The Big Fight (18 page)

A few days before the fight, Juanita and I were taking a postdinner walk in downtown Montreal with Angelo and his wife, Helen, when we bumped into the Duran party.

Away from the cameras, perhaps I would see a composed and civil Duran, and perhaps we could both revel in the ridiculous amount of money we were due to collect for forty-five minutes, or less, of work. There must be a decent human being in there somewhere, right?

Perhaps not. There was nothing civil about him. I saw the same Duran from before, the madman.

He cursed me again and demonstrated, by a series of obscene gestures, where he planned to strike me in the fight. Why wait any longer? I was ready to rumble right there on the street—no referee, no gloves, no handlers, no rules, nothing. I wanted the immediate gratification of knocking him to the ground. Luckily for Duran, I pulled myself together.

At the weigh-in, Duran was more crass than before, though it hardly seemed possible. He gestured to Juanita that after he was done fucking with me in the ring, he was going to fuck
her.
She was outraged. I somehow kept my emotions in check again. My chance to make him pay was coming soon enough.

During those final days, I saw Duran everywhere.

I saw him when I was jogging before dawn. I saw him when I was pounding my sparring partners who wore T-shirts with his name printed on the front. I saw him when I was watching comedies on TV. I even saw him in my dreams. Never did another fighter penetrate my psychic space as much as Duran, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Each time I saw him, he was where he belonged, on the floor, and after dissecting hours of film, I knew precisely how to put him there: I would box him to death. That was the best way to get inside Duran's head. The previous fighters who adopted a similar strategy were not able to make it work because they didn't possess my fast hands and feet. Yet Edwin Viruet forced Duran to go the distance twice. Edwin Viruet!

I would shift from side to side, exploiting a five-inch reach advantage to score with the left jab, and not allow Duran to lure me inside with his assortment of dirty tricks—he utilized his head as a weapon, shoving it into an enemy's chest—or establish any rhythm with his combinations. He was the only boxer I ever saw who used his head to hit the speed bag. I would steer clear of the ropes, where others were most vulnerable against his lunging attacks, and aim for the body—to
go downstairs,
as it's called. The media, though, was off base when it described the contest as another classic duel between the slugger and the boxer. Duran was a better boxer than he was given credit for, slipping punches almost as well as Benitez. I would not make the same mistake.

As fight night edged closer, in late May and early June, my body gradually rounded into shape. Every morning at five, wearing combat boots, I jogged five miles around nearby Greenbelt Park, navigating a steep hill that we affectionately labeled Mount Motherfuck. Listening on the transistor to my favorite D.C. radio station, I was at peace, singing along, until, after a mile or two, I didn't catch a single word or note. My mind was elsewhere, on Duran. I couldn't wait to shut him up.

When I first started jogging, Roger and Kenny beat me to the finish line and wouldn't let me hear the end of it. As my legs grew stronger, I picked up the pace and flew by both of them. It was my turn to brag.

I conquered Mount Motherfuck. The
real
motherfucker would be next.

After breakfast, wonderfully prepared by my father, who I placed on the payroll, and a shower, I took tap-dancing lessons. I can't recall what I was thinking at the time, but I must have figured that dancing would give me a little more flexibility in the ring. Around noon, I began my workouts in the basement of the Sheraton in New Carrollton, a few miles from Palmer Park. Roughly two hundred spectators paying one dollar apiece cheered me on as I did some sparring, hit the bags, and jumped rope. I hung out afterward to sign autographs.

By then, I had stopped having sex with Juanita. I needed to save every ounce of energy for Duran.

There was a great deal more, no doubt, to preparing for a match than working out in the gym and watching film, and that's where things got out of control once we arrived in Montreal in early June. I take full responsibility.

A training camp must function as a single, cohesive unit, each member assigned a specific task, willing to sacrifice individual goals for the benefit of the only individual who mattered, the fighter, the one who would, presumably, keep employing them as long as the wins, and dollars, kept coming. That was not the case in this camp, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time.

The problem was one I was quite familiar with: I couldn't say no. I couldn't tell one of Kenny's friends or Roger's friends or my friends that they couldn't join us in Montreal. After all, this would be the biggest fight of my life. I might hesitate for a moment, but it was only to watch my brothers squirm.

Before I knew it, there were too many people—several dozen, at least—with too many selfish agendas. Normally, we got by at camp with three cars and a minivan. In Montreal, we rented a bus. It was like a rock tour.

Janks Morton was in charge. He tried to insulate me from the petty disputes, but the stories trickled back to me, as they always do in a small, enclosed environment, and interfered with my preparation for Duran. The last thing I needed was to hear about one of my boys asking to borrow a car or a few extra bucks. They couldn't resist the nightlife an international city such as Montreal offered. It was almost impossible to get some of them, and that included Roger and Kenny, to cover the two-hour shifts guarding my hotel suite between ten P.M. and two A.M. The clubs were still open. They were thinking about dancing instead of Duran.

 

 

 

T
he night of June 20, billed by the French Canadians as
“Le Face-à-Face Historique,”
was here at last.

I went through my last-minute preparations in the dressing room, staring, as usual, into the mirror, searching for signs of the performance to come.

What I saw was troubling. My eyes looked vacant, disinterested. I tried to ignore it. I had no choice.

I watched none of the undercard, even though Roger was fighting. Fortunately, he managed to record a split ten-round decision over Clyde Gray. In another prelim, Gaetan Hart, a lightweight, took on Cleveland Denny, which would have received no attention except for the fact that Denny went into convulsions from the shots he took. Weeks later, Cleveland Denny was dead.

 

 

 

A
t around 10:45 P.M., while the boys escorted me toward the ring, it was clear that my eyes had told the truth again. All I could think about was how I wished that I were anywhere else in the world other than Olympic Stadium. I felt like grabbing the microphone and saying to the 46,000-plus spectators:

“Listen, would you all terribly mind if you went home and we tried this thing tomorrow or maybe next week—same time, same place?”

It was not as if I didn't want to teach this son of a bitch a lesson for how he treated me and my wife. It was just that, at that very moment, everything felt wrong, and I knew I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I believe in biorhythms, and mine were extremely low that night. Some days, you get up on the wrong side of the bed and don't feel sharp. The difference between other jobs and what I did for a living is that if a fighter is off his game, even by a slight margin, he will lose and probably get hurt. If the fight had been the next night, or any other night, I would have kicked Duran's butt. But it wasn't.

When I climbed under the ropes, the sense of impending doom became stronger. I heard a strange sound from the crowd that I hadn't heard in my entire career, except from a group of racists at the Eklund fight in Boston. I heard boos.

How could the fans be booing me, Sugar Ray Leonard, in of all places, Montreal, where I won the gold? Was it something I said, or didn't say? Not knowing how to respond, I extended my hands, as if to assure them,
Hey, I'm right here. I'm ready to fight.

The boos did not stop.

I wish I could say that I was unfazed by the cold reception, that I was so focused on beating Duran I could block out everything else, as the truly disciplined athletes are able to do. I couldn't. I was disturbed, confused, the fans getting inside my head just as Duran did, the fight no doubt lost before it had started. It was written that Duran had become a fan favorite for speaking a sentence or two of French whenever he appeared in public. He also wore “Bonjour, Montreal” on a T-shirt during workouts and kept up the PR campaign till the end, his supporters unfurling a flag of Quebec as Duran entered the ring. That explanation has never made sense to me, though it wouldn't have hurt if I had spoken a few words of French.

So why did they boo? I'm not sure. Perhaps some of the Canadian fans, echoing my detractors in the States, felt I had become rich and famous too soon. Or perhaps there was a tendency to cheer for the underdog, which Duran was despite his résumé and reputation. The official line in Vegas was 3-2. Whatever the motivation, it added an obstacle I didn't need to deal with in these tense moments. I had enough to deal with already.

I gazed at Duran in his corner. He was glaring at me as if he were ready to bite my head off the way he bit into the steaks he enjoyed so much. Joe Frazier said it best when he was asked who Duran reminded him of.

“Charles Manson,” he said.

What was Duran's problem? Here we were, the eyes of the world upon us, raking in millions for one night of work, and he was . . . glaring?

Duran should be smiling, I thought, at how fate can turn dramatically for two poor kids, one from Palmer Park, the other from Panama, who both worked hard at their trade and would never have to work again if they so desired. Only later did it occur to me that Duran knew exactly what he was doing and that I should've been glaring at him. Instead, overwhelmed by the atmosphere, I stared at the large screen above the ring. I peered into the crowd, searching for comforting faces. I was bothered by the cold, damp air. My attention was everywhere—except where it needed to be.

Week after week, I thought about hurting Duran. Now, with the devil himself finally in my sights, I was lost.

 

 

 

T
he first round set the pace for the rest of the evening. Duran was the same as always, thrusting forward, almost recklessly, ready to die in the ring. Soon came the first hard punch, and I realized that “Hands of Stone” was no exaggeration. Each well-timed shot felt like a jackhammer being drilled into my skull, my teeth knocked back so hard I had to push them into place with my glove between rounds. I found myself in the trap I was determined to avoid, the ropes, Duran landing lefts and rights to the head and body, impressing the judges and fans.

The second round was worse. Duran caught me with a hook and right hand, and though I tried to indicate otherwise, it definitely did some damage. I may have acted my way out of trouble against Geraldo, but a seasoned pro such as Duran wasn't easily fooled. The seconds couldn't go by fast enough as he tried to end the fight right then. But I survived the round, and to show Duran, the judges, and the crowd that I was not deterred, I rose from my stool a full twenty seconds before the bell rang for round three. Looking back, it wasn't the brightest idea. I could have used the extra rest.

As dangerous as Duran was, however, his best wasn't going to put me away. I, too, was ready to die in the ring, and that, unfortunately, was where I went wrong. I fought Duran toe-to-toe instead of exploiting my superior boxing skills.

Why was I so stupid? It was because I wanted to hurt Duran the way he hurt me and Juanita with his constant insults. Gaining revenge became almost as important as gaining victory, and I refused to change my tactics no matter what Angelo might have told me in the corner. I was too caught up in my own anger and pride to listen to the man who had saved Ali more than once, and could have saved me. I never gave him the chance.

As the fight wore on, it was becoming clear that Arcel had perhaps gotten inside the head of Carlos Padilla, the same ref who worked the Benitez fight. He had expressed concerns that Padilla, known for breaking up clinches between fighters prematurely, wouldn't allow Duran to fight where he was most at home, in the trenches. In any case, Padilla compensated too much in the opposite direction. For as little as he broke us up, he might as well have taken a seat in the front row.

Still, I couldn't blame Padilla. He wasn't the one who kept retreating straight back toward the ropes instead of sliding to the right as Angelo had suggested, providing Duran enough room to advance a step or two and unload at a stationary target. If I had fought a more intelligent fight, nothing Padilla did, or did not do, would have made a difference. Yet I hung in there, and by the sixth round I was giving it to Duran as hard as he was giving it to me. If he was overlooked as a boxer, the same went for me as a slugger. Ask Andy Price. Ask Davey Boy Green. Ask Roberto Duran.

I was back in the fight, and there was still a long way to go. In the next several rounds I scored repeatedly while keeping Duran in the center of the ring. I also heard a more familiar sound—applause. Fans, whatever their rooting interest may be before a bout starts, appreciate a hard-fought contest, which both Duran and I were providing. With the courage I was displaying, they could see that I was not the pampered millionaire I was made out to be. The action, though, was too much for Juanita. She fainted into the arms of my sister Sharon during the eighth round. Juanita wasn't used to seeing her husband get his face bashed in.

Despite my renewed determination, I didn't come close to hurting Duran, which I needed to do to halt the momentum he had built in the first four rounds. I missed my target over and over, and when I did land a strong combination or two, he retaliated immediately with an effective flurry of his own. No one rocked me as hard in the body as he did. If anything, the hits he took made him counter with greater fury, as if he actually
enjoyed
the pain. Time, too, was becoming a factor as the bell sounded for round eleven. Unless I seized control of the fight, the decision would go to Duran and he would be the new champ. Yet, if there was any impulse to reverse course and box my way to the finish line, it was too late. I chose the wrong strategy and I was stuck with it.