I’d lost a month of training while I’d been running for the Senate. It’s true what people say—politics is dirtier than boxing. I thought I could go into politics without getting sucked into the corruption we’d seen in Panama for years. I lost the election, and vowed never to waste that time again.
But I felt good. I entered the ring wearing a baseball cap with TEACHER on it: I was going to give this guy a lesson. I was coming in as a former champion, with 564 rounds of professional ring experience; he was just a punk. The lesson started when I knocked him down at the end of the second round, but the referee called it a slip. In the third I cut him on the lip, and then in the fifth I dropped him with a right hand. By the end of the fight he was bleeding all over his forehead and looked like a complete mess.
We knew he was going to use the Reyes gloves, which have high ridges on them, to rake across my face, but all he managed to do was slap me with a couple of wild shots. It helped that we’d asked for an eighteen-foot ring to keep him from running so I could work him over properly. He kept hitting me after the bell, talking trash, cheap-shot bullshit. He stuck his tongue out at me like a baby, and held the rope with one of his hands, but I ignored all his nonsense.
I thought I’d outpunched him, and at the end of the twelfth round my corner picked me up and lifted me onto their shoulders. When the ring announcer called Pazienza the winner, I threw my hands up in disgust. “If this kid is so tough,” I said afterward, “look at his face and look at mine. What did he do? He slapped the whole night. I didn’t lose the fight. The decision really made me mad, and I’m going to make this kid pay.”
After the fight, I sat down at a table with Tommy Brunette, a boxing promoter from Minnesota who’d been in the business for years, and we played dominoes for a long time and drank beer. By the time we were done, we’d gotten through two and a half cases.
I didn’t have to wait long to get even with Pazienza. In October, I beat Heath Todd, and then the rematch was scheduled for Atlantic City in January 1995. Another good purse: $615,000.
Before the second Pazienza fight, Charlie Sheen came to visit me—there were still a lot of Hollywood stars interested in a boxing legend like me. Once, I’d enjoyed the distractions all these actors and actresses brought, but now I wasn’t in the mood. Vinny Pazienza was still a clown and a bigmouth, and I wanted to shut him up. “Last time, I beat him up,” I told reporters, “but this time I’m going to put him in the hospital . . . They’re going to have to put a big Band-Aid on his face.”
I wanted to beat the crap out of him even more after he disrespected my son Victor, who was only three then. He called him a “stupid little kid,” though later he tried to change it to “lovable, stupid little kid.” You don’t talk that way about a three-year-old child. That made me want to destroy him even more.
It was a tougher fight than the first one. I was more sluggish, and one of the announcers called me “Feet of Stone.” With about twenty seconds to go, Pazienza pulled a cartilage in his rib throwing a punch, but it was too late. He won by unanimous decision. But I was still standing at the end, even though Pazienza said he hit me with some shots that would have knocked a wall down.
He also said I should take up golf, which made me mad because it showed he still had no respect for me. But I had no intention of retiring and that year I fought twice more, both TKO victories. I knocked out Roni Martinez in Kansas City as part of the card featuring Tommy Morrison and Razor Ruddock. Then I fought in South Florida, at the Fort Lauderdale Memorial, and knocked out Wilbur Garst in four rounds. Santiago Samaniego, my cousin, who was a junior middleweight, fought on that card, too. He went on to become a world champion.
I still had dreams of winning that sixth world title, but it was getting difficult both to make weight and have the willpower to keep training. Even though I knew I was making life harder for myself, I couldn’t help it, and I’d be up to my usual tricks of hiding stuff under the bed: Coke, Nestlé’s Crunch bars—and all the rest of the stuff every trainer I’ve had has tried to keep away from me. And the older I got, the harder it was to take the pounds off. But those were my habits, and there was no way I could change. I’d be trying to make weight at 165, and two weeks before a fight everybody’d think we were good because I was at 172. But then I’d step on the scale and I’d weigh 175. Plomo and my son Robin, who was now part of my team, would get very suspicious. “What happened? The scale must be wrong.”
No, the scale wasn’t wrong. Plomo and Robin just couldn’t babysit me twenty-four hours a day. I was a great boxer, but I was also very good at sneaking stuff I wanted and hiding it away. I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night, open the fridge, and eat everything in it.
Eventually, I’d bust my ass to make weight, but I was so dehydrated, I had to build my strength back up: two liters of Coca-Cola, five bottles of Gatorade. Robin would tell me I needed to go easy, but I wouldn’t listen. Coffee, Coke, milk shakes, spaghetti, steaks—sometimes I’d get so full, I’d throw up. Before one of those fights in South Florida, I even started puking on my way to the ring.
At least there was some good news around that time. In November 1995, I finally got my five world championship boxing belts back. They’d been recovered in Miami by FBI agents—a guy by the name of Luis Báez had gotten them from my brother-in-law and had been trying to sell them to a sports memorabilia shop in New York for $200,000. Fortunately for me, the store owner was cooperating with the FBI in another investigation, and I got the tip-off. Báez claimed I’d handed them over to him because I owed him money.
My brother-in-law did do some time in jail for it, but the law in Panama says relatives can’t press charges against one another, so he was let go after a while. Fula accepted all the blame—she knew I might have killed him. But look what he’d done to me and my family.
• • •
WHEN I BEAT RAY DOMENGE by a unanimous decision in Miami in February 1996, it was my third consecutive win after losing for the second time to Pazienza. And now I was back to where I wanted to be, chasing another championship. This time, it was Héctor “Macho” Camacho in Atlantic City in June 1996 for the vacant IBC middleweight title. The IBC was a relatively new sanctioning body, established in 1990, outside of the “Big Four” that had dominated boxing rankings. The fight was called “Legend to Legend: Camacho vs. Durán,” on a card that also featured Buster Douglas, who’d recently caused a massive upset by beating Tyson in Japan. I was forty-five, but so what? I was passing all the tests: not only did I have the body of a young man, but as one of the doctors told me before the fight, I also had a very thick skull, so there was no way he could stop me from fighting.
Camacho tried to psyche me out while we were promoting the fight, sending me videotapes of him telling me I’d never be like Muhammad Ali, never be like Sugar Ray Leonard, and of course talking nonsense about the Macho Man. “I’m playing with his head,” Camacho told people. “He’s going to lose the same way I lost to Julio César Chávez, like a champion. But the bottom line is that reality is going to smack him in the face.”
I laughed. What else could I do? Why should I give a shit about a guy who loves to dance in the ring, talking crap about me? I told him I hoped he didn’t sing when we fought. He sucked at singing.
During fight week Camacho actually told a reporter from The New York Times that he’d cried because I made fun of him. He’d grown up with me as his idol: “I was hurt by the way he was acting. He knows I’m a straight-up guy. I’ll clown around with my friends. But I tried to be tactful with him, and instead, he started going after me. When my adrenaline gets that high, I’m used to unleashing it.” He never wanted to be mean like me, he said. Maybe he should have taken ballet lessons.
We fought at 160 pounds. In a poll of twenty-two boxing writers before the fight, nineteen had Camacho winning. But I had a good camp and came to Atlantic City three days before, feeling great and weigh
ing 157. De Cubas was so confident that he actually bet $5,000 on me—the only fight he ever bet on in his life. I was a seven-to-one underdog.
And so we fought. Camacho didn’t look like a ballerina the night we fought, but he did come in wearing some ridiculous Egyptian outfit. Who did he think he was, King Tut? I’d gotten a buzz cut at the barbers to show people that even though I was forty-five, I was serious about this shit. After the referee had given us our instructions, Camacho wouldn’t touch gloves. I was ready to go.
Right away Camacho began playing patty-cake with his jab while I was killing him with body shots. Boom! Boom! Boom! Most of his jabs never landed, but I could sense those body shots were doing damage. So was my right-hand lead.
After the fifth round, I picked up strength and became the only man in the ring. I thought I’d won at least seven of the twelve rounds. He never hurt me, and all I could see were the welts all over his face and body.
At the end we hugged, out of respect. Our cornermen lifted us both in the air to celebrate victory. I was sure I’d won. And then they read out the results cards from the judges.
It was a unanimous decision: 115–113, 116–113, 117–111.
De Cubas was pissed off, maybe because he lost all that money. As the announcer was interviewing Camacho he shouted, “Durán ganó esa pelea!” Durán won that fight! Even Leonard called it a horrible decision, and “an early Christmas gift” for Camacho. The announcer said I was tarnishing my memories and legacy by continuing to fight. What was that all about when I was in such good shape? And who was he to lay down the law on what I did for a living?
I fight. End of story.
• • •
I HAD TWO MORE FIGHTS that year, both victories. Only one was in the United States—a sixth-round TKO of Mike Culbert in Chester, West Virginia. I began 1997 in a bad way, losing to Jorge Castro by a unanimous decision in Argentina. Four months later, however, I was able to avenge that loss in spectacular fashion—my hundredth career victory. Better yet, it was on the eve of my forty-sixth birthday and I was fighting in front of my people in Panama. I nearly knocked Castro out in the third round but won a close ten-round decision. All three judges scored it 97–95. The crowd—about 10,000—went crazy, but I could hardly celebrate. I was so exhausted, I couldn’t even comment to reporters after the bout. Then, in November, I traveled to South Africa to fight Britain’s David Radford.
Four days before the fight, the promoter comes into the gym and says, “Stop training. Nelson Mandela wants to meet you. I’ve brought Leonard here—and a lot of other fighters,” he went on, “and Mandela’s never wanted to meet them. But when he found out you were here . . .”
We went to the presidential home in Pretoria, and I was greeted by two women in long flowing dresses. When Mandela set eyes on me, he exclaimed, “Stone Hands!” He was already seventy-nine and had been in prison for twenty-seven years. He was happy as hell. Marvin Hagler was there, too, as part of the promotion. We walked across the lawn, and Mandela put his arms around both of us. “They have put boxing on a new footing,” he said, “because the days of shuffling and slogging it out are past. These are days when you know to quote Muhammad Ali: ‘A boxer floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.’” Then we all walked back to the house.
I held Mandela’s arm as we went up the steps, and he started telling me his life story, with a friend of mine translating. Before being imprisoned, Mandela had been an amateur boxer, and he was still a big boxing fan, even though he’d been locked up during my whole career.
When reporters asked me what I’d felt on meeting Mandela, all I could say was that he was a great president. “He’s known all over the world, and especially in Panama. It’s a great honor for me today.”
I went on to beat Radford, and then Félix José Hernández in January 1998, but they were muertos, dead guys. I still wanted the big fight, but my promoters were telling me they couldn’t do it. I didn’t see why not. I even went to some restaurants in Los Angeles where I knew Julio César Chávez liked to go, to see if we could make it happen. I never found him. I heard he didn’t want to go past 150 pounds—I was pretty sure that was just an excuse. The Mexican was a good boxer, and I respected him and all that, but he wasn’t born in the era of Roberto Durán. Chávez would never, ever have beaten me. Poor guy—he would not have lasted three rounds.
So Chávez was out but William Joppy was in. Don King gave me that opportunity—to fight Joppy in August 1998 for the WBA middleweight title.
De Cubas went crazy when I told him. He was after a rematch with Camacho because he wanted me to fight slower, older guys—guys who were beatable. “Why would you want William Joppy?” he said. “He’s a full-fledged middleweight. Why would Don King put you, at forty-seven, against somebody in his prime when I’ve spent my whole time protecting you from fighters who are twenty years younger?” He wasn’t the only one to point out that when I fought Benny Huertas in 1971, Joppy was two days short of his first birthday. De Cubas said he’d have nothing to do with it and didn’t want to work with me anymore.
The reason I took the fight? Money—plain and simple. Good money, too: $250,000. I wouldn’t see any of it, though: what wasn’t going to the IRS to cover more back taxes I owed was going to pay child support in Miami. The IRS agent even had the balls to come and sit at ringside to wait for his money.
I just wanted to win; I could worry about making more money later. It was my twenty-fifth appearance in a world title fight. “I’ve been taking care of myself,” I thought. “I’ll knock him out.”
The fight was originally scheduled for June 6, 1998, on the undercard of Evander Holyfield–Henry Akinwande at Madison Square Garden—King had put us on it because my name would sell a lot more tickets than the other guys. But Akinwande tested positive for hepatitis B, so the date was changed to August 28, at the Hilton in Las Vegas. Chuleta! I wasn’t pleased. I loved fighting in New York at the Garden: I’d fought seven times there in my career and lost only once—to de Jesús in 1972. But at least in Vegas there were a couple of thousand fans there—a sellout for that place—and lots were there to see me win.
The ringside announcer kicked things off by saying I wasn’t Stone Hands anymore, I was powder-puff hands. In the second round Joppy started getting in some good uppercuts, but I managed to tag him with a hard right-hand lead to start the third. He recovered quickly, though, and got me with a right at the end of the round that sent me reeling against the ropes. He kept coming after me, hitting me with more shots to the face and body. He tried to get me down, but I wouldn’t go. Still, he kept chopping away at me until finally the referee, Joe Cortez, stopped the fight. There were six seconds left in the round, and I was trying to tell him I was okay—no problem.
Cortez said he’d given me every chance, but from the first round it was just a matter of time. His job’s to protect the fighter, and he stopped the fight when he saw I’d taken one punch too many.
Joppy was respectful after beating me. He told reporters I was a great man, and how he’d grown up watching me and admiring me. He loved me, he said. But he also said that now he was the man. It was a bad night for me. There were all the old problems, but I also knew that my eyesight wasn’t what it had been. I confided in Tony Gonzalez, the guy who was now managing me who was also my daughter Irichelle’s husband, and he took me to a doctor. It was clear I couldn’t see properly, but he didn’t want to operate.
De Cubas said he cried that night, and called Don King one of the biggest sons of bitches he’d ever come across for letting me fight Joppy.
So my losing streak in Vegas continued. Since beating Luigi Minchillo in 1989, I hadn’t won a single fight there: Benítez, Hagler, Hearns, Sims, Leonard, Lawlor, Pazienza—and now Joppy.
Now everyone really thought I was finished.
ELEVEN
ONE MORE FOR LA PATRIA
I WAS NOW FIGHTING in my fifth decade as a professi
onal boxer. Who the hell does that? Apart from the great Jack Johnson, no one in boxing history except me. I was forty-eight years old, with so many fights, and so many memories since that pelao had made his professional debut in 1968 in Colón as a lightweight. Now I was old and fat and, yes, had seen better days, but I still wanted one last hurrah.
The promoter called it “The Battle of Five Decades” and it was for the NBA super-middleweight title, in June 2000, against Pat Lawlor. Okay, a lot of people didn’t think that it was in the same league as the WBA or WBC championship, but it was a world title, and that’s what the record books will say.
And it was in Panama. It had been a couple of years since I’d fought there, and the most important thing for me was for the Panamanian people to enjoy this fight. I promised them I’d make Lawlor pay for that TKO in 1991. I had never lost in Panama. I wasn’t going to start now.
In my prime, I’d had that huge entourage—all those manzanillos: a guy to carry my gloves, another guy for my bag, a guy to do the laundry, a guy to do the cooking . . . That was all gone. Plomo was the only one from El Chorrillo in the 1960s who’d stayed loyal all these years; otherwise, it was just Tony Gonzalez and my son Robin. Robin did the dishes, the cleaning, and the cooking. He took care of my laundry, all the interpreting, and everything else I needed to get in shape for a fight. He’d be up at five-thirty to get me ready to go running—he’d even come out with me—and when we got back, he’d get breakfast ready.
I Am Duran Page 18