The Big Fight (29 page)

Being Sugar Ray came with a cost, as always. The women I attracted were as devious as I was. Two examples stand out. I'm sure there are many others I've conveniently chosen to forget.

One was in Alaska, of all places, where Kenny and I went to make a personal appearance. I did tons of meet and greets in those days. It didn't take much time and the money was good.

After business came pleasure. My brother and I scored some of the best blow of our lives and shared it with this incredibly sexy woman. After we gave her a clean new T-shirt to wear, she went into the bathroom to try it on. When she returned, the T-shirt was all she had on. The action got hot and heavy until everyone went to sleep. A few hours later, when he and I woke up, the woman and the coke were gone. She was a pro and we never saw her again. On another occasion, I got up in the morning at the Alexis Park Resort Hotel in Vegas after spending the night with a girl I met at a club and discovered that my money and jewelry, estimated at about thirty-five thousand dollars, were missing. I informed hotel security, who wanted to make a full report to the police. Eager to avoid the publicity, I asked them not to bother, although the robbery somehow made it into the papers. What happens in Vegas, apparently, does not always stay in Vegas. I did learn another important lesson. From then on, whenever I had a girl, I stashed valuables in the hotel safe or under the mattress.

At home in Maryland, my judgment could be just as cloudy. One time, and I still can't believe I did this, I took the Mercedes I had purchased for Juanita and drove to another girl's apartment. Juanita says she never told little Ray about my flings but he knew. On nights I was out of town, when he heard her sobbing, he would slip under the covers to comfort her.

“Mommy, it's going to be okay,” he said.

Juanita often took the kids and stayed with her mom for a day or two in nearby Largo. Yet she would always return, granting me another chance. She loved me. That was her mistake.

 

 

 

I
went back to work as a commentator for HBO and CBS. With me gone for good, Hagler and Hearns took over the sport. Hagler put away Mustafa Hamsho in three rounds while Hearns knocked out Fred Hutchings, also in three, setting the stage for their much-anticipated fight on April 15, 1985, at Caesars, the WBA, WBC, and IBF middleweight crowns on the line. I did the color for HBO and was as blown away as everyone by the ferocity of exchanges between the two, Hagler winning by a TKO in round three. Never was I as grateful to be on the other side of the ropes.

In March 1986, however, I felt the exact opposite. I was back in Vegas to see Hagler defend his crown against John “the Beast” Mugabi. I went as a fan, not as a broadcaster, sitting in the second row with Ollie Dunlap and Michael J. Fox, the actor. During the fourth or fifth round, it became apparent that Mugabi, a slugger, was giving Hagler a much tougher test than anyone had predicted. I recalled again what Duran said to me after his loss to Hagler: “You box him, you beat him.” Mugabi was boxing him.

I couldn't help it. Right then and there, I began to see myself in the ring.

“Michael, I can beat this guy,” I said.

“Sure, you can, Ray,” he said. “Do you want another beer?”

I didn't have time to argue. From that moment on, I rooted for Hagler harder than I ever rooted for anyone. “Jab, jab, move,” I shouted. “You can do it, Marvin.” The last thing I wanted was for John Mugabi to do the job for me.

Hagler connected with a series of solid shots in the sixth, but could not put him away. The longer the fight went on, the more concerned I became. Finally, in round eleven, Hagler sent Mugabi to the deck. He didn't get up and that was smart of him. I was the happiest man in the arena, next to Hagler.

When I returned to the hotel, I phoned Mike Trainer. It was about two A.M. on the East Coast. He didn't sound thrilled to hear from me.

“Mike, I'm ready to take on Hagler,” I said.

“Ray, have you been drinking?” Mike said.

“Yes,” I conceded, “but that's not the point. I can beat him.”

Mike figured I was out of my mind and once the alcohol wore off I'd drop the idea, just as I did the other times. He figured wrong. I called him back the next day, sober but determined. Mike knew that sound in my voice. He knew this was different.

I thought about the risks I would be taking, to my health and my legacy, and how returning to the ring would affect my wife and kids. The boxer is hardly the only person who must sacrifice. So must his loved ones, and my family had sacrificed plenty. Yet the more thinking I did, the more I was convinced that I was doing the right thing. I never should have retired the second time, after defeating Kevin Howard. I did it because I was frustrated with my performance in Worcester, when in actuality it was quite respectable after being away from the ring for twenty-seven months. If I had just waited a few days, maybe a few hours, I would have come to my senses and told Mike to make my next match. Once I made the announcement, I couldn't take it back.

I thought about a conversation I had with Hagler only two months before at the formal opening of Jameson's, a restaurant in Bethesda that Mike was a part-owner of. Hagler, who came with his wife, Bertha, and I got to know each other that evening, both of us getting drunk, sharing stories about our families and our fights.

For all our differences, and there were many, Hagler and I discovered that we had a lot in common, neither needing a thing from the other, which was rare in my life, and his, too, probably. Under different circumstances, if there had not been a natural tension between the two of us, each vying to be the man in our sport, he and I could have been good friends. There are truths about us, about how we tick, that only another fighter can ever begin to understand. I could relate to the lack of motivation he was expressing, having felt the same ambivalence when I trained for Finch and Stafford. People have speculated that I lured Hagler into being vulnerable on purpose, to soften him up, because I had already decided to come out of retirement. That wasn't the case, although once I did choose to return, I remembered what a relaxed Hagler had told me and looked for ways to use this information to my advantage. Who could blame me?

The question then became: How do I tell the world I am returning to the ring? A press conference? No. I was above that. I was still the champ, in my mind, and bringing the media together would have brought my stock down, making me appear desperate. Instead, I had to almost make it seem as if Hagler were the one pursuing me. If the public was opposed to my return—and, yes, what people thought of me still mattered too much for my own good—or if Hagler did not bite, I would be able to move on without sacrificing my pride.

My chance came on May 1 when James Brown, a sportscaster for one of the D.C. TV stations, asked me during a casual lunch in town and posed the same question I'd been asked a million times in the two years since the Kevin Howard bout: Would I ever consider fighting again? In the past, I'd deliver a quick and definitive no, and the interviewer would proceed to other issues. Not this time. I told J.B., as Brown was affectionately called, I wasn't interested in a comeback, but I'd be open to one fight, and one fight only, against Hagler. I meant exactly what I said. I was also savvy enough to know I'd stand a better chance of gaining the public's approval if they believed it was for one night. They had invested too much in the notion that I was different from the other fighters, in knowing my limitations. I was no different, as they would find out over and over.

The next morning, the phone did not stop ringing. The reporters wanted to determine how serious I was, and so did Pat Petronelli, Hagler's manager, who, from what I can recall, told Mike he was confident that his man would accept the challenge, although Hagler was away on a cruise in the Caribbean and couldn't be reached. Mike wasn't pleased that I did the interview, convinced that I weakened our bargaining position. He had already put out feelers to the Hagler camp before I went public. I didn't care. I wanted the word out to move the process forward as rapidly as possible. My job was done. Now it was up to Hagler.

A lot of people thought I was crazy for challenging him, including members of my own family.

“Who is your tune-up?” Roger asked.

“Hagler,” I said.

“No, who is your
tune-up
?” he persisted.

“Hagler,” I repeated.

The reason for not arranging a tune-up was not only to make the public feel better about my decision. I also thought I would have trouble getting motivated for a lesser opponent, just as I couldn't get fired up for Kevin Howard. As for the fact that Ali, after being in exile for three and a half years, had two tune-ups (Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena) before his first bout with Frazier, the comparison was not valid. Ali was interested in a career. I was interested in a night.

No one in my inner circle tried to talk me out of taking on Hagler, and why would they? After assuming that the days of large paychecks were gone forever, here, out of nowhere, was a chance for one more. So what if I got whipped? The money would be in the bank either way. It required someone on the outside who didn't stand to profit to question my sanity.

Someone like Howard Cosell. I was walking in the Hamptons one afternoon when I heard his distinctive voice.

“Suuugggar Ray, what are you doing in my neighborhood?” Howard asked.

Howard invited me to his house for lunch and I was happy to accept. The gratitude I felt toward him went back more than a decade. I never lost sight of how important a role he played in my becoming Sugar Ray.

By this stage of his life, Howard, in his late sixties, was finished with boxing, at least at the professional level. The last straw was the mismatch in November 1982 between the champ, Larry Holmes, and Randall “Tex” Cobb. Howard was angry that the referee, Steve Crosson, had allowed the bout to continue. In 1985, he came out with his controversial book
I Never Played the Game,
in which, among other things, he blasted his former colleagues on
Monday Night Football.

We exchanged some small talk before he got serious.

“Son,” he said, “I don't want you to get hurt.”

I respected Howard for being blunt. It was one of the most endearing things about him. But I could be blunt, too.

“Howard,” I said, “I believe I can win this fight. They told you not to write your book, but you still wrote it and you still believe in every single word of it. Right?”

He paused. I never saw Howard Cosell pause for that long.

“I guess you got me, son,” he said.

While I waited for Hagler to make his decision, I didn't waste any time. If I was to be at my best, and it would take my best to outduel a man whose last loss was in March 1976,
before
I competed in the Olympics, I'd have to train harder and smarter. In the four years since beating Finch I had fought just once, for a total of twenty-six minutes and thirty-two seconds.

A few weeks later, Hagler weighed in. During an appearance on
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,
Hagler said he was going to “sit back and lick [his] chops. And just wait.” I couldn't believe it. Who did he think he was?

The wait for Hagler to decide went on . . . and on . . . and on. I found out how others, including Hagler, must have felt when I took forever to make my intentions known after the eye surgery.

What was taking him so long? The advantages of fighting me could not be any clearer:

In addition to the money, which figured to be in the $10 million range, Hagler would get his opportunity to shut up the one person responsible for the boxing world not affording him the respect he felt he deserved. He couldn't stand the fact that I kept stealing the show, with high-profile triumphs against Duran and Hearns, while he was virtually ignored when he won title bouts over Alan Minter, Fulgencio Obelmejias, and Vito Antuofermo. In his mind, I even seized too much of the spotlight at my farewell announcement in Baltimore. All anybody could talk about the next day was how smart I was to retire.

It was not till my second retirement, in 1984, and his victory over Hearns a year later, that Hagler became the man, and now here I was trying to steal the show once more. No wonder he milked the situation for as long as he could. I would have done the same thing. Having everyone breathlessly await your every word is intoxicating, and the moment you make a decision, the attention shifts to someone else.

Day after day the speculation went on: Will he accept my challenge? Will he take on Hearns again instead? Or will he retire?

I told the reporters I would not wait forever. I was bluffing but had to say something. I began to think he might take the rematch with Tommy, which had been discussed by the two camps prior to my offer, and force me to wait for him as he had waited for me.

At last, on July 2, Hagler held a press conference. The news did not appear encouraging.

“I'm very seriously thinking about retirement from the boxing game,” Hagler said. “And what I feel is that I'm going to need a little bit more time to determine what my future will be.”

A little more time, Marvin?
I felt like saying.
You've had two full months!
Of course, given my track record, I was hardly one to talk.

He went on to indicate that money was not everything and that his family, which included his wife and their five children, was his primary consideration. I could definitely relate, recalling how many times Juanita was hoping I would quit and the disappointment she went through every time I decided to keep fighting. He suggested that I take on “the Mugabis or the Hearnses or the [Donald] Currys” before challenging him.