Sorcery at Caesars: Sugar Ray's Marvelous Fight
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But Hagler was ambivalent. Before the bout he had vowed it would be his last. Minutes after he lost he had hinted at a rematch conspiracy when he said, "they want me back, they want a rematch with Leonard and this is how they done it."
Leonard was coy. He, too, had said the bout would be his last. He had said his objective was to beat Hagler, and that he did not want "a career."
Both fighters waited for the other to reach out. Then in late May Leonard announced his fifth "retirement," which few who had followed his career took seriously. Leonard may have thought his ploy would motivate Hagler, or increase his own leverage. Instead it reminded Hagler of being a prop at Leonard's "retirement" in November 1982, and he recoiled at the prospect of being manipulated again. His lukewarm interest in a rematch waned by the end of 1987, and he gravitated to Italy, where he had offers to act in films, and where he could forget Leonard.
Leonard's "retirement," indeed, was a ploy. Early in 1988 he tried to open talks with Hagler.
"Ray would call me and say 'Get the rematch,'" Trainer recalled. "I'd make another call. They would say 'Great,' and then I wouldn't hear anything.
"Ray wanted Hagler again. Goody wanted it. Pat wanted it. Hagler never wanted it. It baffled Ray."
Hagler announced his retirement in June 1988 while in Ravenna, Italy, for a Robbie Sims bout. He had just finished his first film, Indio, in which he played a tough Marine called Sergeant Iron.
"My heart says yes but my brain says no," Hagler told an NBC TV audience. "Boxing has been good to me, but Leonard only wants to play games. It would take at least another year before we could fight, so I'm going to say goodbye to boxing, retire and go into the movies."
Leonard's career became an extended anti-climax. Never again did he fight at the level he attained against Hagler. He beat a Canadian journeyman, Donny Lalonde, for 168-pound and 175-pound titles in November 1988. He was generously awarded a draw against Hearns in an over-ripe rematch in June 1989, and he easily decisioned a 38-year-old Duran in their third meeting in December 1989. Terry Norris drubbed him in a 12-rounder in 1991, and Hector Camacho won by TKO in five rounds in 1997. He was 40 when he lost to Camacho, bereft of speed, power and reflexes.
Leonard separated from Juanita in 1988 and they divorced in 1990. By this time Leonard had met his second wife-to-be, Bernadette Robi, the daughter of Paul Robi, one of the Platters, and the ex-wife of Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver.
In June 1990 a final effort by Leonard, Trainer and Arum to lure Hagler into a rematch failed, as Hagler turned down a $15 million offer. "It is finito," Hagler said, in the language of his adopted country.
Later that year Leonard and Hagler found themselves in the same crowded ballroom of an Atlantic City hotel for an event honoring the best fighters of the 1980s. Leonard kept an eye on Hagler and eventually approached him. When Leonard came closer, as if to embrace, Hagler put a firm hand to his shoulder. Without a word Hagler turned and walked away.
"That guy hates me - he really still hates me," Leonard told a reporter.
Late in March 1991 Juanita's sealed divorce deposition was leaked to the Los Angeles Times. In the lurid court record Leonard was described as a cocaine user prone to fits of domestic violence. The day the story appeared Leonard called a press conference, at the Washington Touchdown Club, and apologized for his "childish" and "stupid" behavior, which he said occurred between 1983 and 1986.
"So I stand here ashamed, hurt," Leonard said. "I stand here and think about my parents, my ex-wife, my kids, people who care for me, my fans...and I can never erase the pain or the scars that I have made through my stupidity, through my selfishness. All I can say is that I'm sorry, but that's not enough."
Leonard explained how he had stopped using cocaine without help.
"It took Ray Leonard to tell Sugar Ray, 'Hey, you aren't the same person...unless you want your life to be screwed up, you better straighten your life up,'" he said.
The remarkable public confession, in which Leonard rebuked his alter ego, inadvertently opened a new window on his victory over Hagler. The challenge and comeback had been steeper and more perilous than the public had known. In light of Hagler's reported problems, it retroactively injected cocaine as an unknowable wild card into the competitive equation.
Caesars invited Leonard, Hagler, and other celebrities to a 30th anniversary party in September 1996. By then Hagler had met his second wife-to-be, Kay Guarino, a native Italian. Hagler and Guarino were approached by Hearns and told that Leonard wanted to talk about a business proposal involving all three fighters.
"Tommy, you tell him he wants to talk to me, he can talk to me, but you gonna go into business with him?" Hagler replied.
Hearns came back moments later with Leonard in tow.
"Marvin, I just want to talk about business," Leonard said. "We could make a lot of money. Me, you and Tommy."
"You want me to go into business with you?" Hagler said. "I don't think so."
"We can make a lot of money doing it again, Marvin. We don't have to get hurt. We don't have to do that."
"Don't get hurt? That's what I'm about Ray. I'm about hurt. We fight - it's about hurt. I don't play that way."
Hagler looked at Leonard and Hearns, and said, "You guys gotta get a life," and walked away.
In September 1999, at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Leonard and Hagler attended Oscar De La Hoya's controversial loss - his first in 32 pro bouts - to Felix Trinidad by majority decision. The next day they crossed paths in a lobby. Leonard was in a playful mood; Hagler was not.
"Marvin, can you believe Oscar lost the fight?"
"Yeah, it happened to me, too."
"Really?" said Leonard. "When?"
The new millennium did not soften Hagler's animus. When they were thrown together, at boxing functions, Hagler stayed as far away as possible from Leonard.
"I was at an event with Marvin and Ray and Tommy," recalled Emanuel Steward. "Naturally, the photographers wanted the three of them together. Marvin would not stand next to Ray. He made it so that Tommy was between them."
Hagler, in a 2002 interview with ESPN, demanded that Leonard publicly concede he lost.
"I'm going to wait for the day when he freely admits that 'I really lost that fight - I appreciated that the referees or whatever granted me the decision but I really didn't win the fight,'" said Hagler. "That's what I want."
Early in 2006 Steward and Hagler sat down over drinks. Delicately, Steward asked Hagler why the rematch never came off. Hagler's response took Steward aback.
"Because I got fucked," Hagler said.
Steward did not ask again.
"You can see why that fight couldn't be made," Steward said. "He's just too bitter.
"I don't think I've ever known a fighter that was so upset with the result of a fight that 20 years later the feeling is still as strong. The fire hasn't dimmed at all."
Nothing had changed by the autumn of 2007, more than 20 years after the bout, as Goody Petronelli, now 85, sat behind his desk at his Brockton gym and described the depth of Hagler's bitterness.
"Marv will take it to his grave," said Petronelli.
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Epilogue
In the cocaine-addled, junk bond '80s, Leonard and Hagler gave us a fable, and themselves a permanent place in boxing lore. Both are elevated among the all-time greats, Leonard a step higher.
As much as his career, Hagler is remembered for his exit. He quit, at the age of 32, after losing to Leonard, and declined multi-million-dollar offers to fight again. He was one of a few champions - Rocky Marciano being another - to quit with his health intact and money on the table.
"Marvin Hagler did a lot of good things by walking away," said Flip Homansky, a Nevada physician who worked the bout. "He walked away at the peak of his health, and I think a lot of our younger fighters could learn a lesson from him."
Hagler's abrupt exit was an oddity, to be sure, but also a natural outgrowth of his career.
Leonard was larger than life, and sometimes smaller.
In the summer of 1983 Leonard sailed to England on the QE II with a Canadian film crew at work on a documentary about him. Princess Margaret and Bob Hope were aboard, and a formal black-tie dinner was thrown. In tuxedoes, Leonard and his bodyguard, James Anderson, made their way to a sparkling men's room, where an attendant handed out towels and accepted tips. But a problem arose after Leonard and Anderson washed their hands - neither had money for the tip box.
"So the guy turned his back to hand another guy a towel," Anderson recalled, "and Ray reached into the change thing, picked it up, and dropped it back in there."
The attendant turned around as change cascaded into the tip box.
"Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Leonard."
"No problem," Leonard said, and returned to the dinner with Princess Margaret and Bob Hope.
This wasn't about stinginess. By most accounts Leonard was a generous man who once wrote a spur-of-the-moment $250,000 check to Grambling, supported relatives and friends, and helped strangers in need.
This was about Leonard feeding his inner con, if just a tiny hors d'oeuvre. This was the same impulse that shaped his strategy against Hagler, and created a timeless classic. As the bout is Leonard's legacy, so is his devilish persona.
Steve Farhood was editor of KO magazine from 1980 to 1997, and of The Ring magazine from 1990 to 1997. He oversaw coverage of hundreds of championship fights, but none stirred his readers as much as Leonard-Hagler.
"I got more mail on the fight and the decision than any fight in all my years of editing," Farhood said. "I continued to receive mail on the decision years after the fight."
Dave Moretti, the "swing" vote, is never far from the fight.
"Twenty years after the fight it's still the one most people ask me about," Moretti said. "Did Leonard really win?"
The same is true of Jo Jo Guerra, the judge who "wasn't there," yet never escaped from it.
"They made me famous," said Guerra. "Wherever I go, that's the fight people want to know about."
Leonard, in a 2005 interview, said he often is reminded of the bout by everyday fans.
"Even to this day, in New England or wherever I go, his fans will come up to me and say, 'Ray, we like you, but Hagler beat you.' To this very day."
Its enduring appeal may stem from the potent alchemy of opposites. Before the bout Promoter Bob Arum theorized that their personalities were reflected in other athletes, teams, places, politicians, and "ordinary" citizens.
"Everyone and everything is either Hagler or Leonard," Arum wrote in the Las Vegas Sun.
Lawrence Taylor and the New York Giants were Hagler; John Elway and the Denver Broncos were Leonard. Most quarterbacks were Leonard, while linebackers and defensive linemen were Hagler.
The Boston Celtics and Larry Bird were Hagler; the LA Lakers and Magic Johnson were Leonard.
California, Florida, Texas, and Arizona were Leonard, while Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Oklahoma, and New Mexico were Hagler. Nevada suffered from a "split personality"; Reno was Hagler, Las Vegas was Leonard. New York City was too cosmopolitan to fit into either category, but the rest of New York was Hagler.
Democrats were Hagler and Republicans were Leonard, with exceptions. Of the Republican presidential hopefuls, Sen. Robert Dole and former Sen. Paul Laxalt were Hagler, while Democratic candidates Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson were Leonard.
On fight night, Arum concluded, "The Haglers and Leonards in the vast audience will be rooting like mad for that fighter representing the personality category each fan identifies with."
The metaphors of 1987...
Leonard was Hollywood, the catwalk, sushi, desktop computing, and the future. Hagler was Main Street, a 30-year mortgage, a burger with fries, a factory that closed, and the past.
...are different today, but the same.
Leonard is an Internet search engine, a hedge fund, and high-definition plasma TV. Hagler is bumper-to-bumper in the morning commute, a windowless cubicle, and late fees on a credit card that never is paid down.
Leonard was who we dreamed of being, Hagler was who we are.
No matter that Leonard was not who or what he appeared to be. Leonard's magic was in the seductive vision he represented.
Two judges voted for Leonard, one for Hagler. The outcome said as much about our culture and desires as about the fight.
Leonard and Hagler gave us a "marvelous" fight and something more - a looking glass.
"Every time I watch it," said Steele, the referee, "it gets closer."
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Appendix
Notes on Scoring: Three Perspectives
Jo Jo Guerra had one perspective on the fight. Dave Moretti had a second, and Lou Filippo a third. Each of the 15,000-plus eyewitnesses and two million closed-
circuit viewers had a perspective as well. But only those of the scoring judges - Guerra, Moretti and Filippo - mattered.
Absent a knockout a bout enters the realm of subjective interpretation and bias. Judges aspire to apply "objective" criteria, defined as clean punching, defense, effective aggression, and ring generalship. The objective criteria, however, are notoriously subjective, defy consistent interpretation, and invite bias.
If three judges agree on the winner of a round, consensus affirms their view. If all three see it the same way, it can be assumed to be fair.
In this fight the three judges agreed on five rounds: 1, 2, 5, 6, and 11. Those rounds provided a relatively clear winner and allow for relatively "objective" description.
The other seven rounds, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12, failed consensus. They challenge objective description and represent the crux of the disputed split decision.
The scores of Moretti and Filippo reflected a shared perspective. Moretti gave 7 rounds to Leonard and 5 to Hagler, while Filippo gave 7 to Hagler and 5 to Leonard. In a close fight, absent a knockdown or even a conspicuous blow, their scores were logical and reasonable.
(Under Nevada's 10-point system, a fighter gets 10 points for winning a round, and 9 points for losing a round, unless he is knocked down, in which case he gets 8 points or 7 points. If a round is scored even, both fighters get 10 points. The Nevada Athletic Commission discouraged "even" rounds, and none were scored.)
Guerra, however, awarded 10 rounds to Leonard and 2 to Hagler, a score that indicated a dominant performance by Leonard. Guerra's score was vilified by the Hagler camp, ridiculed by the media, and rued by the top Nevada boxing official, Duane Ford, who said, "I was wondering where a judge was."
In defense of his score, Guerra said, "I voted with the majority."
In other words, he got the winner right, but the margin of victory wrong. Guerra's score can be put into perspective. If the three scores are viewed on a continuum, with Guerra's 10 rounds for Leonard representing the far range, and Filippo's 5 rounds for Leonard representing the near range, then Moretti's 7 rounds for Leonard nearly falls in the middle. Guerra's score was almost as close to Moretti's as was Filippo's.
Moretti was the swing vote. Had he awarded one more round to Leonard, Filippo's score would have been more divergent than Guerra's. Had he awarded one more round to Hagler, his score would have been 6-6, and the bout would have ended as a draw.
In the final tally, Guerra disagreed with Moretti on three rounds, and with Filippo on five rounds. Moretti and Filippo disagreed on four rounds. The lack of consensus highlighted the subjectivity of the scoring system, and the closeness of the bout.
The irony of boxing is that when a gloved fist does not decide the outcome, a pencil does.
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Notes on Sources and Acknowledgments
As the Boston Globe's boxing writer from 1979 to 1988 I covered Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Material for this book began with my own articles and recol
lections, and from Globe archives.
The archives of numerous other newspapers were accessed via electronic database and microfilm. Accounts from the Brockton Enterprise were helpful in reconstructing the early phase of Hagler's career, as were the Lowell Sun's coverage of the 1973 Golden Glove nationals and Boston Herald archives.
Washington Post archives helped reconstruct Leonard's career. Leonard's early phase was sketched in Alan Goldstein's book, A Fistful of Sugar. The archives of Sports Illustrated, Newsweek and Time magazines filled in details, as did the New York Times and Los Angeles Times.
Several books provided insight: Leroy Ashby's With Amusement For All, Dave Kindred's Sound and Fury; David Remnick's King of the World, Christian Giudice's Hands of Stone; Hugh McIlvanney's collection of columns, The Hardest Game; Jim Brady's Boxing Confidential; Joyce Carol Oates' On Boxing; and Irving Rudd's The Sporting Life.
Video recordings of HBO, CBS, and closed-circuit telecasts were essential.
Research included interviews with Leonard, Hagler, Emanuel Steward, Mike Trainer, Charlie Brotman, Pat Petronelli, Goody Petronelli, Betty Whitney, Tony Petronelli, Angie Carlino, Steve Wainwright, Morris Goldings, John Dennis, Dave Moretti, Lou Filippo, Jo Jo Guerra, Richard Steele, Duane Ford, Lou D'Amico, Prentiss Byrd, Bert Sugar, William Gildea, Dave Kindred, Thom Greer, Jose Sulaiman, Steve Farhood, Royce Feour, J.D. Brown, Pit Perron, Thomas Wicky, and Rich Rose.
Ollie Dunlap, who interviewed with me at his Toronto home, offered his photo collection, as well as hospitality.
Angie Carlino, who doubled as photographer for Hagler and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, was kind enough to excavate a storage bin for his vintage shots.
Access to ESPN's vast interview archives was generous and instrumental. From Worldwide Leader transcripts came words of Leonard, Hagler, Bob Arum, Juanita Wilkinson, Roger Leonard, Kenny Leonard, Getha Leonard, Sandra Leonard, James Anderson, Barry Tompkins, Larry Merchant, Angelo Dundee, Jose Pepe Correa, Janks Morton, Dave Jacobs, Russell Peltz, Peter DeVeber, Flip Homansky, Marc Ratner, Kenny Bayless, Teddy Atlas, Al Bernstein, Lee Samuels, William Nack, Ron Borges, Wally Matthews, and Mike Katz.