box him in the middle of the ring, where his hand and foot speed would give him the advantage and enable him to offset Duran's attack-dog style.
He also had learned another lesson the hard way. The contest, to paraphrase Damon Runyon, is not always to the fastest or the strongest. Sometimes it goes to the more intelligent. And Roberto Duran had done a number on Ray, psychologically getting his goat. Now it would be Roberto's turn in the barrel, as Ray was determined to outpsyche the man who had taught him the very meaning of the word.
Appearances can be very deceiving, especially in the case of Sugar Ray Leonard. For behind that choirboy's face was a cunning mind, one capable of intriguing maneuvers and strategies. I've always believed Ray could whip off your underwear with his tricks. Now more than merely outboxing Duran, Ray wanted to get even with him for insulting Ray and his wife before the Montreal fight. Ray also wanted to get even by attacking him where Duran lived: in his machismo. There was a mystique about Duran's machismo, one built on stories that he had knocked out a horse, an opponent's wife, and a sparring partner's father. And Duran gloried in that mystique, almost as if he owned the original copyright on machismo, strutting and preening with an arrogance that announced to all that he possessed the biggest set of cojones in the world. It was that mystique Ray wanted to attack, to toy with Duran and strip away his mantle of machismo.
His mind working every angle, Ray knew that Duran never let success go to his training and that between his fights he would spend his time carousing, partying, and eating, so much so that he would balloon up to about 190. Ray's thinking was that he wanted a rematch as quickly as possible—the sooner the better to prevent Duran from getting into top shape. This despite the fact that several within Ray's camp didn't want him to take on Duran immediately without a "warm-up" fight. Trainer Dave Jacobs, for one, told Ray that "the system" was against him and that he couldn't win. But Ray wanted Duran now.
During the run-up to the fight, Duran was so confident in his belief that he would do to Ray again what he had done in their first fight that he told anyone who would listen that Ray was "afraid" of him and called him a "clown." But if Duran hadn't a hint of what was in store for him before, he should have had when Ray and I showed up at the weigh-in wearing fake beards to mock the stubble Duran sported to make him look malevolent. No, this time Ray wasn't the quiet, well-mannered gentleman Duran and the press had come to expect. This time it was Ray who acted as if the result of the fight was a foregone conclusion; this time, by the hair on Duran's chinny-chin-chin, he would be the victor.
To achieve that victory, Ray would have to keep the guy turning, hit him with shots coming in, pivot off the ropes, spin out, slip the jab, and move over. He couldn't go straight back, he had to push him off, and when he spun, he had to stay there and nail him.
As the fight neared, Ray's confidence continued to build. Knowing the ring in New Orleans would be four feet larger inside the ropes than the one he had been caged up in at Montreal, he felt so sure he would be able to outbox Duran that when Brotman approached him for his prefight comment to the press, unlike his comment before the Montreal fight that he would fight "flat-footed," he told Charlie to tell the press, "This time I will not be fighting flat-footed." And he accompanied his statement with a playful wink.
Ray's psychological battle plan continued right up to the fight itself. In Montreal it had been Duran who had captured the fancy of the crowd by unfurling the Quebec Liberation flag in the ring. This time it was Ray's turn as he had the man he was named after, Ray Charles, sing "America the Beautiful" before the fight, wowing the Superdome crowd.
Called to the center of the ring by referee Octavio Meyran, the two fighters stood there playing the stare-each-other-down game. Then Roberto's eyes opened wide as for the first time he took in a bigger Ray Leonard, one carrying more weight than he had in the first fight. Duran finally sensed that this was not the same fighter he had faced five months before.
Then the bell. Ray immediately moved to the middle of the ring and landed a get-acquainted punch, a left that caught Duran flush as a calling card for future hurts, before dancing away. For the first minute or so of the round, he threw more feints than punches as Duran stood midring almost as if planted. Duran made as if to bull-rush Ray, but backed off after Ray dug a left to the stomach and jabbed twice to Duran's face, leaving Roberto to retaliate only with a grin. It was pop-pop-pop as Ray moved in and out, landing punches before circling out of reach. Our prefight battle plan of moving in and out, sliding away and frustrating Duran was working to perfection.
The second round began with Ray continuing to move in and out, circling left and right and leaving a jab or two behind as a hint of what was to come. Midway through the round, Ray moved in and landed a solid shot to Duran's jaw, bringing a roar from the crowd and a sneer from Duran. Ray was not only setting the early pace but frustrating Duran, whose punches were falling far short of Ray, who was leaning back away from them and countering. Every time Duran tried to mount one of his bull-like rushes in an attempt to force Ray into the ropes, Ray was able to tie him up, refusing to go toe-to-toe. No fighting flat-footed this time.
By the third, it was Ray who was grinning. His cat-and-mouse game was frustrating Duran. Every time Duran attempted to get close enough, Ray would either tie him up or exchange evenly with him and then quickly move out of range. My guy was boxing beautifully, playing Duran like a fisherman would a salmon. By the end of the third, Ray looked so unconcerned that even while I was trying to talk to him in the corner he was looking at the shapely ring-card girl prancing around the ring. Now that's cool and calm while Duran was being collected.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds were more of the same. Ray would decorate Duran's face with jabs and his body with flurries and then move away, dictating the pace, a matador to Duran's bull rushes, hitting and not being hit in return. For the first time in his career, Roberto was not in control. Thwarted in every attempt to make it his fight and finding he couldn't, he was becoming more and more frustrated. You could see it in his eyes and in his body movements. It was almost as if you could imagine steam coming out of his ears as time and time again he attempted to get inside only to have Ray quickly move away. The only thing that resembled a knockdown came in the fifth when Ray slipped and fell in his corner as Duran rushed in. Referee Meyran ruled it a slip over a depression in the ring where the floorboard had split. Other than that Ray was doing a number on Roberto.
Came the seventh and Ray, now completely in control, went into his taunt-and-humiliate game, first sticking out his chin and then his tongue, double-daring Duran to "come on" with his right. "Try to hit me," he seemed to be saying. The man who had been through seventy-two fights and met every conceivable challenger—boxers, runners, counterpunchers—looked at his tormentor with disbelieving eyes, unsure of how to respond, never having met a taunter before. Finally, after a few seconds, Duran rushed in, headfirst, only to receive a stiff one-two for his effort. And if that weren't enough, Duran was then to suffer one of boxing's most crushing and devastating psychological blows, sort of boxing's version of a parlor trick. Leonard, after first going into an Ali shuffle, wound up with a mocking imitation of Kid Gavilan's bolo punch, in windmill fashion, and then, while Duran stood there, staring in disbelief, Ray popped him a good one in the banana with his left. It was humiliating, like a bully having sand kicked in his face. As many of those at ringside began to laugh, all the seething Duran could do was snarl contemptuously. You almost—not quite, but almost—felt sorry for him. At the bell ending the round, Duran waved a disgusted glove in the direction of Ray and walked back to his corner shaking his head in the direction of his manager, Carlos Eleta.
At the start
of the eighth Duran, still smarting from the complete disrespect Ray had shown him in the seventh, charged out of his corner in an attempt to get at Ray. But Ray stood his ground and their heads collided. No damage. Again Duran tried to charge, but Ray caught him with a left and a right. If Ray weren't my guy, I'd begin to think this was getting monotonous. But here was Ray taunting and humiliating the street-tough kid from Panama and not only getting away with it but winning because of it. Once again Duran tried to charge in, headfirst, and the two fell into a clinch along the ropes. As Meyran broke them up, Duran turned to him and said something, but Meyran ordered the fight to continue. Duran simply walked away, saying something more to Meyran. Ray, thinking it was a trick of some kind, stood his ground for a second before racing in and hitting Duran with a bodacious shot to Duran's half-turned body. But Duran, without even flinching at the blow, merely said something again to Meyran and, with sixteen seconds left in the round, waved his right hand in an oh-the-hell-with-it gesture in Ray's direction and walked to his corner.
I couldn't believe my eyes. What in the name of the Marquess of Queensberry was going on? One minute Duran was charging in; the next he was walking away, waving his arm, shaking his head. It was incredible. The fight was over. Sugar Ray Leonard had won the strangest victory I had ever seen.
I've heard of fighters quitting in the ring, like Jan De Bruin who walked out of the ring against Sugar Ray Robinson believing that Robinson was making an exhibition of what was supposed to be a fight. Broadway Billy Smith did the same against Archie Moore, seeing no point in continuing what he thought was an "unequal" and "ridiculous" fight. But this wasn't Jan De Bruin or Broadway Billy Smith; this was Roberto Duran. And before this unmagic moment you would have thought there were four immutable laws that governed the universe: that the earth goes around the sun; that lawyers always get paid first; that every action has an equal and opposite reaction; and that Roberto Duran would have to be carried out on his shield, blood streaming out of his ears, before he would quit. Now you could scratch the last one.
My View from the Corner Page 31