HANDS

OF STONE

The Life and Legend of Roberto Duran

Christian Giudice

MILO BOOKS LTD


Worldwide Praise for HANDS OF STONE

“In the age of the tabloid we know more about many of our sporting heroes than
we ever cared to know, but from the time he blasted his way into our
consciousness with a punch to the scrotum almost four decades ago, Roberto
Duran had been an elusive and enigmatic figure. With Hands of Stone, Christian
Giudice has separated the wheat from the chaff in the most illuminating
deconstruction of a mythic ring legend since John Lardner went toe-to-toe with
the ghost of Stanley Ketchel.”
George Kimball, author of Four Kings

“My favourite book.”

Ricky Hatton, former three-time world champion

“Christian Giudice has succeeded brilliantly in separating the myth from the
legend and produced a book that serves only to enhance further the reputation of
an already astonishing fighter...Hands of Stone is the dazzling account of a
breathtaking fighter and a remarkable man.”
The Independent

“A cracking book.”
Daily Star

“The first – and definitive – account of Duran’s extraordinary life both in and
out of the ring.”
Boxing Digest

“Duran’s 120-bout career is vividly chronicled.”

The Independent On Sunday

“Compelling.”
The Sun

“A must for all fight fans.”

Liverpool Echo
 “A gripping biography. Every page will keep readers enthralled.”
Dublin Evening Herald

“A profoundly detailed reconstruction of Duran’s world.”

Gerald Early, Belles Lettres, A Literary Review

“What a story!”
Scotland on Sunday

“If you buy only one boxing book this year, Hands of Stone should be it.”
Boxing Monthly
 This electronic edition published in 2011

Copyright © Christian Giudice

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of
this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means
without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without
a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

MILO BOOKS LTD

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I am not God but something very similar.
Roberto Duran
To my mother – who faced down a deadly disease – and beat it.

To my father, a fighter, a man, my hero – who once threw a perfect left hook on
Schellenger Ave. (between Atlantic and Pacific Aves.) on a summer night in
Wildwood. Thank you for protecting us all of these years. I wrote this book for
you, Pop.
 Contents
Prologue
1 Hunger
2 Fighter
3 Papa Eleta
4 Streetfighting Man
5 Two Old Men
6 The Scot
7 The Left Hook
8 Revenge
9 Hands of Stone
10 “Like A Man With No Heart”
11 Esteban and the Witch Doctors
12 “The Monster’s Loose”
13 El Macho
14 “No Peleo”
15 King of the Bars
16 Return of the King
17 Redemption
18 Tommy Gun
19 “I’m Duran”
20 The Never-Ending Comeback
21 The Last Song
Notes
Acknowledgments
Roberto Duran’s Fight Record
 Prologue

“We mustn’t be afraid of violence. Hatred is an element of struggle;

relentless hatred of the enemy that impels us over and beyond the
natural limitations of man and transforms us into effective, violent,
selective and cold-blooded machines.”
Che Guevara

IT IS 26 NOVEMBER 1980 and Roberto Duran Samaniego stands naked in the

middle of the ring. His arms sulk by his sides. He feels weak. His body has
betrayed him, as he has betrayed himself. His eyes, the twin beacons of his
demonic aura, search for the exit.
Always defiant, tonight he bleeds compromise. It is like watching a Ferrari
sputtering to the closest gas station. With sixteen seconds remaining in the eighth
round in the Louisiana Superdome, his mocking, face-pulling, showboating
challenger, Sugar Ray Leonard, has affronted his dignity and stripped him of his
macho. And so he breaks the contract that he signed the day he stepped in the
boxing ring: To punch till the end. Duran has always boxed like he cursed, in
quick, immediate thrusts; now the roughest, toughest, most feared fighter in the
world raises his left hand and walks away.
“No quiero pelear con el payaso,” says Duran. I do not want to fight with this
clown. He repeats the words, but a ringside broadcaster claims to hear him say
“no más,” the Spanish for “no more.” The phrase will live in sporting infamy.
After a second, Leonard’s brother Roger yells, “He quit on you Ray.” Leonard
runs over and jumps on the ringpost. The fight is done.
People would later dub the man a coward, a fake, a phony. They said laziness
and gluttony had precipitated his downfall; fame had accelerated it.
The first part of Duran’s career, his life, was over. Act Two was about to
begin.
EVEN BEFORE I went to Panama, I knew one thing for sure about Roberto
Duran: The man was not a quitter. I didn’t understand the contradictions of the
no más fight but also didn’t buy into the hype. When I told people that I was
headed to his homeland, they joked about the infamous moment when he left the
ring seven rounds early. “Tell him ‘no más’ for me,” they said.
With a face that reminded some of Che Guevara, others of Charles Manson,
Duran’s feral stare never left me. His look was compelling, his image enigmatic,
his fighting skills unsurpassed. In the ring, Duran came forward and intimidated;
he didn’t know any other way. Those who stood up to him paid the price in
blood and hurt; those who ran were pursued and hunted down. Sportswriters
devoured stories of his wild childhood, told of him swimming across bays with a
bag of mangoes held in his mouth to feed his family. His eyes were “dark coals
of fire” and anything that he sneered at “froze” in terror. But who was this man?
Was he really pure evil lodged in the body of a 135-pound prince, or was it all an
act?
Even when his ability to intimidate had waned, the Doo-ran, Doo-ran cheers
still echoed around sold-out arenas. Even when he was only a quarter of his
former self, a sad, overweight Elvis making his last call, he was still Duran.
Watching those final years of futility it became clear that legends never die, they
just age. So when the thought of finding and telling the Duran story crept into
my head, I couldn’t resist. With the purpose of finding this man, I decided to
leave my job, friends and family and head to Panama City. I had a smattering of
Spanish, a laptop and some old Duran fights on tape. I didn’t even know if he
spoke English, or how well.
I was six years old on that November night in New Orleans in 1980. I wanted
to know about the young Duran, the kid whose face came to be plastered all over
Panama City, and how someone who had nothing became a symbol for hope in a
Third World country that suffered every day. I wanted to see how the mere
glimpse of Duran’s smile could make a difference. Few people have the
influence on a country as Duran does in Panama and the only way I would
understand it was to follow him there. The only way I could comprehend the
strength, the character of this man was to eat patacones and empanadas with his
people, sip coconut juice straight from the fruit, dance salsa, and listen to the
music of Osvaldo Ayala, Los Rabanes or Sandra y Sammy. I had to go to
Guarare and the gyms in Chorrillo to let the legend seep into my blood amid the
100-degree heat. All his old managers, promoters, friends and schoolteachers
would have something to say and I had to absorb it.
 Finding him was another story. Somehow in Panama everyone knows Duran
personally. He is everyone’s buen amigo. So when a taxi dropped me off at
Duran’s home in the El Cangrejo neighborhood the night I arrived, I knew I was
onto him. Duran never showed that night, but I knew deep down that I would
find him and learn the secrets that many in Panama claimed already to know.
“That’s the reason that many people respect him because he never forget where
he come from,” said Chavo, his oldest son. “He’s humble and always told me,
‘Remember I’m from El Chorrillo, a poor neighborhood, so you have to be
humble.’ The people respect that. He’s always helping the poor people,
especially with the kids. People like that.” In a country of less than three million
souls where many live on less than a dollar a day, that counts.
The boxing scene in Panama is a story in itself, a gallery of memorable,
glittering characters. Every gym tells a tale. One couldn’t go into the Papi
Mendez Gym without seeing Celso Chavez Sr. in a corner cajoling a fighter
while his son Celso Jr. wrapped the hands of another prospect. Look closely and
there was the prince of Panamanian boxing, two-time lightweight champ Ismael
“El Tigre” Laguna, playing dominoes with friends on a corner, or light-flyweight
champ Roberto Vasquez knocking an opponent senseless in an El Maranon Gym.
Dozens of boxing lifers greet people at the entrance to Panama’s most popular
gym Jesus Master Gomez in Barraza, while Yeyo “El Mafia” Cortez and
Franklin Bedoya reminisce at the Pedro Alcazar Gym in Curundu. Young
fighters mimic two-time world champ Hilario Zapata’s squatting defensive style
or Eusebio Pedroza’s brilliance off the ropes. They listen closely to caustic
woman trainer Maria Toto as she barks instructions in a gym in San Miguelito,
while others hone their skills in Panama Al Brown Gym in “the cradle of
champions,” Colon. All the while, the sounds of “yab, yab, yab” filter through
the heat. And no one in Panama would even know about boxing if it weren’t for
the voice of the isthmus, Lo Mejor de Boxeo’s Juan Carlos Tapia, a man who
spits quick-witted Tapiaisms at a feverish rate. Most of the twenty-three (at the
time of writing) living world champs meet for reunions at local cards, while
boxing wannabes throw combinations in the corners at amateur bouts. Sit down
at fight night, grab a local Atlas beer or a bucket of ice with a bottle of Seco-
Herrano, a chorizo meat kabob, and prepare for bedlam. You never know what
might happen.
“I am Duran,” the man used to say after fights, as if the statement spoke for
itself. Pure and simple, nothing more or less, just the exclamation that there was
not another human on this earth like him. In the ring, there wasn’t. With his
blend of skill and ferocity, the greased back hair and sharp beard, the man they
called Cholo (for his mixed Indian heritage) had the best boxers of his
generation against the ropes. Duran in full flow was a curious but riveting
combination of in-your-face chaos and relentless beauty. As a person he lived
just as freely, without caution.
Roberto Duran knows about pain. He knows what it’s like to make an
opponent succumb before stepping foot in the ring. He knows, inside in his
corazon, his heart, what it’s like to watch a man feel fear. For he did that with a
look, one brazen, cocksure glance that had those same men trembling as they
taped their hands or worked up a pre-fight sweat. He did it often, and with
aplomb, stole men’s hearts without trying. That was Duran.
Roberto Duran knows about torture. He knows what it’s like to crowd a man,
stick him in the ropes, rake his eyes with his beard, jumble his senses with a
short hook, bust him below the belt, thumb him, break his will with a running
right hand. He knows what it’s like to make a man cringe with every punch,
break him down so thoroughly so that he would never return the same again.
Some never recovered, and they saw that face, that beard, those eyes, and were
reminded of the man every time they threw a punch, feinted, jabbed. It was
Duran, that face, that look.
Roberto Duran knows about struggle. He knows what it’s like to spend his
childhood finding ways to provide for his mother. He knows about living with
nothing – and still reaching in his pocket to give to others. He knows about
poverty, disease, sorrow – and how to dissolve tears with a smile. That’s Roberto
Duran.
Roberto Duran knows about ecstasy. He knows the feeling of beating a man,
an idea, a creation, a nation, to believe there wasn’t another human on earth who
could challenge him. He knows what it’s like to hang through the ropes with
tears rushing down, and hear an entire arena sing an anthem in his honor. He
knows what it’s like to have an entire country on his back and feel their weight
each time he throws a punch. He knows what it’s like to deleteriously fall, rise
again, and return home to thousands calling his name. He knows what it’s like to
face a monster, a fear, and vanquish it. That was Duran.
Roberto Duran has felt pain. And he knows about sorrow. He is a man who
has felt every human emotion to excess, and expressed his reactions for the
world to see. Not since and maybe never again will there be a boxer quite like
him. Duran was an entertainer, a brute, a fighter, a lover, a loyal friend, an artist.
In his prime he took the top fighters in the world and stripped them of their
pride.
But the one time in New Orleans in 1980, he lost his. Unfortunately for many
people, that’s all that counts.
Christian Giudice

1

Hunger

Blessed be the Lord my rock/Who trains
my hands for war/And my fingers for
battle
Psalm 144:1

DONA CEFERINA GARCIA was looking for her husband – and she had a good
idea where to find him. Rumors in the tough barrio of El Chorrillo had him
drinking in a bar with another woman. That was bad enough, but their teenage
daughter was due to give birth any hour, and Ceferina’s services would be
required to deliver the baby. It was hardly the best moment for the new child’s
grandfather to disappear with some puta, some whore. Ceferina, eyes blazing,
mouth set and fists clenched, was on the warpath.
The bar stood next to a concrete apartment block known as La Casa de
Piedra, the House of Stone, on North 27th Street; Apartment A, Room 96, to be
precise, was where her daughter Clara lived and was already going into labor.
Ceferina entered the bar with fists clenched and there was her husband, Jose
“Chavelo” Samaniego, in the corner with a local girl. Ceferina took in the scene
with a look of fury. Many women in Panama turned their heads from the Latin
games their husbands played but she was not one of them. Both poverty and
inclination had made her a fighter; she had once been thrown in jail for punching
the local mayor.
With one fast right hand, she left Chavelo lying on the sticky bar floor and
headed back to her daughter.
Ceferina would bequeath her power to her grandson, born just hours later
when her daughter Clara pushed eight-pound Roberto Duran Samaniego into her
hands on June 16, 1951. They rushed the bloody boy to the Santo Tomas
Hospital in a taxicab. “He was born in a stone house, and fell right in my
mother’s arms at six o’clock in the afternoon,” said Clara years later, squatting to
illustrate the trajectory of the baby. She named him Roberto after his uncle, the
brother of his father Margarito.
Clara was young, not much more than a girl, but the child was already her
fourth. Motherhood started early in Panama. She came not from Chorrillo, a
poor area of downtown Panama City, but from Guarare, a small town in the Los
Santos province in the interior. It has a central square, a couple of bars, a church,
a gas station, a hardware store, a small downtown area with banks and markets,
and a field which once held an old bullring. A symbolic guitar greets visitors at
the town’s entrance and Guarare is chiefly known for its Feria de la Mejorana, a
folk music festival every September that attracts the country’s best dance groups
and waves of visitors. The highlight is the simple, classy La Pajarita dance.
Women wear pollera, a dress made of linen and lace decorated by flowers, while
men in their best suits drink Seco, a pungent liquor produced in the town of
Herrera.
Young, curvaceous and willing, the teenage Clara made men look her way.
Though not conventionally beautiful, her allure filtered through her eyes. The
young Clara flaunted her flowing brown hair and full figure. Her inviting gaze
comforted, made men feel wanted. That was her magic. Instead of prodding,
Clara caressed; instead of rushing, she glided. She was tender, soft, gentle and
generous with the little she had. People who knew her as a teenage mother
remember a sweet girl striving for a better life for her children. “She was very
pretty and very elegant,” said her sister Mireya. “Many men were interested in
her but she had bad luck. She had many children, but had to cope with much.”
With one exception, all of her men were strong Latin types who took her to
bed then hit the road. First, she had a son to a Puerto Rican and named him
Domingo, though everyone called him “Toti.” His father did not stick around.
“He abandoned me in 1950 because my mother had some problems with him,”
said Toti. “He wanted to take me but my mother did not agree to this, so I did not
see him again.” After her Puerto Rican lover left, Clara had a brief fling with a
Filipino and bore him a daughter, Marina.
In Panama, marriage was no big deal. Many unions, especially among the
poor, were consensual rather than contractual; indeed, a marriage ceremony
often marked the culmination of a life together rather than the start of one, and
served as a mark of economic success. Sometimes a priest might encourage it for
an elderly invalid, as a prerequisite for receiving the rite of the anointing of the
sick. In rural areas, where the campesinos’ livelihood was reasonably secure and
the population stable, children suffered little social stigma if their parents were
not legally married. If parents split up, the paternal grandparents sometimes took
in both mother and children, or a woman might return to her mother’s or her
parents’ household, leaving behind her children so that she could work. There
were many female-headed families, particularly in cities and among the poor.
Legal marriage tended to be the rule only among the more prosperous farmers,
cattle ranchers, the urban middle class and the elite.
The southernmost state of Central America, Panama was for 300 years a part
of the Spanish Empire. A land bridge between the continents of North and South
America, its status as a vital crossroads would eventually be underscored by two
massive transport projects: the Panama Railroad and the Panama Canal. The
railroad, linking north with south, was forged through a purgatory of disease and
death; legend has it that one man died for every railroad tie on the track. Then, in
1903, the state declared independence from neighboring Colombia and granted
rights to the United States to build and administer indefinitely a canal connecting
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Canal opened in 1914.
A treaty provided the Americans, or Zonians, with rights to both sides of the
Canal, a one-sided deal that would cause tension between both parties for much
of the twentieth century. Locals living or working in the Zone could be
prosecuted under American law and faced the possibility of extradition to the
States for trial. From the outset, the Americans turned the area into their own
private quarters in which Panamanians, whose Caribbean-black contingent
composed most of the Zone workers, were mere houseguests. The Americans
created their own country club atmosphere in the Zone with perfectly coiffed
lawns, golf courses, comfortable housing, and bowling alleys.
Margarito Duran Sanchez was a US Army cook, born in Arizona, the second
son of Mexican parents, Diego and Esther. At nineteen, he was stationed in the
Canal Zone and worked in Mi Pueblito, an area of small villages just north of
Chorrillo that housed Zone workers. There he befriended Clara’s brother Moises.
“On my way to work I used to walk past that area,” Clara remembered, “and that
is where I met Roberto’s father. He used to cook in the villages.” Moises thought
highly of the Mexican and would often give him a lift over unpaved roads to
Guarare to see Clara. According to Garcia, Clara escaped from her Filipino
boyfriend late one night with Margarito and they became lovers. “She left with
him in the middle of the night,” said Moises Samaniego. “He came to get her
and she was never allowed to see the Filipino man again.”
Margarito was a large man who could look after himself if pushed, though it
wasn’t his nature to look for trouble. “I don’t remember him getting in many
fights but he could handle himself,” said Moises. “He hit down two guys at once
in a fight. He was a very big man.”
 The lovers soon had a son, Alcibiades. He died at two years old from what
was reported as an apparent heart attack, though Clara claims it was due to
medical negligence. “My older son died when [doctors] let him fall from the
cradle,” said Clara. “He was seriously hurt and when I picked him up he was
already dead.” According to Roberto, the brother he never knew died after an
operation went wrong. “He was born sick,” said Duran. “My mother took care of
him because he was born with a heart condition. That was the child my mom
loved the most, because his heart was damaged. He slept on the bed and I slept
on the floor because my mother loved him the most. My mother took him to the
hospital. If it had been now, they would have paid my mom millions because the
doctors performed the operation wrongly and killed my little brother, the other
Duran. My brother had to undergo a heart examination but he was operated on at
the Children’s Hospital and the operation was not done properly. My brother
died there. If it had not happened so many years ago, but now, my mother would
have been able to start a claim.”
Before Alcibiades died, the union of Clara and Margarito also produced little
Roberto, and at first the family lived in their small apartment in Chorrillo, a low-
income fishing town west of Panama City, bordering the Canal Zone, and one of
the country’s poorest slums. Almost all of the homes were made of wood.
Chorrillo was a place to pass through and not look back.
Like the others, Margarito would not stay to see his surviving son grow. He
cut out without a word when his tour of duty in Panama ended. Some say the
only thing he left his son was his punch. “His father left us and went to live with
another woman,” said Clara. “Roberto was a year and five months old. His father
was not interested in learning about Roberto. So I worked while Duran grew up.
Until he was twelve years old we used to go to work together.”
Duran Senior shipped out to California and then Germany and would go on to
serve with an infantry battalion in Vietnam. He married a woman from
Guatemala and later settled in Flagstaff, Arizona. There was no apology and
little regret, just a man trying to make peace with the decisions he’d made in his
immature youth. While some ageing fathers use the remaining years of their life
to reconstruct all the missed birthdays and graduations, Margarito didn’t want to
rewind anymore. It just so happened that the kid he left abandoned turned out to
be one of the greatest boxers ever.
“I didn’t know what he was going to be,” said Margarito from his Flagstaff
home years later. “I supported him as well as I could. Clara was fifteen at the
time, and when we separated … she went on to have ten or twelve kids,
something like that. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t have any regrets. When you are
in the Army, you just have to go. No ifs, ands or buts, I just couldn’t come back.
My family couldn’t go but I could. I could only bring Roberto with me if I got
his rights and adopted him. She didn’t want to give him to me. What could I do?
We weren’t married. The thing was, I wanted to take him back to the States, but
she wouldn’t give him to me. In Germany, I adopted my daughter … I adopted
all my children. If I had gotten Roberto’s permission, it would have been okay.
“Was the life in the States better than the one he had? Better, well, no. Maybe
he wouldn’t have become a fighter … He looked exactly like my younger
brother Roberto. That’s who I named him after. I baptized him and recognized
him. I gave him everything I could. I recognized him in the hospital. That’s what
a father is supposed to do.” The words came out as if Margarito needed to
absolve himself of guilt.
Clara was left to bring up her children with no money and no prospects. She
would rely on her own extended family, in particular Ceferina, her mother and
her rock. Mireya recalled entering the apartment to the sight of her mother breast
feeding Clara’s children. She took care of the family until she passed years later.
“Do you know what she used to do?” a smiling Mireya said. “Like after having
Toti, after giving birth she would leave them in my mother’s care in the house of
stone. Since there was no milk, my mother would put one to one of her nipples,
and the other one on the other, so that they would suckle. Because my mother
had also just had a baby, my brother Joaquin.”
An individual without kin was adrift in Panama. Family ties were the surest
defense against a hostile and uncertain world and blood loyalty was ingrained.
This loyalty often outweighed that given to a spouse; indeed, a man frequently
gave priority to his parents or siblings over his wife. Relatives relied on each
other for help throughout life. Grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins faithfully
gathered to mark birthdays and holidays together. Married children visited their
parents frequently, even daily. In some small remote villages and in some
classes, such as the elite, generations of intermarriage meant almost everyone
was related in some way. Co-residence was the basis for the most enduring ties
an individual formed.
Clara remained bitter about her abandonment. “When I met him in Las Vegas
[years later] he said he used to send letters with someone, but I was never given
any of his letters,” she said, “and he never helped me with Roberto. Never.” Her
sister Mireya added, “He left and never came back again. That is the reason why
Roberto never wanted to learn anything about his papa. He resented that he had
left him.”
Roberto would grow up knowing only what relatives told him, of how his
parents met at Mi Pueblito. “My father was a soldier and all the soldiers slept in
a church,” he said. “There was a private military club and my father worked
there as a cook and when they had a day off, he would go to the bar. When I was
about two or three, my mom took me there. That was when she told me about
him. She was strange … after that she didn’t know about him anymore. He left
and we wouldn’t see him again. My mom later told me that he wanted to take me
but she refused.”
The father did leave his son at least one thing: his Mexican complexion, the
light skin tone contrasting with the jet-black hair of a mixed-breed cholo. Indeed
“Cholo” or “Cholito” would become young Roberto’s nickname. The fierce, kill-
or-be-killed boxing style of most Mexican fighters was one Duran would also
adopt, unlike the more cultured style of most Panamanian boxers.
The young family suffered. Clara could often be seen with her beloved and
barefoot Roberto by her side, whether in her hometown of Guarare or on North
27th and 29th streets in Chorrillo. She worked odd jobs and found various
apartments when she wasn’t staying with her relatives. When available, rice,
beans and meat made a typical meal. “Clara and Roberto would come here on
weekends all the time,” said an old friend, Lesbia Diaz, from Guarare. “Clara
even lived here for a couple years. Roberto was always running without shoes,
even riding horses around town.”
Three years after Margarito left, Clara hooked up with a young man from
Guarare named Victorino Vargas. The seventeen-year-old Vargas played guitar
for a band and they met at a ball. All of the passion lost on the man that broke
her heart now returned. The union was not without problems and Vargas failed to
hold down a steady job, but he would father five children with Clara: girls
Anabelle, Isabelle and Justiniano and boys Victor and Armando, or “Pototo.” In
all she would have nine children but only Roberto would carry the Duran
surname.
Whenever Vargas returned home, Roberto would be there waiting for him
with a big grin and a cry of “Victorino!” Like other children his age, he thrilled
to King Kong, Mexican adventure movies and cartoons. He and Toti loved
Cantinflas movies, cowboys like Roy Rogers and acted out moves they learned
from the popular television luchadores, or Mexican masked wrestlers, like the
famous El Santo (The Saint), El Vampiro and the Blue Demon, who became
icons not just for their ring exploits but for their appearances in schlocky but
popular movies and comic books. The boys also aped the style of popular
American singers like Elvis Presley and Frankie Lymon. On Sundays, they could
be seen at the Iglesia de Don Bosco or the Iglesia de las Mercadas, where young
Roberto lit candles to Jesus de Nazareth and the Virgen de Carmen. “We always
were in the streets, in an area which was filled with sailors,” said Toti, “and they
used to listen to Elvis Presley and other singers like him. So Roberto would start
to dance, hearing these songs.”
Childhood was short for little Roberto.Vargas may have been the man of the
house, but almost from the time he could work Roberto needed no one to look
after him. Often a regular at El Parque Santa Ana, Duran also danced for coins in
the streets and shined shoes for pennies in a neighborhood bar. “When Duran
was five years old, he used to be in the street a lot and all the money he would
make he would take to his mother,” said Vargas. “He was good with his mother.
They were living there with his mother, him and his brother, and at the age of
eight he started to box.
“I never mistreated Roberto, as a stepfather I never hit him. I do not like to
abuse children who are not mine. He never even misbehaved with me in a way
he would deserve to be mistreated. I used to advise him not to do the wrong
things, but he always used to be out there with Chaflan. We had a very humble
room, but we lived there. He would leave the house and be away for a couple of
days, and then he would return with food for his mother.”
Though Toti was older, Roberto often acted like a guardian to his younger
siblings. “When Isabelle was born, Roberto asked me whether the baby had any
clothes,” said Clara. “So he went to see a woman who sang, Ana Maria de
Panama was her name, and she gave him a tub filled with clothes for Isabelle.
He was a very curious child and he went over all these things and chose a
couple, including a hat, which he brought to the hospital so that we could come
out with the baby nicely dressed. After I had my daughters, Roberto was a father
for them and for us all.”
At the age of seven, he told his mother, “Don’t worry mamma. You’ll see.
When I am older, I will help you.” He remembered, “At the time there were
three children in my family and I didn’t have anything to eat. I had to go out and
clean shoes. Me and my other brother had to go out and sell newspapers while
my sister Marina stayed home. That’s what we had to do to survive.” Christmas
and New Year were the worst; the children would go to bed early because there
was not even enough money to buy candy.
From selling the newspaper La Estrella de Panama to cleaning shoes, to
cleaning dishes in restaurants, to painting jobs, to dancing and singing in night
clubs, Duran skipped childhood: he had no choice. The hunger would never
leave him. “He grew up fast,” said Toti. “I would stand up for him when he was
younger, but soon he could do it on his own.”

THE MOST important man in Robertito’s life, at least until his late teens, was
neither his father nor his stepfather but a smiling urban gypsy in colorful, ragged
clothes called Candido Natalio Diaz. Known throughout Panama City as
“Chaflan,” which loosely translates as “punchy,” he was an eccentric, a short,
well-built, wide-eyed negrito in a sailor’s cap, exactly the type of poor, shiftless
Panamanian that the snooty rabiblancos, the light-skinned social elite, despised.
“I used to live in Chorrillo in a house made of stone, near a bar called La
Almenecer,” said Duran. “I used to polish shoes and a person came in and started
to dance. There were dozens of people peeking through the spaces from the
wooden walls in the cantina. He would make all of these funny faces. When he
was finished dancing, he would collect money.”
Chaflan was a kind of Fagin to the children of the slums, finding them work,
teaching them to survive. He watched out for them, though many adults
questioned his motives and some even hinted that his interest in young boys was
suspicious. He took a special liking to Roberto, taking him to dance on street
corners or in nightclubs for money. He often arranged fights or wrestling
matches between the youngsters, setting up a makeshift ring in some backyards
to draw pennies from onlookers – then bought them lunch.
Duran hooked up with Chaflan. He was already a restless child, always on the
move. “He hardly had any friends,” said Clara. “Only Chaflan was his friend. He
put him to sell the newspaper and to clean shoes. Chaflan used to tell him,
‘Roberto, from the money you make working you have to give some to your
mother.’” He always did.
Roberto was something of a prankster and liked to play jokes. When he was
ten years old, he was watching a TV that his grandmother had won in a raffle.
Trying to grab the seat from her grandson, she offered young Roberto five cents
to chop some wood. “I knew her trick to get the seat,” said Duran to a reporter.
“So I said to her, ‘The program is very good, here is ten cents, you chop the
wood!’”
His warmth could quickly turn to fire, however. Anyone who disrespected
Chaflan or any of Duran’s friends would take a punch, thrown with such venom
that they would be left gasping. And wherever Chaflan went, the children
followed, with Duran leading the pack. To Duran, the man without a home was
heroic. He refused to abandon them when others had. Chaflan couldn’t replace
Duran’s father, but he showed him he could accomplish anything he put his mind
to.
On first sight, Chaflan resembled the many other throwaways roaming
Panama City trying to get by without taking the same risks that everyone else
had. Nobody had ever seen him with a job or any stability. But nobody ever saw
him dealing with drugs or alcohol. He wasn’t a bum. Despite his lifestyle, he was
not necessarily a bad influence. Nobody recalled seeing him drunk and many
people knew him by name. He had no home but a ready grin, and would share
whatever food he had with his posse of children. To people who had made it
without having to stick out their hand for a nickel, Chaflan was a hopeless, lazy
figure whose charming nature belied inner weaknesses. To Duran, the man
making funny faces was more than a street clown; he was the one man who
wouldn’t abandon him. “If Duran was selling shoes today, his only friend would
be Chaflan,” read a newspaper headline at the height of the boxer’s fame.
Like all clowns, there was a sad side to Chaflan. Panamanian journalist Emilio
Sinclair called him “the man whose heart was broken by deception,” and said he
“cried in silence in the dark and stink alleys of the poor neighborhood.” He
could often be found sleeping in dumpsters or parks. He and young Roberto
would be seen together before dawn, waiting as the sun lifted to get a heap of the
morning papers to sell. Yet both were always smiling and they worked as a team.
“I remember getting up at five a.m., or sleeping under a tree in the park to get
the papers,” said Duran. “We would leave with Chaflan and would wake up in a
newspaper factory. We were seven or eight kids who wouldn’t go back home and
would stay with Chaflan. There was a little window, they would give us a ticket,
the first one would get the papers and would sell the papers fast. But most of the
time the older kids got them first. Since we were so young, we couldn’t keep up
with the bigger kids and we couldn’t sell the papers fast enough.
“There was a kid who could not talk and was very hunched over. Chaflan
would put him to sell papers. Chaflan would stand in a busy street. I would stand
where few people came and the hunched boy would be put in the street with no
pedestrians by a building where lots of people lived,” said Duran.
“Each had their one song. Roberto would sing, ‘La Critica-a-a!’ Chaflan
would shout, ‘La Estrella de Panama!’ The hunched boy who couldn’t talk
would scream, and people would wake at 6 a.m. to buy a paper just to make him
stop. The boys would sleep in the market, in the stands where they sold fruits
and vegetables, or under a tree in the park. Their money went to their mothers.”
It was survival of the fittest. “There were many criminals around there, and
we were small children standing in the line to get the newspapers,” said Toti.
“We would get hit in the head and our newspapers would get stolen. I was older
and used to get very angry and hit with real fury. I had to defend my brother and
watch they would not take away our newspapers. We would sometimes be left
crying and without the papers. But Roberto was born with that gift that it seems
God gave him. He had very heavy hands and would fight strongly.”
“My mother, who was very strict, always said there were two ways a person
could go in that neighborhood – bad or good,” said Chorrillo neighbor Nora
Mendoza. “Roberto was a good kid, very humble. When my mother fed him
rice, he was so hungry he would eat the concolon [crust] at the bottom of the
pan. He often went to Central Avenue with Chaflan, who was very influential at
the time and good for Duran.” Central Avenue was the city’s main shopping
district, a place where money could be made from the tourists and office workers
of Panama City.
Young Roberto was a constant in the Mendoza household. With his charming
smile and cute looks, he often traveled from house to house to fill his empty
stomach. It was impossible to turn the young child away, and many families
would snatch him from their doorstep straight to the dinner table. Nora Mendoza
remembered El Chorrillo as a place where “most of the men worked at the Canal
and didn’t have much money, so they built their houses out of wood. Roberto
lived in La Casa de Piedra, which was named that because it was made of
concrete. Roberto used to come over and my mother would feed him. Everyone
was poor in El Chorrillo, so he would come over and eat whatever we gave him.
He’d always want more but we didn’t have enough for him. I didn’t like Roberto
very much because I was just a young girl. But he was always at our home.”
When not invited to eat at a neighbor’s home, Roberto would go behind La
Casa de Piedra to see what Nina, a local woman who had turned her home into a
small restaurant, had cooking. Nina’s became a haven for Duran and friends.
There was also a small market in the town of Caledonia where they could order
their favorite dishes. A Number Three was rice with beans and meat, a Number
Four was a combo platter of rice, meat, beans and macaroni, and a Number Five
was everything and a bowl of soup. Almost fifty years later, Duran would still
remember the numbers of those orders, the smell of the food leaving an indelible
impression on a ravenous boy.
He seemed to thrive on din and chaos. “The country was too quiet, too much
peace,” recalled Duran. “I was born in the middle of noise. I remember my
mother’s bedroom, it had a high door where the buses would go by. Next door
there was a canteen, and we were used to the noises there, the buses, the quarrels
at the canteen. When I would go to the country, where the people were so quiet, I
used to feel badly.”
Everywhere in Panama someone has an anecdote about Roberto, many of
them about the deprivation of his youth. “We all came up fighting,” said fellow
boxer and childhood friend Alfonso “Peppermint” Frazer. “It helped make us
men. We all had it tough, but we didn’t have it like Duran. He would finish our
meals after we left the table and come up and take a piece of bread. That’s how
bad he had it.”
Chaflan taught him how to fill his belly. Maybe he would have made it
without the gypsy’s lessons, but many believe he would eventually have fallen in
and out of bars, living day to day. Duran learned from Chaflan that he didn’t
have to live like that.
“They would put up a show together to collect some reales, which they would
later share,” said Nestor Quinones, Duran’s his first boxing trainer. “That is why,
since age six, he would seldom be in Chorrillo; most of the time he would be
hanging out all over in the city. There were five children in all going around with
Chaflan, Duran and four more. Duran told me himself that they would not return
to their homes after the shows. They would stay at Casco Viejo [the old
compound] to buy newspapers to sell. Once they had finished they would get
together again and put on their shows with Chaflan.”
However, some people kept a close watch on Chaflan. They said his interest in
the children was unhealthy, that he sexually molested them, and that he should
be locked up. “I never saw Chaflan do anything they accused him of,” said
Duran. “Chaflan would do all sorts of pirouettes, tricks with his hands and all the
ten- and twelve-year-old kids would follow him. So one day he said that if we
would exercise with him he would feed us lunch. So we would do what he told
us and walk on our hands, exercise and do flips in the air. Afterwards, he would
make us clean off in the ocean. Then, all covered in sand, he would put us to
wrestle because at that time a lot of wrestlers would come to Panama.” Before
boxing became a passion, Duran desired to be like the popular Mexican
wrestlers. Chaflan helped funnel that passion and asked for nothing in return.
Young Roberto also skirted back and forth between Panama City and Guarare.
It wasn’t unusual to see the little child rolled up on a catre, a canvas-like
covering, on the ground of one of his extended family’s small homes. He was
always on the go, playing soccer and baseball or learning to punch under the
tutelage of his uncle Socrates “El Chinon” Garcia. Socrates’ brother Jairo later
claimed, “It was my brother who gave him that powerful punch. He was the man
who showed him how to box.”
Roberto and his sister Marina went to elementary school in Guarare for a
while, until Clara moved back with them to the capital when Roberto was in
second grade. For a while the family lived in El Mangote, on the Pacific side of
the Isthmus. Not yet “Manos de Piedra,” Duran often came running home to the
call of “patas de abejon,” because he was so thin. According to Toti, “The abejon
is a wasp, which though being fat has very thin legs.”
“He was quite a terrible boy,” joked Mireya, Roberto’s aunt, who was close to
him in age. “He misbehaved always. When he was a little boy, he used to climb
trees and liked to swing on the branches once he was up there. This is what I
remember, because we were of a similar age. My mother had a sister called
Angela Garcia, who lived in the Nuevo Arraijan. She had two dogs, one called
Biuty and the other Capitan. Do you want to know what Roberto did? Starting at
Chorrillo, he walked all the way with Toti, his brother. They crossed on foot the
Puente de las Americas and went to Nueva Real, which is very, very far, and
came to where my mother was because they did not have any money. They went
on foot. These two dogs attacked Roberto and Toti and if my mother had not got
out at that moment, the dogs would have killed them.”
Eventually Roberto would immerse himself in boxing and see less of Chaflan
and the gang. Unlike his protégé, the sage would never prosper. The mores that
he taught Duran, he couldn’t apply to his own life and it was the nature of such a
friendship to wither. Chaflan had plateaued in life and although Duran loved
him, he didn’t need him anymore. The young fighter grew out of Chaflan.
“When I started boxing, Chaflan would come over to the El Maranon Gym,”
recalled Duran. “One day I was training and he came over and he tapped my
back. When I turned around they took a picture of us. I have the picture in my
house as a remembrance of him. After that I didn’t see him much. I wouldn’t
follow him anymore.”

 2

Fighter

“His mother used to tell me to go to the gym and see if he was there,
and to hit him if I found him there. He would ask me what I was doing
there, to which I would answer that I had come to see him training. I
never brought him back home. I once told his mother that if the boy
likes boxing, maybe tomorrow he would be famous.”
Victorino Vargas, Duran’s stepfather

AT TIMES HE would sit in his room, stare out the window and dream. When
will I be a boxer? He would peek in his brother’s boxing bag and see himself
draped in the fabulous colors. The boots would be too big and the pants would
droop on his skinny frame, but when he wore them he felt like a champion. I will
wear this sparkling uniform one day when I become a boxer. It wasn’t the power
and speed of the punches that enticed him, not the quick footwork and fancy
moves, nor even the cheers of the crowd and the hope of acclaim. It was the
outfit.
“One day my brother Domingo told me he was going down to the gym,” he
remembered. “Everybody would go over and practice there around noon. At that
time there were these little blue bags and the only thing that could fit into the
bags was shirt and shorts, nothing else. I liked the way the uniforms looked.”
Just as he had trailed Chaflan through the dusty streets of the city, so he tagged
along with Toti to the Gimnasio Nacional (later Neco de la Guardia) in front of
the National Guard headquarters on Avenue A. He knew that boxers could get
paid for beating up people in the ring, and money meant the difference between
eating and not.
“I was carrying the little bag and we’re walking to the gym, which is very
close to where we live,” said Duran. “When I was carrying the bag people would
ask me if I was a boxer, and I said, ‘No I’m not.’ My brother told me to sit
outside and wait for him. There was a banister and I sat there and waited. When
he came out of the dressing room, he was wearing his boxing shorts and his
boxing shoes. I watched him practice that day.”
It was a tough gym, packed with former and future national champions. “A
boxer named Adolfo Osses told my brother to help him spar,” said Duran. “My
brother put on headgear, gloves and a jockstrap. I marveled at my brother’s
uniform. When he finished sparring, I said, ‘Toti, how can I get the same gear
that you are wearing?’”
“If you become a boxer they give you all that,” replied Toti.
“And that’s how I became a boxer.”
Toti could punch but he wasn’t cut out for the ring. “I knocked Adolfo Osses
down because I hit hard,” said Toti. “He was a professional boxer and I was an
amateur. [But] I had a problem with my nose and my nose used to bleed when I
would jump rope; that is why I was not able to fight. Duran also had the same
problem, but he got rid of that later. I did not. When I knocked Osses down,
Duran got enthusiastic about boxing. Duran was only a boy at that time but he
had such a strong hand that even Osses was not able to stand his blows.
Grandma [Ceferina Garcia] used to hit hard. In my family we all have a heavy
hand.”
Barely eight years old, Roberto had to spar with the experienced boxers like
all the others. “That is what boxing consists of; you may fear no one,” said Toti.
“I started fighting first and I taught Roberto how to fight. I did not like to see my
brother get hit, so I showed him how to fight. This started many years ago, when
he was seven or eight.”
It wasn’t long before Roberto, already obsessed with wrestling and running,
was noticed by Sammy Medina, a former national bantamweight and
featherweight champion who had once killed an opponent in the ring. “One day
a little kid with a shoeshine box walked into the Neco de La Guardia
gymnasium,” remembered Medina. “He put on a pair of gloves and started to
box with a boy smaller than he was. I was impressed by the way he moved his
head to dodge the blows and I called him over. He said he wanted to be a boxer. I
began to teach him and I had him for a couple of years, boxing amateur about
three times.”
It was hard to train when you didn’t even have enough food to eat. “The only
problem we both had was poverty,” said Toti. “We would sometimes go to train
and get hungry but had no money for food, so we used to go to sell newspapers
to make some money. And the following day we had to start running really early,
but we were not strong enough. I remember we once started running, thinking it
was five o’clock, but we had made a mistake. It was one o’clock in the morning
and the police stopped us. We were coming from the bridge towards this area
and the policemen could not believe we had mistaken the hour. Roberto liked
boxing so much that he would sometimes skip sleeping and go training on the
beach in Chorrillo.”
Toti and other jobbing boxers made a mere fifty cents a contest. Even
established boxers received only a pittance and he soon gave up the sport.
“[Ismael] Laguna and all the others used to fight for very small sums in order to
get known and start fighting abroad,” he said. “In Panama, fighting was not
worthwhile.”
Roberto loved it, however, and soon had his first amateur bout under Medina’s
tutelage. The details have been lost to history but he could have been no more
than nine years old, and the result was controversial. “He lost his first fight,”
said Medina, “but the spectators protested the decision because he had even
knocked down his opponent.” Toti concurred. “He lost his first fight because the
arbiter was the boxer’s father. Roberto knocked him down three times but the
fight was given to the other one.”
His mother, who remembered her sister Gladys initiating her son into boxing,
was the last to know of her son’s new pursuit. “One night a person came to see
me and told me Roberto was going to fight that night in El Maranon Stadium,”
said Clara. “I then said, ‘Oh, my God. This is not what I want for him.’ But when
I realized this was the sport he liked, I let him stay there. I used to make
promises to the Virgen del Carmen but I also cried a lot. This was not what I
wanted for him. He was a vivacious kid. I remember when he had a fight at the
Maranon. Roberto was winning but when the referee decided to give the fight to
his rival, Roberto gave the referee a terrible punch.”
Roberto began to leave Chaflan and the old crowd behind and to adopt a
discipline beyond anything he had learned in random street brawls. Unlike the
streets, boxing demanded dedication, precision and self-sacrifice and was an
unforgiving, often brutal master. Battered faces and bruised minds were the lot
of ex-boxers, even good ones, and most ended their careers as poor as they had
started. The veteran Medina was still intending to box himself and couldn’t
divide his time equally between his own career and training youngsters. Instead,
Roberto found a trainer who would become like family. In boxing, relationships
come apart like worn Velcro. Trainers once treated like family become
dispensable and loyalty in the corner counts for nothing in the end. Everything in
boxing, from the hiring and firing of friends to the hoarding of that last penny, is
a transaction and the old adage “It’s just business” is as common as a pair of
wraps in the fight game. Wads of bills displace family; empty promises dissolve
friendships.
But when Duran met Nestor “Plomo” Quinones, a former amateur boxer, a
longtime bond was forged. In his signature driver’s cap, Plomo (which translates
as “lead” or “bullet,” a relic of his days as a pistol-toting detective) was
becoming one of Panama’s best trainers. A man with a warm handshake,
expressive eyes and a slow, cautious manner, he filled space …
Some individuals can signify emotion through their reactions without saying a
word. By reading Plomo’s eyes it is easy to see satisfaction when they dart
approvingly eyeing money, or disappointment when they sag with his cheeks
when the proposition doesn’t fit with him. In both instances, the translations are
succinct even to the foreigner. Plomo no longer forges ahead. The man enters
space as milk fills a glass, slow and with caution. Plomo slithers around the gym
like a lazy snake, his life, health and money have dissolved in accordance with
Duran’s. With his cap, cocked in a manner that makes him simultaneously
appear old, innocuous and totally exasperated by life, Plomo greets people with a
nod of the head from across the room.
“There were fights between clubs from Chorrillo, Maranon, and I think I was
fighting out of the Club Cincuentenario,” recalled Duran. “One day I go to the
Maranon Gym and I see Plomo and tell him I want him to be my trainer because
at the time I didn’t have anyone to train me. Plomo wouldn’t pay any attention to
me because I was just a kid. He weighed me with clothing and all and I was
ninety-five pounds.”
Quinones did not want to take on Duran right away, not only because of his
age but also because he questioned whether one so young would stick it out.
“Medina was the first to have Duran,” said Plomo. “Duran was eight years old
then. He would receive about one dollar for each fight while Medina would keep
the remaining eight or ten dollars. It was a business for him. Duran did not like
this situation so he decided he did not want to be trained by Medina anymore
and he searched for me. He was nine years old and even though I did not request
him to fight then, because he was too young, I could see he had very good
attributes. He was a daring fighter and this was a very good characteristic. The
rest may be taught but the fighter has to be daring. He cannot be afraid.
“When he was a child, he loved to fight and I saw him fighting a couple of
times. He was already working as a shoeshine boy. I saw him fighting against
another shoeshine boy, older than him, but Duran hit him really hard and
knocked him down. I then told him he should fight as a boxer and not in the
streets anymore; for during that fight I realized that Duran could be a
professional boxer. He had the character to be one.”
Plomo had watched scores of little ruffians come and go, arriving full of
bravado but unable to stomach the rigors of endless training in the sweltering
blood buckets they called gyms in Panama. “Duran came to the gym and asked
me if I could be his trainer. He just wouldn’t leave until I gave him an answer,”
said Plomo. “I told him, ‘You’re just a kid, but if you demonstrate your boxing
skills I will teach you. Then he threw a punch with force and I approved him. I
told him to come the next day with a bathing suit and sneakers. He would come
every day with the same clothes and shoes.”
With uncommon perseverance, Duran would finally get his uniform, a
moment that neither the fighter nor his brother would forget. “Roberto did not
have any boxing clothes and I had been given some as a present,” said Toti. “So
I gave him the shoes and the shorts, for I was not going to fight. Roberto had
started fighting as an amateur boxer and during these fights the people throw
coins to the ringside for both the fighters. Roberto started winning these fights.”
Roberto was an unusual child even among the mixed bag that Plomo coached.
“After training, Duran’s day was only beginning,” said Plomo. “Duran would go
to the streets after training and then to a local park called Santa Ana, where he
shined shoes to gain seven cents to bring home and give to his mom. I had
several boys that also fought very well, even one who was really good, but he
would always cry when hit. When I saw Duran, I realized he resisted being hit
and so I decided to leave all the others and devote my time just to him. Duran
really had the quality needed.”
That defiant attitude would pay dividends for both men. Plomo took Duran
and began to shape him. He began to focus his defiance and funnel his boundless
energy.

HAVING STARTED out in the sport in 1956 with his first pupil, Zapatito
Molina, Plomo was to witness the original Panamanian boxing boom. The sport
first took root there around 1910 when the Canal was finished. Black laborers
from Barbados, Jamaica and other islands stayed on and fought each other and
visiting U.S. seamen for small purses and side bets in bars and theaters. Though
the country’s first world champion, a gangling, flamboyantly homosexual
bantamweight called Al Brown, reigned back in the Twenties, he fought most of
his contests in the United Sates and Europe, and the sport did not take off in
Panama until after the Second World War, in particular when the U.S. increased
its military presence in the contentious Canal Zone. In the mid-Fifties, Plomo
started working with young prospects, often around the ages of nine or ten.
“There were many places in Maranon, not boxing gyms but places where
people were starting to box,” Plomo recalled. “In the yards of houses, people
would set up rings and hold boxing matches. They would set down wooden
planks where the canvas would be, and then wrap around the ropes. Then people
would come and would stage boxing matches. It wasn’t a very big ring, but it
was big enough to hold matches. Back in Panama during those times there were
many quality boxers. They started fighting in the streets and didn’t have to go
get a gun or anything. They would fight with their hands and whoever won the
fight, that’s where the fight ended, nothing more. They wouldn’t hold any
grudges.”
The Maranon Gym, later to be renamed Pascual Cielo Gonzalez, was built in
the gallery of an old train station. At the time, athletes had no place to train, so
when the station closed, the gallery space was converted and the local mayor
agreed to let it be used for boxing. A vast, metal-roofed, concrete building,
painted light blue, the gym had a basketball court marked inside and a ring in the
centre, barely illuminated by shafts of light from window holes. A variety of
spectators invariably gathered there, from local workers in typical white, open-
necked shirts to a myriad of children staving off boredom by watching prospects
hit the speed bag.
Neco de La Guardia in Chorrillo had previously been the best gym around,
while nearly two hours from the capital, in the notorious slums of Colon, were
two other boxing gyms: Teofilo Al Brown, named after the country’s first
champion, and a pokey hole called the Box of Matches, so named because young
boxers crowded in there so tightly that they had to rub shoulders to punch the
bags. Greats like Luis Ibarra, Ismael Laguna and Eusebio Pedroza would train
there. “It was such a small gym and so many trainers worked with fighters
there,” said Plomo. “It was always full and no matter how many people were
there, everybody trained together.”
By the age of twelve, Duran was a painter and handyman for Don Jose
Manuel Gomez, a hotelier he affectionately called “Viejo.” His mother already
worked at the Roosevelt Hotel, which was popular with American soldiers and
their wives, washing and ironing and cleaning rooms, and she introduced her
sons to Gomez, a kindly man who taught Duran about dedication to work and
basic moral values. Duran would often refer to him as a father figure. It wasn’t
unusual for the family to sleep in a room at the hotel.
“Jose Manuel Gomez was in love with my mother, but she never paid any
attention to him,” said Duran. “He gave my older brother Toti a job in the hotel
… it had like sixty or seventy rooms. Later on he gave me a job there too. I
would make three dollars a week. We used to sleep in the maintenance room. He
taught me to paint, to polish furniture and bed springs. We used to put a covering
on the roof to protect us from the rain. We painted the hotel inside out. We used
to use brooms to reach the parts that we couldn’t reach. I used to go to school
sometimes in the mornings or afternoons and sometimes in the night. This man
taught me to work and never to steal, that it was better to ask than steal. My
brother and I never stole, never smoked and never tried drugs.”
Despite the friendliness of the Americans at the Roosevelt, trouble was in the
air. On January 9, 1964, in what became known as the Day of the Martyrs, anti-
U.S. rioting broke out in the Canal Zone. It began when a U.S. flag was torn
down during conflict between Panamanian students and Zonians over the right
of the Panamanian flag to be flown alongside it. The U.S. Army intervened after
Canal Zone police were overwhelmed, and after three days of fighting, about
twenty-two Panamanians and four U.S. citizens were dead.
“Clara always lived in extreme poverty,” said her sister Mireya. “When it was
January the Ninth, the students entered the area of the Canal. My sister had
moved to a place called Caledonia. She had a room there, next to an ice factory. I
had gone there for a visit. There was a terrible gunfire there and we all had to get
inside and under the bed – my brother Joaquin, Toti, Roberto, Marina and I. That
is where my sister was with her poverty.”
Schooling came third behind hustling for a living and boxing. Although it has
been documented that Duran stayed in school until he was fourteen years old,
some family members don’t recall him getting past the third grade. He had no
inclination to study and was expelled from several schools. “He got up to fourth
grade,” insisted Clara. “Something was happening with the teacher. She did not
like Roberto, and Roberto, who was a quiet child, did not like her bothering him.
Roberto used to say: ‘Mama, I will later take a private teacher at home.’”
According to Toti, however, Roberto tried to hit one male teacher, then tried to
kiss a female replacement. Duran himself recalled his brief education in Sports
Illustrated. “I remember in school one day, a kid came over to hit me and I
moved. We exchanged positions, so his back was toward the steps. I hit him and
he fell backward down the steps. And they threw me out.”
Duran’s natural grammar was the argot of the streets. But the streets were a
dangerous place. Though he steered clear of the late-night haunts he would
frequent later in his career, and stayed with his tight circle of friends, he would
occasionally go to bars or the annual Mejorana Festival in Guarare. He found his
share of trouble, often because he would look out for his friends, and his loyalty
never wavered.
The fire inside him ignited one evening at La Pollera bar. Aged just fifteen, he
had stayed too late into the hours when corruption and addiction prevailed. As
was customary in Panama, the fiesta would end only when the final customer
left. Drinkers of Panama had plenty of choice, from the national beers of Atlas,
Soberana and Balboa, to the local liquor Seco-Herrerano, mixed with coke or
orange juice. Someone would be delegated to fetch the bottle of liquor and the
ubiquitous plastic container of ice, and the runs back to the bar never seemed to
stop. Within minutes at dances or rodeos, the ice would melt into a fusion of
water and liquor, sending someone back to fetch another flimsy bucket. Parties
in the country often started late and ended the next morning, when everyone was
sated. Wallflowers were not permitted. Everyone danced merengue, salsa, or
cumbia, no matter what size or shape; everyone knew how to move.
This particular night, slow in dying down, reeked of violence and bloodshot
eyes. By its end, five men would be in a Panama City jail cell connected to the
St Tomas Hospital, recovering from an assortment of scrapes, broken noses and
bruises. It was obvious they had been in a fight and had been caught severely
unprepared. But what, asked the police, had happened?
The young Duran was charming, athletic and strikingly handsome, with a
clean-cut and straight black hair. He had first frequented La Pollera with his
mother, and had learned to dance there. Early this evening, he met a pretty girl,
and was taking her home when he ran into a truculent group of men. It must
have seemed easy to them: Beat up the kid, get the girl and keep partying. “Five
guys, about six or seven years older than me, start to follow us,” recalled Duran.
“They come around me. They said they were going to take my girl and I wasn’t
going to do anything about it. I told them that they weren’t going to take anyone.
‘She’s going home,’ I said. One of them comes toward me and, boom, I hit him
and he’s knocked out. Now, there were four of them.
“It’s rainy and I tell her to go to the side, hit another one, and now there are
two knocked out and three left. Three jumped me, and I hit one of them and I
break my pinky finger and I can’t close it. Two left, and I tell them, ‘Now it’s
fair.’ Both come on me and I grab them and I knock one out. I’ve already
knocked out four and I say to the guy, ‘It’s only me and you left.’”
Those are six words that no one in their right mind would want to hear from
the mouth of Roberto Duran. He would utter such threats in the ring countless
times, but there are rules between the ropes. There were none that evening. The
lone survivor considered the fact that, at fifteen, the kid was merely five-feet-
five inches tall and barely over 100 pounds. And if he couldn’t knock him out,
he could cut him up.
“The guy reaches behind him and he has a knife,” said Duran. “The guy cuts
me from behind and I was like, damn, he cut me. I turn and knock him out.
There were five guys knocked out and the police come and I take off running
because I’m a minor at that time. And I heard someone shouting, ‘Run away
Duran, if not they will put you in jail.’ I couldn’t escape from them because the
guy ran better than I did.”
 Duran was thrown into a cell with the girl and was detained for several hours
while the police tried to piece together what had happened. Five men knocked
cold, a fifteen-year-old with a broken finger and a slight bruise, a hysterical girl
and no independent witnesses.
“It’s about seven or eight in the morning and they open the door to tell me that
the lieutenant wants to see me,” said Duran. “Five guys were there one after
another and the police told me to stand there. I had my hand ready to hit them
again. All the five guys are all swollen. The cops ask the men if they know me
and each one says, ‘No. I do not know what happened. I have no idea. I do not
even know who brought us here.’
“Then the cop asks if they know what happened last night and they shake their
heads no. Then he asks if they were involved in a fight and they say no. Then the
cop asks if they are accusing anybody of anything and they say, ‘Who are we
going to accuse?’”
Still in disbelief, the police let the five men leave and kept Duran and his girl
in the cell, mainly to avoid reprisals from the men. “When I get out, I tell the
girl to go before the sergeant regrets it and throws us back in jail. I knocked five
guys out with my bare hand, and I’ve even been shot at. My mother sent me to
my aunt’s house. While we were talking, a big man came in, and she said he was
her husband. ‘Your husband?’ I asked. ‘That was the man who sent me to
prison.’ ‘No, that’s not true,’ he said. ‘I had to take him there as if he was going
to jail because there was a fight, and I tried to protect him.’ Can you imagine my
surprise? It was the man who had married my aunt. After a long time, I
celebrated a party for him, for this son of a bitch, at my own house.”
Duran’s reputation in the streets often landed him with challenges. Yet these
fights also solidified the unspoken bond that if you were a friend of Roberto
Duran’s, he would stand up for you. He was fiercely loyal. “When I was starting
my boxing career, there was in Chorrillo the first bar with air-conditioning,” he
said. “At that time there were only canteens. It was the first time that at a bar in
Panama, in the upper section of Chorrillo, they put up a music show. I used to
hang out a lot then with the Barraza brothers. I was there with them when a
girlfriend of mine arrived. I came in and took off my jacket, placing it on the
chair. Then I felt like dancing, so I went to dance. Suddenly I saw a huge guy
standing next to my table, and peeing on my jacket. When I walked up to him
and asked him what he was doing, he said that if I wanted to fight with him, he
was ready to fight with me. He then told me to go outside to fight.
“We both went out, my friends close to me, and his friends surrounding him.
The guy tried to get in his car after throwing a punch at me, but after avoiding it,
I got him out of the car. Then his friends came to fight, and mine got in their
way, and the fight started. All of a sudden I saw that five of his friends were
jumping on me. I started hitting them one by one, and knocking them down. I
finally was left with only one, but then my friends came and threatened the
remaining ones. My friends enjoyed watching me because I was a boxer in the
street and also in the ring. So I started punching this huge guy all over his body
and knocked him down too. When he stood up in the end, he said he did not
want to go on. One of the Barraza brothers told him that he had started the whole
thing but he answered that he did not want this to continue; he wanted peace
now. We got back to the bar and went on drinking. Then we went to have
dinner.”

DURAN STARTED to box for the Club Cincuentenario amateur squad, which
would face other area boxing squads. The Panamanian Amateur Program was
composed of boxers representing various clubs around Panama. Club
Cincuetenario had nine, Panama had four, and Club Maranon had just one club.
Within Panamanian amateur boxing were fine young boxers such as the
Maynard brothers, Enrique Pinder, Cristobal Cordoba, Antonio Vargas, Enrique
Warren and many others. Along with many of them, Duran would leave Neco de
la Guardia and begin training at the Maranon Gym. In February 1965, fighting in
the ninety-pound weight class for the Cincuentenario Club, he scored a
unanimous decision victory over Enrique Martinez. All three judges felt Duran
did enough to win his first recorded bout.
While Duran’s bout with Martinez has been recorded as his amateur debut,
Duran recalled another opponent. “The first fight in the amateurs in the Maranon
Gym, I beat this guy called Antonio ‘La Cabeza’ Vargas and I beat him bad. I
knocked him down, and they still gave him the fight,” said Duran. “The guy
never wanted to give me a rematch.” In a match held in March 1965 that many
Panamanian writers had recorded after the Martinez victory, two of the three
judges scored the fight for Vargas. By “coincidence,” Vargas was managed by
program coordinator Demetrio “Baba” Vasquez.
In the streets Duran was judged by his peers, but now he had to impress
boxing judges, who favoured style over naked aggression. He showed
exceptional promise in his weight class, which didn’t have many skilled boxers.
He relied on technique rather than his power, which had yet to grow, and his
mind rather than instinct. After eight months boxing for Club Cincuentenario, he
was 12-1 (Twelve wins and one loss: boxers' records are denoted numerically by
win-loss-draw, so 30-2-1 would mean thirty wins, two losses and one draw) by
the end of the year, and had moved up to the 106-pound division. After the loss
to Vargas, Duran, now under the watchful eye of Plomo, wouldn’t lose another
bout that season. Fans began to take notice of this up and coming fighter, who
they called “Robe,” and even future world champ Enrique Pinder refused to fight
this restless bull. Realizing his potential, several important figures in the
Panamanian sports industry began to invest time in the young fighter’s career:
engineer Erasto Espino, Duran’s first adviser, Juvenal L. Chemenuncie, and
Mocho Sam, a roadwork and massage specialist.
On October 4, 1966, Duran met Jorge Maynard in a tournament at the Pascual
Cielo Gonzalez Gymnasium. Two fighters from each division were invited and
Duran and Maynard fought at light-flyweight, or 106 pounds. Maynard, who was
also managed by Baba Vasquez, would become Duran’s amateur nemesis. In the
first bout he won the unanimous decision, handing Duran his first loss that
season. Twenty-five days later, the pair faced off again for the Golden Gloves
crown and again Duran lost. “Duran was only beginning then,” said Plomo. “He
was 100 [pounds] going to 106, so he was not ready yet. It was a rather good
fight despite being very difficult. Duran succeeded in hitting him hard at times. It
was a very close fight but since Maynard was more experienced, the judges
decided for Maynard.” According to a boxing writer in La Aficion, the rematch
in Neco de La Guardia was a replica of the first meeting, with Maynard using his
technical skills to offset the burro tirando golpes, or bull-throwing punches, of
his foe. Maynard was now the light-flyweight champ.
“Two times he beat me in a row, then I found out that the referee in the ring
was Maynard’s uncle,” said Duran. “That was pretty strange. That’s why he beat
me by decision. Each of the times I fought him I gave him my best punches.
Then, after those losses, I did thirteen fights and won them all.”
He also still had his run-ins in the street. “Chicha Fuerte Ruiz was a much
experienced boxer, he was already a national champion,” said Plomo. “There
was a quarrel between Ruiz’s family and Duran’s, and Duran offered Ruiz
boxing gloves in the middle of the street. I was only told this story. I was not
present. Since Ruiz was a professional by then but Duran was not, it could
already be imagined that Duran was going to make it as a professional too.
The brawl, late at night, was chaotic. “Chicha Fuerte’s wife had a fight with
my mother and insulted her,” said Toti. “After my mother insulted her back,
Chicha Fuerte’s wife went to call her husband. He had just finished a fight in
Mexico. That night I was going to fight Chicha Fuerte, but Roberto asked me to
let him fight with him. They started fighting and Chicha Fuerte’s woman hit
Roberto. But there were some bandits who knocked Duran down and Chicha
Fuerte was supposed to step on Duran and start hitting him. But I kicked his
stomach strongly and succeeded in making him fall. Then Duran got on hitting
him, but it was at night and you could see very little. They were many and we
did not know who had knives. But Roberto knocked Chicha Fuerte down. That
was a famous fight story. When the police came, they found no one. We had all
run away by then.”
Another witness was Victorino Vargas, Duran’s stepfather. “When Duran
fought with Chicha Fuerte Ruiz, he made a cut on his face,” said Vargas. “I
advised him not to go on fighting in the street because he was a boxer already.
He could be facing a judicial claim. So he stopped his street fights then.”
Along with the resistance Duran felt he was receiving from the sport’s
bigwigs, a controversy had developed with Plomo. After losing in the Golden
Gloves final to Maynard, Duran was scheduled to face one of Panama’s most
skilled boxers, Catalino Alvarado. Plomo felt his inexperienced fighter could
first use a tune-up against a lesser boxer but Duran disagreed, sparking the first
rift between the pair. Duran was stubborn as a mule when his mind was made up,
so Plomo refused to handle him for the bout.
“I was fighting Catalino Alvarado from Maranon Gym, a very good boxer,”
said Duran. “Out of all the boxers I was the best and the fight was on, but Plomo
didn’t want to put me into the ring because he thought Catalino was way too
good and would knock me out. “There is a guy named Sammy Medina who
comes into the ring [to help me]. The way I beat [Alvarado] is that I could see
the punches coming. I would telegraph them and just block them. Medina says to
Plomo, ‘Look what your guy did in the ring, and you didn’t even want to put him
in there.’ And Plomo tells him that he just didn’t want his guy to get hurt. After
that there were several months that I wouldn’t train with Plomo and went to
Medina. After about four months I returned to Plomo because Medina was never
at the gym to train me.”
Plomo remembered it differently: “When Roberto was still fighting at 106
pounds, Catalino was a much developed boxer, weighing 112 pounds. Duran
once asked me to set a fight with Catalino, but I told him that since he had not
been training enough, he could not do it. But he insisted, so we organized the
fight, which Duran finally won. Since he was a child, Duran had shown that
when he had decided something he would always get it. When he wanted to win
a fight, he would do it.”
Duran still hadn’t shown the aggression and power that would later define
him, but that was about to change, as jockey Alfredo “La Seda” Vasquez began
to manage his career and help him financially. Vasquez encouraged him to rely
less on his ability to move and box, and more on his punch. It worked against an
opponent named Buenaventura Riasco. Each boxing club had to send a fighter to
represent it in a tournament and from them a selection would represent Panama
City and face off against the boxers from various provinces. The winner would
be Panama’s national amateur champion. After completing the elimination
rounds, Duran and Riasco were thrown together to compete in the 118-pound
division. Panamanian fans took a keen interest in the amateurs, and this
particular match promised fireworks.
“Buenaventura Riasco was a very good amateur,” said Duran. “We were about
to have a fight, but there was a rumor going around that Carlos Eleta was going
to become the manager of Riasco and he was coming to the bout to see how
good Riasco really was. I said, ‘Let Eleta come, because I’m going to knock you
out.’”
Carlos Eleta was Panama’s leading business magnate and was expanding his
considerable interests into boxing. Unlike Vasquez the jockey, he had vast
wealth, political clout and a keen mind for closing a deal. Eleta’s presence on
fight night often meant that he wanted something and now he had his eye on
Riasco, a seasoned amateur. It was rare that Eleta did not get what he wanted.
“Riasco’s brother said, ‘We’re going to knock you out,’ and right away there
was some turbulence at the weigh-in,” said Duran. “Then Plomo tells Riasco,
‘You see the corner right there. That’s where we are going to knock you out.’
When the bell rings, Riasco jumps on me right away, and starts hitting me with
everything that he has. The second round he breaks my nose, and I go back and
tell Plomo that I can’t hit this guy because everything I throw he’s dodging it.
The guy came from a very good boxing clinic; he could avoid all punches.”
Duran had learned a few tricks of his own. “I tell Plomo that I’m going to get
him now,” said Duran. “He was standing there with his right hand forward and
his left hand back. I fake Riasco out and the guy comes in, and opens up a little
bit. When he does this, I hit him with a right uppercut. The uppercut had so
much strength behind it that he falls over the top rope right in the corner where
Plomo said I would knock him out. We were fighting for a club championship
that day and you could have counted to a thousand and he wouldn’t have gotten
up. It was such a good fight that the gym was packed and during that time the
amateur fights drew more than the professionals.”
It was an unforgettable encounter that made waves among the local reporters.
“During this great fight, Buenaventura Riasco was leading at the beginning
because Duran was a bit anxious,” said Plomo. “Duran was not afraid; it was not
fear. As it happens, the very nervous system sometimes fails. At the end, when
there was only one round left, I went up to Duran and told him that if he wanted
to win he had to use his right hand. So during the third round, Duran hit hard
with his right hand and sent Riasco to the corner, at the very corner I had told
Riasco he was going to end up.
“It was a great night, as if God had enlightened us. I was really moved. Well,
to be a good trainer you also need the capacity to be moved, so as to be able to
strengthen your boxer. I believe this is my special gift that I am able to be
touched, and to feel that I am also fighting. So, I am able to feel anything that
happens to my boxer, to communicate with him with my mind if he fails in any
way, and to tell him what to do.”
Many who witnessed the bout felt that the Riasco knockout was the defining
moment when Duran switched from being a boxer-puncher to an insouciant
brawler, throwing punches at anything that moved. Though the businessman
Carlos Eleta was nowhere to be seen, Duran had sent a clear message: “When I
knocked him out I pointed to the corner, and said, ‘There’s your shit, where’s
Eleta now?’”

ONE THING about Duran, he could punch. “I remember when Roberto hit this
kid with a shot to the chest and it was thought that he nearly killed the guy,”
wrote Papi Mendez of La Critica. He loved to have confirmation of his fuerza,
his force, and would even test it on family members. “I would not get into the
ring with him, just to prevent my getting hit by him,” said his stepfather,
Victorino. “Once he was training at El Maranon when I got there. I was standing
close to ringside and he got down and while walking past me he gave me a
strong blow. And then he asked me, ‘Was it a strong blow? Was it strong?’”
Many wondered where the power came from. Some claimed he inherited his
thunderous right hand from his uncle Socrates Garcia from Guarare, who could
break coconuts with his fists. “Socrates was my cousin,” said Clara. “He used to
fight a lot. Once we were in Guarare and my cousin was angry. He then saw a
horse and decided to hit him. He struck him so hard that the horse was stunned.”
Margarito, Duran’s father, was another large man with a big punch. Others
claimed that his grandfather, Felix Moreno, who was hacked to death by his own
cousin, was the toughest family member. And whenever the name of Duran’s
redoubtable grandmother, Ceferina Garcia, was raised, every family member
would exclaim, “She hit very hard!”
“My mother was in jail for eight days for having hit Guarare’s mayor,” said
Duran’s aunt Mireya. “She knocked him down. She had problems with a
policeman called Celso. She was taken to the town hall and the mayor came to
talk to her. She was a woman with a very strong personality and she knocked
him down with a strong fist punch. After this the mayor sent her to jail for eight
days. At that time there was a sub-lieutenant called Ireni Caballero. He would
come to the cell and, pressing a spoon on the bars, would say, ‘Bad woman, you
knocked the mayor down.’ But she had just given birth to Joaquin, and at that
time it was forbidden to put in jail women who had to breastfeed. When the
mayor discovered this, he set her free. That woman certainly hit very hard.
“Her father was called Felix Moreno and he was also a very strong man. This
great-grandfather of Roberto’s was killed by a cousin of his. That happened one
day when he was returning after having killed a cow. He was carrying the meat,
and his cousin waited for him on the road and asked him to have a drink with
him. He answered that since it was early in the morning, he did not want to
drink. In that very moment he killed him, opening the head of Roberto’s great-
grandfather with a machete. He fell down injured and crawled to the farm of my
grandmother Juana. He only had time to ask for some salt before dying. You may
imagine how strong he was to have been able to crawl all the distance. It seems
that this resistance is something that runs in the family.” Clara agreed: “Roberto
inherited his power from his great-grandfather. Felix Moreno was so strong that
he could kill a man with one punch.”
Wherever his power came from, the win over Riasco confirmed Duran’s
potential. “They carried me on top of their shoulders and everyone was yelling,”
said Duran. “All this time, some fag back there is grabbing my ass. The more
packed it was inside the gym, the more we got paid for the fight. Sometimes we
got paid four or five dollars. Plomo would take his share and whatever I had left
I would run home and give it to my mom for food.”
His next goal was the Pan-American Games, due to be held in Winnipeg,
Canada in July 1967. Duran was almost a guarantee to make the team for the
tournament in the fifty-one-kilo division. Wins over Alvarado and Riasco had
cemented his position as a top prospect, and in 1967 he represented Club
Cincuentenario in an elimination tournament that began outside the city in
Penonome. However, amateur boxing was riddled with politics, and forces
outside Duran’s control conspired against him.
“In that time the military was in control,” said Duran. “There was a doctor for
the amateur boxers and he took care of all of us. There was a very good boxer
and the doctor was his manager. That kid had more shots and vitamins than
anything. Already at that time, my mindset – I was too smart – was that of a
professional. Three days before a fight, I’m painting at a hotel that I worked at
and I go into a restaurant to eat lunch. They gave me this tortilla, which is a
traditional food made of corn, but they were spraying this spray for fleas and it
had fallen on my food. I ate it and drank Coke, and I got real sick because of it. I
was sick and before the fight the doctor would not give me an exam.
 “I was sad because I wanted to go to Winnipeg. I had a bad fever, and I was
sleeping in the deposit downstairs of the hotel. Plomo found me and had me
drink an Alka-Seltzer. I drank it and the next day I woke up like a bull. I go tell
Plomo that the fight’s on. The doctor thought his fighter was going to knock me
out, but I gave the kid so many punches that I almost killed him. I fought the
next day and the following day, and after those three days I was happier than shit
because I was finally going to go to Winnipeg.”
Duran had few influential connections in the sport, relying as he did on
Plomo, but had earned the right to compete with his performance during the
elimination round of the Panamanian boxing competition, beating Enrique
Warren among others. However, Jorge Maynard’s brother Roberto stood in his
path. “At that time there was a military leader called [Jorge] Arauz, who did not
like us because we were from the Cincuentenario Club,” recalled Plomo. “He
would try to have everything accepted without meetings, just through decrees.
Maynard used to fight very well then and was experienced. Arauz sent him and
another boxer to fight with Duran so as to rule him out. In the fight against
Enrique Warren, Duran destroyed both Warren’s eardrums. Then the fight
against Maynard was set.
“Maynard did not turn up because of heavy rain, so we set it for the following
week. But Maynard failed to come again. He had got frightened. This situation
turned Duran into the winner. Once we had got everything ready for the trip,
Arauz said Duran had no experience and did not allow his participation. He is a
bad guy. And he decided to take Maynard. If it had been Duran, we would have
returned with a medal because he was a skilled boxer and had shown his
capacity. He had won many titles and was a very good boxer. But because of this
man’s badness, he was not allowed to win this title. Duran was very hurt because
of this.”
Duran remembered, “I’m on my way and I’m going to go there and meet
people. Then Maynard shows up with Jorge Arauz and I’m there with Plomo.
Maynard and them never showed up at the gym to fight. The talks heated up
because Arauz says, ‘This guy ain’t going nowhere.’ After an hour of
discussions, the lieutenant tells me ‘shut up’ or he’ll throw me in jail. I told him
to chill and shut up. The point is that I don’t go and they send Maynard instead
of me. Maynard gets knocked out in the first round [of the Pan-American
Games]. I go home really sad.”
As a result of the injustice, the boxing community rallied behind the young
fighter. Trainers from several gyms protested the decision and were backed by
the director-general of the Department of Physical Education and Sport, to no
avail. Duran took out his frustrations on the few amateurs still willing to enter
the ring with him. Having grown into a featherweight, he beat Antonio Ballestas
by unanimous decision in January 1968, and then Jose Villalba on February 11,
knocking him down three times and out in the second round. Villalba was
Duran’s last amateur opponent. With a 29-3 record (some sources have it as 13-3
or 18-3), he moved on.
“Duran told me he would not go on boxing, for he had won all fights and there
was no boxer left he could fight with,” said Plomo. “He told me he would devote
his time to help his uncle, who lived and worked at the Roosevelt Hotel. Duran
said he would help him cleaning and painting, so he would have money to take
to his mother. Duran had always helped his mother, since he was a little boy he
had liked to get some money for his mother. So I agreed.”
The intermission would be brief. One day, Plomo offered him what was then a
substantial purse to get into the ring, and the little kid from Chorillo would never
go hungry again. “I’m painting the outside of the window,” said Duran. “I was
making one dollar fifty cents a day painting and Plomo comes running in and
says, ‘Duran, you want twenty-five dollars to fight, win, lose or draw?’ I tell
him, ‘Who do I have to kill?’ He tells me it’s a four-round fight in Colon with a
guy who never wanted to get in the ring with me before in amateurs or the pros
named Carlos Mendoza. I hadn’t done any conditioning for the fight, but I said,
‘Let’s go.’”
Mendoza, from Chiriqui, was no pushover and would go on to have a fine
career, culminating in a world title challenge. While the bout has since been
listed by some sources as Mendoza’s debut, Plomo claimed he had already had
three pro fights and this was backed up by newspaper reports. “I heard they
needed an opponent,” said Plomo. “I knew Mendoza was afraid of Duran, but I
told [his manager] that I had a boxer called Roberto Duran. He was painting the
day I looked for him. I told him to get down because he was going to be a
professional. At the time he wanted to retire from the amateurs and I was offered
a fight at his weight. He came down and became a pro at sixteen.”
Duran ran into a problem right before fight time when a bad sore on his hand
worsened considerably. “You could see the actual bone in my hand,” said Duran.
“The doctor examines me and sees that I have an open sore, and tells me I can’t
fight. I tell him, ‘Please let me fight, I need the money for my mom so we can
eat.’ I beat Mendoza real bad, with sore and all. That’s how I jumped into the
professionals.”
Duran signed the contract on a Monday, trained for two days and boxed on the
Friday evening, 23 February 1968, in the Arena de Colon. Before his debut,
Duran and Plomo met at Galicia Restaurant, where Plomo’s friend gave the
young boxer his first pre-fight meal. It became a ritual. “At Galicia, I would
order a salad and a beefsteak or chicken for Duran. No pasta or rice. This is what
Duran would eat every day until the day of the fight,” said Plomo. “We received
the tickets to go to Colon, traveled there, and got there with 118 pounds. I was
very strict on his diet, and whenever I would tell him not to eat or drink
something, he would always restrain. This is one of the things that helped us to
win. He always did what I told him, so we never failed while he complied with
my requests.
“Before the fight they were betting and shouting, ‘Mendoza, Mendoza.’
Nobody knew Duran then. But when the fight started, Duran did not give him
the smallest chance to get close to him. He kept hitting him, down and up and
down again. During four rounds, Duran hit him so badly that poor Mendoza was
not able to do anything. Duran won by unanimous decision.”
Boxing writer Papi Mendez had invited the businessman Carlos Eleta along to
“see Duran with his own eyes.” Knowing that Colon was the hotbed of boxing,
Duran was considering moving there. However, first he had to decide who would
manage his career. Although Duran had met Eleta through his street friend
Chaflan, many claim that Papi Mendez was the real mediator between them. It
was not unusual for boxing writers to act as fixers and on several occasions in
his newspaper column Mendez would take credit for acquainting the pair. Their
partnership would change the course of boxing history.
 3

Papa Eleta

I do not live here to retrieve or multiply what my father lost or gained.

Jorge Luis Borges, Remorse

STANDING AT A window on his vast estate one day in 1963, Carlos Eleta saw a
small boy knocking coconuts from a tree. Roberto Duran, then aged twelve, had
perfected the art of stealing fruit and Eleta’s compound suited him well. More
amused than angered, Eleta went outside and caught him. But instead of scolding
the intruder and sending him away, he brought him inside and gave him lunch.
He never thought that he would see the boy again. “My first impression of
Roberto was this twelve-year-old stealing coconuts,” recalled Eleta. “I grab him
and he is so funny that I invite him inside. I didn’t see him again until two or
three years later in Colon.”
That “two or three years later” was 23 February 1968, at Duran’s pro debut.
They met and talked and Eleta was impressed with the young fighter. Duran, for
his part, needed financial backing, and knew that the cultivated Eleta was one of
the most influential men in Panama. The contrast with the capricious little street
urchin could not have been greater.
Carlos Eleta Almarán was born on 16 May 1918, the son of wealthy
landowners. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Malaga, Spain, and his MBA at
Bryant College in Providence, Rhode Island. In May 1941, he married Dora
Boyd and would have four children: Carlos, Sandra, Alberto and Raquel del
Carmen. Groomed for success, the tall, straight-backed, dignified Eleta stepped
into his father’s business and eventually found himself as a major player in the
importation and distribution of brand names such as Chesterfield cigarettes, 7-
Up and Fiat. He set up the first TV channel in Panama, Canal Cuatro, and
somehow found time to write a string of popular ballads, the most famous of
which, “Historia De Un Amor,” became almost a second national anthem. He
played tennis to championship standard, bred racehorses and was now looking to
manage prizefighters.
In Eleta, Old World gentility met New World vigor. Meticulous in dress and
grooming, with neat, receding white hair and a slim, athletic build, he could talk
with kings and beggars with equal ease. He was as friendly with contacts like the
Kennedy political dynasty and sports stars like Joe DiMaggio as he was with
boxing trainers and stable grooms. But his charm and grace hid a ruthless side,
especially when it came to business, and like any successful man he made
enemies. Some hinted darkly at his ulterior motives and cunning nature. He
hated being pressured and was known for his frugality and willingness to end
friendships on a whim. What he wanted, he usually got.
“After the Mendoza fight, [Roberto] recognized me from the day at my house
and asked me to handle him,” said Eleta. “He had another fellow managing him.
I talked with Vasquez and told him I didn’t want to interfere with him and
Duran. He said he would give me Roberto for three hundred dollars.”
Duran, however, remembers that Eleta actively pursued him. A skilled boxer
named Eugenio Hurtado, the husband of Duran’s aunt Gladys, had recently lost a
close bout and went to see Eleta to ask for a rematch. He asked Duran to
accompany him. “I went with a writer named Papi Mendez to talk to Eleta, but I
didn’t pay any attention to him. Hurtado asked me for a favor, and said he would
give me twenty dollars to go with him. For twenty dollars, I was there. Eleta
started talking to me and not Hurtado. I wasn’t even paying attention to him. He
kept saying over and over that he could help me. I realized he was talking to me,
but I played the fool. Hurtado finally signs the contract to fight, and Eleta gives
me twenty dollars. Now, twenty dollars and twenty dollars and I have forty
dollars.”
It says everything about Duran at that time that he was more interested in
having forty bucks to spend in a bar than he was in an offer to manage his career
by the most influential businessman in the country. He was in good company;
Hurtado had a penchant for blowing his boxing purses and never thought about
the future. “Once he won a bout and earned $3,000, and was lost for four days
with nothing for the house,” Duran told a reporter from La Aficion.
However, Carlos Eleta would not be denied. “The next day, Eleta calls me and
tells me that he wants to help me with my career. And Eleta wanted to know if I
wanted to sign a contract or just a handshake deal. I was [only sixteen] and I told
him, however he wanted to do it. Eleta tells me that real men either sign the
contract or shake on it. We shook hands and that’s how he became my manager.”
The well-connected Eleta could offer far more than the jockey Vasquez.
“Vasquez couldn’t support me because he was always asking to borrow money,”
said Duran. “The only reason I started with Eleta was because he would pay
media members to try to persuade me to let him become my manager. A lot of
people told me not to mix with him because he was a thief.”
For all his natural talent, Duran was raw, a volatile mass of energy. “He was a
fellow who couldn’t read and write,” said Eleta. “And he had very little
attention. It was very difficult to sit him down. We tried to take him to school
and that was impossible for him. He was like a wild animal. Duran never kept
anything inside, never. He liked to go see animals but he never had attention for
anything.
“Before his wife was in the picture, he never told me about other girls. He was
afraid to tell me these things. He was not the type of person who was easy to get
to know. Before Roberto ever became a champ, he would tell me he wanted to be
like Robin Hood. ‘I will give it all to the poor,’ he said. Nobody thought he was
going to be so great. They knew he would be good, but not that great of a
fighter.”
Perhaps Eleta’s most significant role was as a surrogate father. Referred to by
most as Senor Eleta, to Duran he became “Papa.” Eleta was someone he felt he
could trust, someone stable. As tough as he was, Duran yearned for a man to
replace his absentee father and Eleta filled that role.
Local notoriety also began to bring the good-looking cholo female attention,
but his first girlfriend was not a popular choice with Clara and other family
members. She was a black girl, or champundun in colloquial parlance. Race and
class were inextricably linked in Panama, as in most societies, and blacks were
at the bottom of the ladder. “She was a very dark girl,” remembered Toti. “But
he loved her a lot. He wanted to marry her but my mother did not agree. She
thought it was only a game.” Every good boxer on the isthmus lived in the
spotlight, and by now many Panamanians gossiped daily about Duran. His love
life was an instant topic of interest, so Duran went to his step-father, Victorino
Vargas, for advice.
“I told him not to marry her, for he was going to become famous, so that in the
future he could probably be able to get a prettier woman,” said Vargas. “He did
not want anyone to know. Because he was young, and like all young people, they
do not want others to know. But when I realized about this relationship, I told
him he should marry another woman.”
The relationship didn’t stay a secret for long. During a live TV interview, he
explained to the public that he was dating a “black woman” and had plans to
marry her one day. But the relationship would fade as Duran turned his attention
to boxing. Every one of Duran’s family members spoke of the affection that girls
had for him. “Oh, the girls loved my brother,” said his sister Anna. “They would
always ask about him and call the house at all hours of the night. But he was a
very good brother to me, very protective.” Fighting came first. “Most of his time
was for boxing,” said Toti. “He enjoyed being with women a lot, even when he
was very young, but he did not take them seriously. It was like his sport, but not
all the time.”
With the wealthy Eleta by his side, and willing to do whatever it took to make
his fighter a champion, Duran now had a foundation. Even before his pro debut,
he had begun to attract a following. “People saw the revelation when I was about
fifteen or sixteen years old,” said Duran. “I was going against the best boxers of
Panama, and they weren’t burnt-out fighters. They had a lot of experience.” In
the locker room before fights, Plomo and his brother would bet each other which
hand Duran was going to knock out an opponent with. “Boom, I would knock
out the guy with my right hand, and I’d tell Plomo that I told him it was going to
be the right hand.”

WHILE DURAN was learning the arts of both boxing and survival, another
Panamanian was already an expert at both. In the early Sixties, Ismael Laguna,
the “Tiger from Santa Isabel,” was the idol of all impoverished young boxers.
Laguna was one of their own. Born on June 28, 1943 in Palmira on the coast of
Colon, he too had skipped school, shone shoes and sold newspapers on the
streets, and fought to protect his patch and his nine brothers and sisters. “I had
eight or nine fights for breakfast,” said Laguna. “Even when there wasn’t a fight,
I would tell someone to put gum in my hair so I could find one. If there wasn’t a
fight, I would go look for one.” Colon made other Panama slums look like Club
Med. A mainly black area, it was home to fight fanatics who would shout “olé”
at ringside just as they did at bullfights in other countries. To Laguna, it was “the
land of champions where the boxing tradition started from the time of Panama
Brown.”
Laguna moved to Santa Isabel when his father, Generoso Meneses, was
elected mayor of the region. Despite being caught up in gangs, and spending
time in jail for picking up girls’ skirts to see their panties (preferably red),
Laguna would avoid the path that derailed many of his friends. One day, when
he was twelve, he saw a national boxing champion, Carlos Watson, pulling a big
crowd on the beach and inviting people to spar with him. Even though Watson
said he wouldn’t punch hard, there were no takers – until the fearless little
Laguna stepped forward. “I was very skinny like a worm,” said Laguna. “I went
to spar with Watson and the people were saying, ‘Don’t do that. He’s going to
whip you,’ but I put the gloves on and we went at it.”
At first Watson held back on the youngster, but once he realized he was in a
fight he tried to pick up the pace, out of desperation rather than bravado. “I
opened a cut that he already had over his eye and the crowd was cheering
because they always like the weak one,” said Laguna. “At the end I was making
him move back and people were screaming because I was making this guy look
like horseshit.”
Furious, Watson hurled punches at the youngster but Laguna was a shadow,
and as the blood flowed the professional called a halt to the bout. “That was how
I got started in boxing,” said a smiling Laguna. “They used to call me Tigre
because I would cut the cow’s neck and drink the blood. Before that, Cuerito was
a nickname when I was younger, which meant little pieces of meat.” One of the
young Laguna’s jobs was skinning and cleaning cattle skins after they were
butchered.
Soon he was in the gym, and after a brief amateur career he turned pro at
seventeen. He was a natural, with sleek, supple movements and blur-fast hands.
Laguna was a good-looking negrito with soft features, a kind soul who rarely
disrespected his opponents. Only if something stirred him would he strike back.
He would fight through a thicket of lusting women; however, his biggest
contingent of groupies was the entire nation of boxers following his example.
Laguna came to epitomize the typical Panamanian boxer: a flashy mover who
slid in to throw punches and then slipped out without a scratch. The fans loved
his style, and they were a knowledgeable audience. In the Forties, they had
followed the widly popular Young Finnigan, while in the Fifties and Sixties stars
like Isidro Martinez, Jesus Santamaria, Sammy Medina and Antonio Amaya
boxed with grace and panache. But none of these spirited pugilists would ever
win a world title. Amaya was called “Campeón Sin Corona” – Champion
Without a Crown – after he was robbed on two occasions in title bouts, while
Martinez was tabbed as the “most beautiful boxer I’d ever seen” by Laguna.
Yet no one touched the people like Laguna. Tall, lithe and charming, he made
boxing hugely popular. He also made it a spectacle, sometimes wearing white
gloves to show his opponents’ blood stains during fights. “Ismael Laguna was a
beautiful natural boxer,” said Carlos Eleta. “Just beautiful to watch in the ring.”
Yet even at the height of his fame, he noticed the little urchin called Roberto.
“The first time that I met Chaflan, I was in a hotel restaurant and this man
comes on the table with Duran and starts dancing right on the table,” he said. “It
was crazy. Then I gave him twenty dollars and you should have seen his face. He
thanked me – ‘Oooh’ – it was like I was his best friend. Back then, Duran was
still young and wasn’t known yet.”
Duran dreamed that one day he’d be like Tigre. One day the Panamanians
would chant “Doo-ran” when he landed a punch, the same way they now
chanted “Tee-gray,” and he would dress in the stylish clothes and shining jewelry
of a champion.
In 1965, Laguna stood on the verge of greatness, his path blocked by a
formidable world lightweight champion from Puerto Rico, Carlos Ortiz.
Dangerous on the inside, sleek and unhittable from the outside, Ortiz had no
boxing heroes but himself. “I always wanted to be Carlos Ortiz,” he said. “I
never wanted to be anyone else.” They were due to fight on April 10 in Panama.
Ortiz ran into Laguna in a local gym to hype the fight and there saw his
challenger flitting in and out like a moth. “You couldn’t see him because he was
moving so quickly,” remembered Ortiz. “I was thinking, ‘Oh God, what did I get
into?’ He was very skinny and he wasn’t built like a fighter. He was fast and tall
and he had everything. I knew I was going to have a hard time. But I trained for
the best and I saw how he was. I wasn’t going to be surprised when I got into the
ring.”
Laguna didn’t plod or charge, follow or chase; he glided, juked and jived,
offering a free shot and then immediately retracting the offer. His head and body
moved as if he were dancing to a João Gilberto bossa nova. “When I stepped
into the ring, this kid looked like a flash,” said Ortiz. “He was so fast that I
couldn’t believe it. When he moved, it was the fastest thing I’d ever seen in the
ring [but] I thought I was going to have an easy time because he wasn’t that
tough. He was just a good kid, slim and fast, but he looked like I could knock
him out.”
There were also the foreign soil, the weather and the fans to contend with.
Panama’s weather separates into two distinct periods, the dry season or summer
(la seca) between December and April, and the wet season or winter (el
invierno), which covers the rest of the year. The normal daily temperature is
around 30 degrees Celsius and varies little throughout the year. What strikes
outsiders is the humidity, which vacillates widely and can make a stroll down the
street feel like a Turkish sauna. Ortiz found the heat came in swathes, stifling
breath and sapping energy. Other foreign boxers concurred. The people were
also fight mad and vociferous in support of their men.
“It was a big thing in Panama because they never had a championship fight
there. I couldn’t even walk outside,” Ortiz recalled. “Every place I went they
were heckling me and saying bad things. ‘You’re going to get killed,’ but I was
used to this stuff. I didn’t mind. I got a big surprise because he was better than
what I thought. The fight started and I started boxing him and looking for ways
to counter his moves and do what I wanted him to do. And he wouldn’t do it. I
was the aggressor [but] he would counter everything that I threw at him.”
Meanwhile, a penniless, fourteen-year-old Roberto Duran was trying to hustle
his way into the stadium to get among the thousands of red, white and blue flags,
having first climbed on a car roof to catch a glimpse of his hero. As the fight
progressed, men raised their fists in triumph, women hugged and cried, and
people of all sizes screamed for “Tigre.” Duran, who eventually coaxed his way
past the guards, studied every punch, and saw a master class from his fellow
countryman.
“I was worried,” said Ortiz. “Every round, I came back and asked my trainers
how I was doing. They just told me everything was going well and I was
winning the fight. But I didn’t see it that way.” He was right. Ortiz couldn’t find
Laguna with his punches, and the Panamanian won a unanimous decision and
the title. “I never got tired that night,” said Laguna. “My trainer told me I was
winning and to keep pressing the action. It was the greatest moment of my
career. Even now I can still see myself in the ring. I will never forget.”
Panama had its champion. Laguna had taken the soul of Al Panama Brown,
the missed opportunities of Antonio Amaya and Isidro Martinez, the sorrow of
Sammy Medina, the virgin dreams of Roberto Duran, along with the hopes of
every man or boy who’d ever stepped into a Colon gym and threw a jab, and
carried them into the ring that April night.
“I was a child then,” said Duran. “I was a wrestler at that time, while I sold
newspapers and cleaned shoes. The important fights were held in the big
stadium, and all the champions would get there to walk around. But that was
placed on a very high position, so people used to get up on top to be able to
watch over the ringside. I saw the trucks up there and thought how in hell I
would get there.
“At round fourteen, they opened the doors, and in the middle of all those
running, the piece of wood broke, and I fell down together with all the other
people who were standing there. I was the youngest of all those people and they
were all falling on top of me. When I finally got up, I saw that all the others were
already around the ringside. When I got there, round fifteen was about to start.
Then finally when Laguna won, he was given a huge trophy which was like a
goblet. I looked at him and thought then that I would be even more important
than that man. And this is what really happened. At present, besides God, I am
even more important than Laguna.”
The teenage Duran sought out the new champion and told him, “Laguna, I
will be just as good as you or better.” They were meant as the words of an
admirer, but Laguna was too busy to hear them. This was Tigre’s moment.
“When we left, Laguna had his car parked there, a big car, and many people
were surrounding his car. I was among them. I then saw Laguna trying to drive
slowly because there were so many people around him, but one guy stood in
front of the car, defying him and trying to hit him. But Laguna just stared and
kept on driving slowly. In the end, people started shouting that we had a new
champion. Then I went back home.”
From that moment on, for every young boxer it was about being Tigre. Even
years later, Duran would still sparkle as he interrupted a young reporter: “For me
it was always about Ismael Laguna.” He was Duran’s idol and still is. “When
Duran sees me he still comes up to me and gives me a kiss,” said Laguna.
“Sometimes he jokingly tells me that I gave birth to him.”
Not only did Laguna show how to defend himself in the ring, but also how to
conduct himself outside of it. Duran would watch and listen, devouring Laguna’s
instructions, but would still then do his own thing. “All his life he’s been the
same and does whatever he wants,” said Laguna. “In the ring sometimes I would
tell him to throw the jab this way, and he would do it another way. But he’s
always been like that.”

DURAN’S DEBUT win against Carlos Mendoza gave little indication of the
cyclone to come. In eight more fights that year, Duran stopped or knocked out
seven opponents in the first round and the other in the second. First to fall were
Manuel Jimenez and Juan Gondola in Colon, then Edward Morales in Panama
City. Enrique Jacobs, Leroy Cargill and Cesar Uche de Leon were all one-round
victims in the National Gymnasium in Panama. According to La Estrella de
Panama, Duran sent De Leon to the emergency room at Santo Tomas Hospital.
“He was a very good fighter and had not been beaten,” said Plomo. “Duran left
his rival in such a poor condition that he had to be taken to hospital.” De Leon
would never fight again. Juan Gondola made it as far as round two in Colon in
November, then Carlos Howard was thumped in one in December to complete
an explosive first year.
It was clear that Duran was ready for sterner opposition, and the boxers he
faced in 1969 were a step up in class. His six fights that year brought six more
victories, but none was inside the first three rounds. In January 1969, Alberto
Brand was knocked down three times and stopped in four rounds. A six-round
decision over Eduardo Frutos was followed by the stoppages of Jacinto Garcia
(“Duran almost killed him,” said Plomo), the experienced Adolfo Osses, well-
travelled journeyman Serafin Garcia and former Panamanian bantamweight
champion Luis Patino. By the end of 1969, Duran was 15-0 and had acquired the
nickname “El Dentista” because of his habit of pushing opponents’ teeth into
their mouthpiece. He had also set up a juicy crosstown rivalry with Ernesto
Marcel, the one fellow prospect who had the tools to compete with the eighteen-
year-old terror.
It took eight rounds for Duran to dispose of Patino, a crafty veteran, on
November 23, but the win showed the people that here was more than just a one-
punch phenom and that he could last more than six rounds. “This was a good
fighter, an experienced one, who had done a good number of good fights in
Panama,” said Plomo. “So he was like the true exam for those who were
building up their careers as professionals. They had to fight against Patino.
Duran’s first fight to ten rounds was that one. They got up to the eighth round
when Duran pah, pah, pah, knocked him down.”
One of the most famous knockouts Duran would ever score came after the
bout. Like most Panamanian men, he had a sixth sense when it came to
searching out a good time, women and liquor. If the party didn’t find Roberto, he
would find it, and on this night a victory celebration was held in his mother’s
hometown, Guarare, where family, friends and well-wishers joined in the
revelry.
Duran retold the story years later. “I had defeated a boxer that was from
Parita, and Guarare never had had good boxers until I beat that boxer from
Parita, and so we had a big party. There was a ball, and they were dancing and
we were drinking. A young woman started caressing me but I had very little
money left. At that time I used to drink whiskey. So a man got up and said, ‘I
will give you a hundred dollars and two whiskey bottles if you knock out a
horse.’ I told him to forget about it. And then the woman started caressing me
again and asked me what that bet was about. I told her that the man wanted to
see if I could topple a horse. Then the man said he was ready to pay, so I
accepted.
“I stood in front of the horse and stared at him. I asked where should I hit in
order to make it fall and they told me that a punch behind the ear would make
him fall. I was very drunk but I hit the horse with all my strength, the horse fell
down and I broke this finger. This is the horse story. In exchange for two
whiskey bottles and a hundred dollars.”
According to another version of the story, Duran and friends had finished a
bottle of what one would later describe as Old Parr rum, but could not pay for it.
The bar owner offered a compromise, with Duran’s uncle Socrates Garcia as
witness, that if the boxer could knock down a horse with his fist, the cost of the
booze would be covered and the friends would drink for free. “They didn’t have
the money to pay the tab, so they told Roberto that if he knocked out the horse,
the drinks were free for everyone,” said Duran’s friend, bar owner Ralph
Bardayan. “He was told to hit him right below the ear. Then after he did it, all his
friends and family drank for free.” Duran hit the horse below the ear and it
immediately fell to the floor. His right hand was bleeding and his uncle insisted
he go to hospital, though due to the booze he’d drunk, Duran felt no pain.
Plomo remembered yet another account. “One day they leave to take a
vacation and they stopped in Guarare. By now Duran was pretty developed and
was still an amateur. In Guarare, he got on a horse and they told the horse to start
stepping, but Duran wanted it to run. The horse didn’t want to run because it was
a walking horse. He came down from the horse and he was furious. He punched
the horse and it fell down. Yes, it was true that he knocked out a horse.”
Local boxing analyst Daniel Alonso claims to be a bible of the sport in
Panama. “Some myths are very difficult to prove. Duran would go back to
Guarare in the province of Los Santos. In this area there are a lot of animals.
Maybe, but there is no way to prove it.”
Life and legend were already becoming intertwined.
 4

Streetfighting Man

“No black man can beat me.”

Roberto Duran

ROBERTO DURAN WAS not the only rising star of Panamanian boxing. As the
sport entered its boom period in the tiny Central American state, others were
hunting for glory with the same hunger and determination. The most notable was
Ernest Marcel, known as “ñato” because of his pug nose, which had little
cartilage left after years of boxing and was jammed onto his face as if composed
of silly putty. Marcel was three years older than Duran and came from Colon. He
spent much of his youth playing basketball in local leagues, but was always the
smallest player on the court and eventually realized that there wasn’t much room
in the game for five-foot-seven-inch guards in a sport of six-footers. He turned to
boxing.
There was no better place to hone his skills than the hotbed of Colon. The
province had a knack for hatching and matching the finest boxers in Panama.
Inevitably Ismael Laguna, who lived down the street, was his yardstick. “I liked
Laguna’s style and started learning his tactics when we sparred together,” he
said. “He was my inspiration.” With help from trainer Felipe Vega and boxer the
Manhattan Kid, Marcel would create his own style at the Arena de Colon.
Although he eventually left to live and box in Panama City, he firmly maintained
his roots back there.
In 1966, after more than seventy amateur contests, Marcel turned professional
with a first-round knockout. After a string of wins and one draw, Marcel lost his
first in a trilogy with Miguel Riasco – whose brother Rigoberto would later win
the world junior featherweight title – in July 1967, and dropped another decision
nine months later to Augustin Cedeno. While some boxers came up with excuses
for defeats, Marcel knew he had a lot to learn. Learn he did, and he would lose
only twice more in his entire career.
Marcel won his next fifteen fights, recording eleven knockouts. Along with
his rise came new managers, Captain Vasquez and Colonel Ruben Paredes, who
Marcel entrusted to get him better bouts. The military was heavily involved in
the sport and Paredes, an important figure in the National Guard and would later
briefly run the country, had been a prime mover in the expansion of boxing
under the Omar Torrijos regime. Paredes developed a close relationship with
Marcel. “Torrijos gave support to all the sports in Panama and helped lift up the
boxing here,” said Marcel. “Panama was down before and now it was getting
back up with his help. He helped make gyms in Maranon, and got the police to
help also.”
After a revenge knockout win over Miguel Riasco, the young featherweight
contender with the pug nose was about to embark on the most significant battle
of his career. Duran was right around the corner. Who was this kid from Colon
trying to take my turf, Duran thought? Many things traveled through Duran’s
stubborn head, one being that he had something to prove to his people. By
kicking Marcel’s ass, he could avenge the loss of his friend and stablemate
Riasco and stake his own claim. Yet a fight between Duran and Ernesto Marcel
was one that the Panamanian Boxing Commission was hesitant to make. Why
build one prospect and destroy another? The real concern was with Duran’s
inexperience. Many believed he was too green to challenge Marcel, but Duran
told Carlos Eleta he wanted the fight and would win it. “Marcel was ready to
fight for a world championship at that time but the boxing commission in
Panama would not approve that fight with me,” he added. “Eleta did everything
he could to get the fight to go.”
It was the fight everyone wanted to see. From the rich businessman loosening
his tie in a Panama City nightclub to the campesino on his farm in Chiriqui, from
Chorrillo to David, the topic of conversation was Duran versus Marcel. The two
young stars shared a country, a weight class and a tug-of-war on bragging rights.
Both were young, insolent and egotistical in the macho way of the barrio. Both
were also coming of age at the right time. Two years earlier a cocksure lieutenant
colonel, Omar Torrijos Herrera, and his accomplices had staged a military coup
and had overthrown President Arnulfo Arias. By 1970, Torrijos was entrenched
himself as the Leader of the Panamanian Revolution, and would build a legacy
that eclipsed all of Panama’s military heroes. In the quest for a new social
democracy he backed the poor, taxed the rich and increased the power of the
military. “In 1972, the military started to support sports in Panama,” said Marcel.
“Panama was down and Torrijos was making everything better. He made gyms
and began to get support from the police.” He would make boxing a national
sport.
In the early spring of 1970, both Duran and Marcel made their way to Mexico
City, part of a group of Panamanian boxers sent by Eleta and others to train there
in some of the toughest gyms in the world. Always alive to new experiences,
Duran was happy to escape the grimness of Chorrillo. His interest was also
piqued by the thought that his father might be in Mexico City. Leaving the
Beyreyes Hotel a few hours before a training session, he excitedly roamed the
vast city, a $500 stipend from Eleta burning a hole in his pocket, and soon got
lost.
“The Mexican arena where I fought was very close, and I asked this Mexican
how do I get there and he says, ‘Just keep straight and you have to see it.’ What a
coincidence, and the gym was open. I remembered that arena because I used to
watch a lot of Mexican movies. I watched wrestlers like El Santo, Chavo, Blue,
all these Mexican wrestlers, so I climb into the ring and make believe the ring is
full and I felt like I was a wrestler.”
While there he also met a beautiful girl. “I fall in love with this Mexican
woman … and I have to leave for Panama,” said Duran. “Eleta had this guy like
a second hand named Issac Kresh. He asked me, ‘You want to fight right here in
this Mexican ring?’ And I said, ‘Hell, yeah I do.’ He told me that the fight would
be against a guy named Felipe Torres. He said it would be in about three weeks
and I told him, ‘Let’s get it on.’ The real reason I wanted to stay was because of
the beautiful Mexican girl I had met.”
Torres had just gone the distance with the highly ranked Kuniaki Shibata of
Japan and had never been stopped, but Duran knew nothing about his style. It
didn’t matter to him and rarely would throughout his career. His opponent could
do the worrying. Duran fought with the same instinctive aggression as his
Mexican counterparts, with little regard for grace or beauty, though his defence
was becoming ever more subtle. Fighting in his opponent’s home, he couldn’t let
it go to a decision.
“We go to the movies, and I tell the girl that I am going to stay for a few days
because I have a fight,” said Duran. “And she said, ‘With whom?’ I told her
Felipe Torres and she was astonished. She knew a lot about boxing, but she
didn’t want to say anything to me. The day of the fight my girl is there, but I had
charisma and had won over the Mexican people.”
It was 5 April 1970, and Duran had a girl by his side, the Mexican fans
warming to him and a right hand from Hell. He also had a fierce desire to see his
opponent destroyed. Winning on points was a frustration; seeing the other man
prone on the canvas was the ultimate high. He was so obsessed with the
knockout that he wouldn’t even allow a photo of Eleta’s nephew standing over
him in the middle of the ring. The knockout was sacred, not a joke.
Both men went toe-to-toe. “It was a very bloody match and the guy gave me a
punch and I ended up way over across the ring, but I never fell,” said Duran. “It
was back and forth, both of us flying across the ring. The fight’s over and we
were worried that we were going to get robbed. I had the face like a tamale. I
was all swollen and so was he. When the unanimous decision came out for me, a
big fat guy … picks me up and says, ‘You just beat the ninth-ranked
featherweight in the world.’ Marcel never wanted to fight Torres, and I come in
without any notice and beat the guy.”
Something else happened on the trip to further the rivalry between Duran and
Ernesto Marcel. “I had a sparring session with Duran,” said Marcel. “I beat him
bad for two rounds and after it he called Eleta and told him that he wanted a
match with me. Duran was very upset about the beating I gave him in practice.
He said, ‘No black man can beat me.’ Then he went back to Eleta in Panama and
told him to get the fight.” According to Duran, the two never sparred.
Leaving his Mexican girl behind, Duran returned to Panama. As they shared
the same gym for training, Duran and Marcel crossed paths on occasion, and
neither gave any ground. Marcel was out to prove that he wasn’t scared of the
man who frightened so many opponents, while Duran was just Duran, bold and
confrontational. What the public saw, the scowl and stare, was no act. To beat his
opponents, he had to hate them.
“When the fight with Marcel was realized, Marcel was training at Neco de La
Guardia,” said Duran. “I used to train at the same time from twelve to two-thirty
every day. After that I would go play basketball. When Marcel was training he
would yell to me to get in condition because I’m going to knock you out. I told
him that I was going to knock the shit out of him.
“Eleta had a company that sold vitamins and he gave me one called Mighty
Tech. He told me to take two each day and I thought, if one vitamin is going to
make me strong, if I take two then I’ll be strong as a bull. I started taking the
vitamins in pairs. But they only got me sick. I got this type of wart on my butt,
and I couldn’t run and I couldn’t jog. I told Eleta they had to stop the fight
because I couldn’t train. I always remembered that Marcel used to tell me that he
didn’t want to hear any excuses that I was sick or anything. I was fed up with
that.”
Duran went to the equivalent of a back-alley doctor, his childhood pal
Chaparro Pinzon, nicknamed Shorty. The biggest bout in Panama was riding on
his rudimentary medical knowledge. “Three days before the fight, I still couldn’t
walk,” said Duran. “Two days before the fight, I let Chaparro stay at my house
because he was really poor and had no place to go. He would run with me in the
mornings and go with me to the gym. He says, ‘Let’s pinch this wart and you’ll
get cured.’ I was sitting on the bed screaming like a little girl because he takes
out the roof of the wart on my butt and I’m drawing blood like crazy. About four
hours later my fever goes down and the swelling between my legs starts to
disappear. The next day I wake up like a bull and say that I’m going to knock the
shit out of that bastard and he’s going to pay for everything he said.” Eleta was
kept in the dark about Chaparro’s crude surgery. “Nobody knew about anything
that happened at my house,” said Duran. “I was going to win despite my
sickness.”
Duran and Marcel met on 16 May 1970, over ten rounds at 128 pounds, at the
Nuevo Panama Stadium. The trash talking was over. Both fighters knew what a
win would mean to their careers. Duran was undefeated at 25-0, while Marcel
was 24-2-1. “Marcel was a helluva fighter,” said Eleta, who pulled the strings to
make the fight happen. “But I knew that Duran could beat him.”
Under different circumstances, Duran and Marcel might have been friends,
sharing ring notes at late-night haunts. With help from Old Parr they might have
squared up over the pool table, thrown some playful jabs, then hugged each
other in the way boxers do: one arm, strong grasp, with a hint of nostalgia. But
Roberto Duran Samaniego and Ernesto Marcel grew up on different sides of the
tracks. Colon and Panama City were close, but if you were from Colon, then you
weren’t from the capital and that’s what mattered most. “It was the best from
Colon against the best from the city. That’s why the fight was so big in Panama,”
said Marcel. Such sentiment was echoed around the country. Fans took sides,
grabbed a beer and settled in.
Inside the arena a swooshing sound, unique to Panama, circled like a wave
with every punch landed. It appeared to most that Duran had the edge through
the first nine rounds. Certainly he was the aggressor, and stung his opponent
more frequently. Even if his punches weren’t hurting Marcel that much, they
arrived from all angles. But it was close, and Marcel believed he was ahead.
Now in the final round, according to Marcel, he was still utilizing the same in-
and-out tactics that had held up in the earlier rounds. Marcel agreed it was a
close fight, although Duran’s pride wouldn’t ever allow him to admit such a
thing. However, the last ten ticks of the clock would remain embedded in
Marcel’s head, a lonely reminder that to agree to be a boxer is a contract based
on vulnerability in a callous world that grants no freebies.
Then, with ten seconds left in the final round, referee Isaac Herrera waved his
hands and decided not to let Marcel finish the fight. He said Marcel had barely
thrown a punch in the round and he was stopping the bout because of his
inactivity. Others claimed Duran had nailed Marcel, and forced him to run to
survive the last round. It was ruled a tenth-round technical knockout to Duran.
There was confusion. Neither fighter was hurt or close to being knocked out, but
there was concern from the Eleta-appointed referee that Marcel wasn’t throwing
punches.
“Everybody in Panama wanted to know why he stopped the fight,” Marcel
recalled. “I asked the referee many times after, why he stopped the fight. And
Isaac Herrera, one of the greatest referees in the world, tells me he really didn’t
know why he stopped the fight. I was winning, so people wanted to know why
they stopped the fight. Yes, the fight was narrow. After the fight [Herrera] said
that I wasn’t fighting.”
Duran countered, “All Marcel did was hug me the whole fight and smell the
cologne I was wearing. Marcel never made weight, lost by forfeit and I even
gave him pounds. He never wanted to get in the ring with me. It was just about
the time that my body started to become quick. After the fight, I never saw him
again. To this day I ask him to his face why he didn’t fight me again.”
Although Marcel claims to remember boxing official Juan Carlos Tapia
interrogating Herrera about the stoppage, Tapia denies it. “I was a judge in that
fight,” said Tapia. “Marcel got really scared. He received a punch in the ninth
round in the throat and he didn’t want to fight anymore. In the tenth round, he
ran around until the fight was over. The referee told him that he had to fight, and
when Marcel did not fight, they stopped the fight and gave it to Duran by TKO.
All three judges had Duran winning. If the fight would have lasted ten rounds,
Duran would have won a unanimous decision.”
While Marcel claimed he wanted a rematch at 128, Duran’s natural growth
and excessive eating habits forced him to move to the 135-pound limit. “I asked
Duran for the rematch,” said Marcel. “And he said he would go his way and for
me to go my way. And I went on to be a world champ at this weight.” Duran
countered: “In a three minute round, for two and a half of those minutes Marcel
would dance around and run from me. In the last minute, he would try to stand
up to me and impress the judges and the fans, but when we went toe-to-toe, I
broke him apart. By the fifth round, I was way ahead of him. [Years later, at an
honorary dinner] he came over to me, hit me in the ribs and told me that I was
the only man to really beat him. And I said, ‘If you really wanted the rematch,
then why didn’t you come up to the 135-pound limit? You were afraid to fight
me at 135 because you were afraid I’d beat your ass again.’”
In August 1972, Ernesto Marcel won the WBA featherweight title to become
one of four Panamanian world champions. He would retire from the sport, still
champion, two years later.
FOR ALL THAT the Duran-Marcel fight captured the imagination, there was
still only one true boxing hero in Panama. In November 1965, Ismael Laguna
had lost his lightweight crown in a rematch with Carlos Ortiz, but in March
1970, he had regained it from Mexican bomber Mando Ramos, traveling to Los
Angeles – where Ramos was hugely popular – to do so. “The whole stadium was
against me,” Laguna recalled. “I looked up and saw them all chanting, ‘Mando,
Mando.’” But the twenty-year-old Ramos was already traveling a path of drugs,
women and deceit, while Laguna was too respectful of his craft to fritter away
his talent. He stuck and twisted his jab early and often, draining Ramos’s body
like a wet towel and stopping him on a bloody ninth-round technical knockout.
“I met up with some bad people and I got caught up in methamphetamines and
cocaine,” said Ramos years later. “I wasn’t right at all. Mentally my mind was
not in the fight.
“Duran and I were supposed to fight at one point,” he added. “If I were to
have been right, that would have been a great fight. I would have boxed him, but
I never got to show my ability in boxing. I could box; I could punch moving
backward. I swear I would have boxed Duran like that, punch and moving back
and forth.”
Champion once more, the experienced Laguna was regarded as one of the best
pound-for-pound boxers in the world. Then the unthinkable happened. In
September 1970, he was outmaneuvered by an even better boxer, a skinny,
broken-nosed Scot called Ken Buchanan, and lost his cherished title for the
second time. It meant he would never get to defend against the rising Duran.
The closest the two Panamanian greats ever came to a box-off was a single
sparring session. Though few were in the gym to witness it, the story later grew
into the proportions of a mini-epic. Duran’s sparring sessions were feral portraits
of precision. Even when training with stablemates, he gave and asked no quarter,
and the fact that he worshipped Laguna meant nothing when they stepped
between the ropes.
“Duran was coming up and he didn’t have a sparring partner one day,” said
Laguna. “I didn’t want to spar with him because he was too young. I think I was
preparing for a bout. I was too experienced, but he insisted. At first I thought we
would take it easy, but Plomo urged Duran to go after me. When Duran came at
me, I hit him with three quick hooks and opened a cut under his eye. That’s
when the sparring session ended.”
It is not uncommon for fighters to have a selective memory when they have
come off second best, and unsurprisingly Duran’s account differs. “I was
sparring at Neco de la Guardia with Antonio Amaya,” he said. “I was young and
I had done two rounds with Amaya. Laguna had no one to spar with. Right
before, I had hit Amaya really hard. I was just starting my career, but I had
already beaten Amaya badly. Then, I hear someone say that Laguna pays people
to spar with him. And I say, ‘I’m the one.’
“In the first round I start hitting Laguna left and right, and I even move him a
little bit. Laguna starts running around me, and I start hunting him down. When I
stopped, he hit me with a left and broke my nose. When I saw the blood, I lost it
and jumped on top of him and gave him some punches. Curro Dossman, the
manager of Laguna, tells Laguna, ‘That Cholito is tough. He’ll be a champion
one day.’ When we’re finished sparring, I’m drinking orange juice. I say,
‘Champ, give me something so I can go and eat.’ And he gives me a dollar-fifty
and right then I felt like hitting him again. That’s the truth about my sparring
with Laguna.”
Not far from where the incident occurred in the early Seventies, Plomo sits in
a gym in Barrazza and retells his version. “Laguna and Amaya were stars from
the same block and Duran wanted to fight with them. First, Duran got in there
and was sparring two rounds with Amaya, but Curro Dossman stepped in and
said, ‘Look, this is only sparring, we are not fighting here. If you want to fight,
then fight with Laguna.’ And this is the truth, for those who tell otherwise then
they are trying to cover Laguna. When Laguna got into the ring, he tried to jab
Duran and Duran hit him twice with right hands and Laguna was stumbling.”
Didn’t Laguna break Duran’s nose? “No, mentira, mentira! All lies,” said the
old sage, still protecting his fighter. “I remember watching Laguna fight Ortiz in
the first fight in Panama. Their next two fights [won by Ortiz] were much
different than the first one, where Laguna was using his cleverness. Ortiz would
beat him in the two fights with the same punch. Laguna was a beautiful fighter
with much speed and a good jab but he couldn’t change when he fought Ortiz.
Compared to Duran, Laguna didn’t have intelligence in the ring. When Duran
got hit he would move out of the way before the next punch came. Laguna
would just stay there and receive punches.”
The two men did share a common opponent around this time in Lloyd
Marshall, a dangerous American lightweight. Laguna had some problems in
outpointing the heavy-handed Marshall, while two months later Duran, who had
stopped five more opponents since his grudge match with Ernesto Marcel, beat
him inside five rounds, on 29 May 1971.
“Laguna fought Lloyd Marshall, who had a really tough right hand,”
remembered Duran. “Marshall hits Laguna with a right that knocks him on his
ass but Laguna wins by decision, and Eleta gives me the fight with Marshall.
The entire country said, ‘Now they’re really going to knock out Duran.’ When
we’re in the dressing room, a boxer tells me to be careful with the right hand
because that’s his most dangerous, most powerful punch.
“People were saying Marshall was going to knock me out, he was going to do
this and that. Not very many people went to the fight. The guy hits me with the
same right hand he hits Laguna with, even harder, and couldn’t even move me.
The crowd said, ‘Awww,’ when he hit me, but he hit me twice and didn’t even
move me. That kind of got to Marshall and that’s why I knocked him out.
“[In the States] I once went to a place where there were those coffeemakers
that keep the coffee warm. I had never seen one like that in Panama and I told
Eleta that I wanted one of those. He told me not to worry, that he was going to
give me one of those when I would fight in Panama. When I won the fight with
Marshall and got down from the ring, he was holding the coffeemaker in his
hands.” Duran gave his gloves from the fight to John F. Kennedy Jr., son of the
late President, who was at ringside as Eleta’s guest.
Laguna and Duran would never box each other again. Eleta did initiate talks
about a possible bout between but realized there was little point in eliminating
one of Panama’s two boxing idols. Both believe they would have handled the
other with ease. “There was talk that Laguna was sick and that Eleta wanted me
to fight him,” said Duran. “But he knew I would have destroyed him.” Not so,
said Laguna: “I would have destroyed him in one round!”
Duran had a similar rivalry with another world champion, his childhood friend
Alfonso “Peppermint” Frazer (Frazer would win the WBA light-welterweight
title in 1972). Eleta managed both, and on a few occasions they sparred together.
Neither fighter had moved past the ninth grade, as Frazer left school at fifteen
and Duran at fourteen. Three years older and slightly bigger, Frazer remembered
Duran and the struggles of his childhood.
“Duran and I had two different trainers, but we were stablemates. I was
trained by Federico Plummer, and he had Plomo. When I sparred with Duran in
Maranon he was getting great already and I had to put my hand on him. He was
coming along good but he wasn’t up to me yet. So bang, I hit him, and Eleta
came in and said, ‘You guys take it easy, you’re only practicing.’ But he tried to
show me up. We only sparred once. Duran comes at you because he was young,
strong and famous and he wanted to hurt everybody. He didn’t know the
difference between sparring and fighting, so every time he got into the ring to
spar, he would fight. He’d shoot his best punches and try to hurt everybody he
worked with.”
As always, Plomo was just outside the ring feeding instructions to Duran. He
knew that his fighter had to be that aggressive and fierce every second he was in
the ring. Without that all-out intensity, Duran wouldn’t have been Duran. “They
only had one sparring session together because Frazer was scared to get in the
ring with Roberto,” said Plomo. “Roberto was just starting off and he didn’t have
good form. [Frazer] hit him down, but Duran got right back up and started to hit
Frazer and then his manager stepped in and said, ‘No fighting, no fighting. This
is practice.’ That was the last time that Frazer would spar with him and always
had excuses that he was sick or something like that. Duran had to train like that
because he needed to practice against a certain style. For instance, if Roberto
was going to fight Amaya, the other person he was sparring with had to have the
same technique. That’s how he had to practice, according to the other guy’s
style.”
Duran has yet another version of the story. “We were in Juan Demostenes
Stadium and we stayed to spar with Peppermint Frazer. Frazer was going to fight
with someone at that time, but I don’t remember who. The fans were saying to
Frazer, ‘Wait till you see the punches you give Cholito because he doesn’t know
nothing.’ Here comes the technique versus the brutality. I’ll never forget in the
corner, Frazer tells me to hit him a little softer because ‘you’re hitting me too
hard.’”
However, another of Duran’s sparring mates learned volumes from each three-
minute class. “Duran used to hold back all the time because he was a perfect guy
in the ring,” said former pro Mario Molo. “[He] never tried to knock me out in
practice. He tried to learn and I would learn also. We both became better boxers.
He tried to teach me while boxing me.” Molo, who later fell on hard times, can
still be seen at boxing shows in Panama. “Mario Molo was one of the first
sparrings we used,” said Plomo. “He would last longer [than others]. In general,
they were not able to resist Duran’s blow during training much of the time. To
Duran training time was like real fight time. ‘Hit me hard because I will hit you
hard back,’ he used to say. He did not mind who it was, his brother or anyone.
He used to request that the other hit as strong as if it were the real fight. This is
what I call to train thoroughly. This is good work.”

EVERY SO often, the streetfighter in Roberto Duran reappeared. He found it

hard to stay out of trouble. Even with Carlos Eleta by his side and with his
potential unfolding in the ring, Duran wasn’t guaranteed a free pass with the law.
“When I was still living out of the hotel, there were three big bars: Atlas,
Ranchero and Balboa,” Duran recalled. “They all played music. My mom’s
friend worked in a restaurant called El Limite. We used to invite my mom to eat
where her friend worked. Once, I went to a dance and my mom’s friend was
discussing something with another person. I intervened, but they started fighting.
I tried to separate them, but I feel somebody’s hands on my neck from behind. I
got him and I flipped him; he tried to stand up and I hit him. The man tried to get
up again and I punched him.”
The police arrived as Duran was working the guy over. “Four guards fell on
top of me. I was taken to jail that night in front of a judge named Belillo, who
adored the policemen. We saw the judge, that son of a bitch, I hope he dies of
cancer, and the other guy said that he was stopping the fight and that I hit him.
Then he said that he was a policeman and he had tried to show me his badge.
The judge wouldn’t let me talk. So I was sent to a jail called Cárcel Modelo,
where they only sent the most violent criminals.”
Cárcel Modelo translates, apparently without irony, as Model Jail. An ugly,
four-story block, it was built in 1925 in Panama City to house approximately 250
inmates. When Duran arrived there, it held over 1,000 men in appalling
conditions. Cells built for three men now contained up to fifteen and prisoners
awaiting trial were often kept for interminable periods. Torture, particularly of
political detainess, was widely believed to take place there.
Duran found himself in a cell with men even more intimidating than himself.
“There were two people: a Peruvian wrestler and a huge black man who looked
like he killed somebody. The jail was called la preventiva [a system of remand
where prisoners considered a serious risk are incarcerated before trial], where the
very bad people went. When someone new arrived, they made all of the inmates
line up. There were cells on both sides, and as I was walking inside, the
prisoners started shouting, ‘Here comes a new one.’ They would take all the
prisoners out and make them stand on a line. I heard them shouting, ‘Here comes
fresh meat.’ At that time I was already boxing, with Eleta consolidating it. When
the inmates saw me, they knew me. They all asked me, ‘What are you doing
here? What are you doing Duran?’”
Despite his minor celebrity, in jail he was just another face. Duran knew he
was in danger every minute he stayed in la preventiva. All his life, Duran had
fought his way out of problems, and he always hit first. Now he was among
desperate people who didn’t care who he was, and his fists meant nothing. For
the first time he could remember, Duran needed protection. Luckily he found
someone who would watch his back.
“We had to sleep on the floor,” said Duran. “The inmates gave me cardboard,
another gave me a pillow and another one gave me a blanket. Later, some guy
started to stare at me, a white guy, and he got closer and he told me he was Taras
Bulba, the Peruvian wrestler. He told me he had lots of jewelry and he trafficked
jewelry. He said that he had been there for long and that if he ever got out, he
would never return to the country again. Then he told this huge black guy that if
he tried something against me, he would have his head.”
Carlos Eleta could have gotten his prized fighter out with a phone call, but
wanted to teach him a lesson. It was left to another influential figure to bail him
out. “It was a good friend of mine who helped me in amateur boxing,” said
Duran. “He was a rich man … a colonel at Cárcel Modelo. One morning I was
cleaning the front part of the jail when an officer came up to me. I was sweeping
the floor in the jail and he asked me why I was there. I told him what really
happened.”
“Is it true?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Then, he asked me for my mother, my uncles, my family, my grandma and
everyone. He told me that he had grown up with them. Finally, he investigated
what really happened and then they let me go. I went back to my cell to get my
stuff. I said, ‘Taras Bulba, thank you and I’m gone.’
“People told me, ‘Manos de Piedra, remember us if someday we get the
chance to see one of your fights.’
“‘No problem,” I replied, and I was out of there. I went directly to see Carlos
Eleta and told him how I had been freed. I told him he had not behaved well, for
he should have tried to help me. He said he wanted me to have a punishment for
what I had done. But I was young then and did not understand that.”
Plomo, as is so often the case, remembered the event slightly differently. “He
once had a problem when he went to a club called Balboa en El Chorrillo. Duran
liked dancing very much, and having fun, but he did not drink alcohol. He was
there one day when a plainclothes policeman started hitting his wife. Duran
walked towards him and told him to stop hitting her, that she was only a woman.
The policeman told him to shut up unless he wanted to get beaten too. Duran
broke the policeman’s jaw from the first blow. The policeman had tried to
humiliate him, and though he was not wearing his uniform, being a policeman as
he was, he thought he had the same authority as if in uniform. A couple of other
policemen turned up and Duran explained to them that he had to hit him because
the policeman had threatened to hit him. Yes, he was arrested.”
A lengthy prison sojourn could have destroyed Duran’s career at the very time
it was about to take off. After defeating Lloyd Marshall and the Mexican Fermin
Soto in Monterrey, he was booked on his first trip to the United States to fight on
the undercard of Ken Buchanan’s lightweight title defense against Ismael
Laguna, at Madison Square Garden, the most famous venue in world boxing.
 5

Two Old Men

“Those guys, they’re older than water.”

Angelo Dundee

FIGHTERS DREAMT OF the Garden from the day they laced on gloves.
Madison Square Garden was the Mecca of boxing, steeped in the history of the
game’s biggest fights. Just six months earlier, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier
had slugged it out there in the so-called Fight of the Century. To headline there
was the ultimate validation. The Garden, which was renovated and moved to
four different locations, was originally constructed at 23rd and Madison Avenue,
Manhattan, in 1879. Not until the “new” Garden – known as “The House That
Tex Built” after promoter Tex Rickard – was built in 1925, however, did it
become the sport’s centre, graced by the greatest figures in the game. In 1968, it
was relocated again to Pennsylvania Plaza, between 32nd and 34th streets and
Seventh and Eighth avenues.
Duran’s opponent was the experienced Benny Huertas, a former gangbanger
who was popular with promoters and fans alike because he always came to fight.
Huertas had lost almost as many as he had won and, sandwiched between the
great lightweights of his era, would be a bit player in the division. No matter
how hard he tried, he couldn’t shed the distinction of being an extra in the
world’s most brutal sport, but he always gave his best and was certainly no patsy.
Back in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, they called Huertas “the Boxer” because he
would fight with anybody, though he spent most of his youth not in his native
country but in New York City. “I was in a big Puerto Rican gang in Brooklyn
called the Apaches,” said Huertas, “but I didn’t want to do this anymore. I
wanted something else.” He saw an ad in a newspaper for a Hispanic Golden
Gloves Tournament at a place called St. Nick’s, and at eighteen found boxing. It
“was just something to do.”
Not long into his amateur career, tragedy struck. “Something happened in
around 1962-63. It is so sad that I can’t even talk about it,” said Huertas years
later, nearly in tears. “I killed a guy in the ring. It was sad because I had a new
wife and we didn’t have a baby. He had his wife and he had a baby who was six
or seven months. I thought about when his boy grows and asks, ‘Where’s my
father?’ Suppose that thing happened to me with a baby … a lot of troubles.”
Huertas took nearly a year off from the ring but couldn’t quit the sport; his
future rode on it. “Boxing saved my life. The barrio where I lived in Brooklyn
was a bad one. A lot of people was killed. I had to do something better than
that.” At the time, world champs such as Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres fought
out of the Cus D’Amato gym where Huertas trained. D’Amato was actually
Huertas’s co-manager, but wasn’t hands-on. He stayed in the background and
Huertas never really knew one of the most famous of all boxing managers.
He turned pro in 1965, and by the time he was due to fight Duran his record
was 18-14-3. Though Duran was barely known at that stage outside his home
country and the boxing cognoscenti, to those in the know his match-up with
Huertas added intrigue to the Garden bill. Was this killer from Panama any good
or was his record built on straw men? No one really knew, but Huertas was
expected to give him a test. Fight posters billed their ten-round semi-final as
Roberto “Rocky” Duran versus Benny “Bang Bang” Huertas and described one
as the “sensational unbeaten Panamanian K.O. artist” while the other was the
“slam bang Puerto Rican puncher.” They were the opening act for Laguna and
Buchanan.

“PAPA, WHAT TIME does the ice cream parlor close?” asked Roberto Duran.
“I think around nine p.m.,” said Carlos Eleta. “Why?”
“What time is my fight?”
“I don’t know, why Roberto?”
“Well, if I finish my fight in time, then I can make it over in time to get a
milkshake.”
“I was telling him not to be scared to fight at the Garden for the first time,”
recalled Eleta later, “and all he could think about was ice cream.”
For his part, Huertas was totally ignorant of the opponent he was facing, and
in fact was more preoccupied by the recent death of his father. “I knew nothing
about Duran,” he said. “The manager fooled me because at the time I was
making 138-140 pounds. I was happy because I made the 138-pound weight
limit. Then the promoter came and told me to make 135. I made the weight, but I
killed myself. There was an exhibition a couple days before the fight, and it was
all Panama. I saw him spar with someone else that day and I said, ‘This is going
to be a war,’ because we had the same style.” Both had little regard for defense.
Neither wanted to dance around the ring. They were there to fight.
On 13 September 1971, at the Garden, Duran wasted no time introducing
himself. First, they scuffled, with neither exacting a decided edge. Then a
thudding right to the temple left Huertas sprawled out on the canvas. It was all
over in sixty-six seconds and Duran made it back to the ice cream parlor before
closing. With his milkshake and his knockout victory, Duran waited to see if
Laguna would return the lightweight crown back to Panama.
Benny Huertas would continue to fight anyplace they needed a body. “When
you spend a lot of time in one thing and stop, you don’t want to leave it alone,”
he recalled. “I have to stay in the house now and do nothing. I can’t work
because of the discs in my back and in the garment business you have to work
like a horse.”
Because of the way Duran knocked out Huertas, those who hadn’t seen him
fight before were convinced that he was going to accomplish things in the sport.
One punch was enough to sell some boxing writers. “The undercard … produced
one fighter of special note, who will have to be watched as a possible future
lightweight champion,” said the august Ring magazine. “I’d seen Huertas and he
was a damn good fighter in the gym in Gramercy Park,” recalled boxing analyst
Bert Sugar. “[Duran] takes him out in one round and it wasn’t even a fight. It
was a mauling, a mugging. The kid had something. Good looking …
everything.”
Panamanian boxing writer Alfonso Castillo, a small, bespectacled ex-jockey,
was one of those who witnessed the destruction of Benny Huertas. He
immediately coined a new name for the phenomenon: Manos de Piedra. Hands
of Stone.
In the main event, Ken Buchanan again outpointed Laguna to retain his world
title. It would be the Tiger’s last fight and Duran promised to avenge his friend’s
loss. “Duran said that on one occasion that his inspiration to be a boxer was
when he saw Ismael Laguna beat Carlos Ortiz,” said Panamanian boxing analyst
Daniel Alonso. “After the Huertas fight, Duran said that he would beat
Buchanan next for Laguna.”
Before he would get the chance, he was introduced to two elderly men who
many would credit with his ultimate development as a fighter. Ray Arcel and
Freddie Brown were American sages who knew more about boxing than anyone
else alive.
Ray Arcel was born in the final months of the Nineteenth Century and began
working with boxers in 1917, at the age of seventeen. Growing up a Jew in an
Italian section of East Harlem meant he had his share of street fights, but he also
had a sharp mind, went to a good school and harbored ambitions to be a doctor.
All of that changed when he started to hang out at Grupp’s Gymnasium on 116th
Street. There he encountered Dai Dollings, a fanatical Welshman whose pedigree
went back to the bareknuckle era. Dollings, a strict vegetarian, had coached
marathon runners, would walk to the gym in all weathers and complained about
the softness of the New World: “You bloody Americans, you’re made of tissue
paper.” When the young Arcel told him he wanted to be a trainer too, Dollings
replied, “The hell with a trainer. You want to be an analyst.”
And that’s what Arcel became. He studied fighters like a scholar in the
unheated gyms and smoky boxing clubs of New York State and beyond, and
learned the black arts of corner work from the legendary Doc Bagley, who could
stem a gushing cut with a plug of chewing tobacco. He also loved his fighters.
His idol was Benny Leonard, the imperious Jewish-American lightweight who
created the template for the modern boxer. Arcel would tell his boxers, “This is
your school, where you learn your lessons.”
The list of champions he worked with eventually ran well into double figures.
He handled Tony Zale during his three epic wars with Rocky Graziano, trained
Ezzard Charles for his gory classics with Rocky Marciano, and seconded so
many of Joe Louis’s victims during the great heavyweight’s long reign that
sportswriter Jimmy Cannon labeled him “the Pallbearer.”
By the mid-Fifties, Arcel was running the popular Saturday Night Fights,
which appeared every week on the ABC television channel in the US. He was an
independent operator, and a successful one, but this did not endear him to the
New York hoodlums who then ran the sport. He started having trouble making
fights. Main event boxers would cancel at the last minute. He received an
anonymous phone call telling him to “get out of the TV racket if you know
what’s good for you.”
In 1953, the fifty-four-year-old Arcel was standing outside a Boston hotel
talking to a fellow trainer when a man stepped up behind him, hit him a vicious
blow to the head with a length of piping wrapped in a paper bag, dropped the
weapon and disappeared into the crowd. Arcel almost died and spent the next
nineteen days in hospital. The assault was instrumental in his decision to retire
from the sport he loved in 1956 to work in the purchasing department of an alloy
company. By the early Seventies he was still in good shape but venerable, with
neat gray hair, wise eyes and a dapper sense of dress in a Fifties style. He had
been out of boxing for eighteen years and was a man out of time, but his
knowledge and analytical skills hadn’t waned.
In March 1972, Carlos Eleta’s boxer Alfonso “Peppermint” Frazer was due to
challenge champion Nicolino Locche for the world title. Eleta had met Arcel
twenty years earlier, when the American helped to train a talented Panamanian
lightweight called Federico Plummer. “Then, after many, many years, I get
Peppermint Frazer and Duran,” said Eleta. “I have a chance for Frazer to fight
for the championship of the world with a fellow from Argentina. So then I tried
to contact Ray. I called Teddy Brenner at Madison Square Garden to get in touch
with him.
“Brenner said, ‘Forget about it, Ray is retired and having problems with the
mafia.’ They tried to control him, but they couldn’t because Ray was a very
honorable person. As soon as I talked to him he said, ‘It’s been a long time
Carlos, what can I do for you?’ I told him, ‘Well, I have a fighter who is fighting
for the championship of the world and I need you for that fight.’ Ray told me he
would do anything for me, under one condition, that he wouldn’t charge me a
penny. That was Ray Arcel. I had so much respect for that man. He was a very
strong man. The mafia tried to get to him, but they couldn’t.”
Arcel took the job. It was a tall order. The champion, Locche, was a chain-
smoker possessed of uncanny defensive skills, with over 100 wins to his name.
Not for nothing was he known as “the Untouchable.” About twenty days before
the bout, Arcel arrived to bring Frazer to a peak. Though he couldn’t speak
Spanish, he was fluent in the language of boxing and his mind was sharp as a
tack.
With him came Freddie Brown. While the sharp-featured Arcel could have
been mistaken for a university don, Brown, a “mere” sixty-seven, was a
cornerman straight from central casting, a stocky, flat-nosed, cigar-chomping
pug with the “dese, dem and doze” accent of the Lower East Side. A peerless
cutman, he combined the patience of long experience with the blunt speaking of
a man who knows his trade.
Peppermint Frazer had already received some helpful advice from Ismael
Laguna, who was now tragically in the grip of sickle-cell anemia and was fading
away from the sport. “I talked to Laguna, who beat up Locche for ten rounds but
didn’t get the decision,” said Frazer. “He told me not to shoot at his head because
I’d miss and tire myself out. Instead, I had to shoot at his shoulders and chest
and wear him down.”
Ray Arcel was also at work. He managed to watch a Locche training session
by “dressing like a Panamanian,” donning dark glasses and a Panama hat, and
drawing on his vast memory bank, immediately spotted that Locche’s style was
reminiscent of Johnny Dundee, a featherweight from the Twenties. He went back
and told Frazer not to follow if the champion retreated and tried to draw him to
the ropes: “Just stand there and look at him. Don’t do anything.” This would
negate Locche’s counter-punching style.
The plan worked to perfection for fifteen rounds. Not known as a knockout
puncher, Frazer disrupted the champ with skill and intelligence. “In, out, in, and
out, I just left his head alone and I would just shoot a straight right once in a
while,” said Frazer, savoring the memories. “I did just what Laguna told me.”
When the final bell sounded, Panama rejoiced. It was March 10, 1972, and
Frazer was champion of the world. “That day was like a carnival,” said Frazer.
“Oh, they treat you like a king: All the women, the money, everything. So many
new friends you didn’t know you had. But it depends what type of person that
you are. Some people can’t live without the fame.”
Unfortunately, those same fringe benefits that all champs savor only lasted
seven months as Frazer lost his title to the wonderfully skilled Colombian
Antonio Cervantes. “I tried to get inside against Cervantes, but he had a long
reach and kept me off him,” Frazer said. “They said in Panama that he was no
good, but I saw him in Venezuela and I knew he was good. I had nothing to be
ashamed of.” Having made his biggest purse of $50,000, Frazer bought two
houses, which he still has to this day.
Eleta wanted Arcel and Brown to look at his other hot prospect, a kid called
Duran. They were skeptical, but by chance Arcel was at the Garden – a friend
had told him to check out Ken Buchanan – with his wife Steve when Duran iced
Huertas in the first round. Duran bounded over to where the Arcels sat and
shook their hands, even though they had never met. When told it was Duran’s
twenty-second knockout in twenty-five wins, Arcel reportedly said, “Either he’s
another Jack Dempsey or he’s been beating bums.” But out of friendship with
Eleta, he took a look at this young hotshot. The fact that Eleta deemed him
worthy of such elite cornermen was a sign of his talent. Eleta also felt that he
had got the most he could from Plomo Quinones and Duran needed something
more.
Duran’s next opponent was the experienced Hiroshi Kobayashi, who in his
previous fight had lost his world junior lightweight title. “Eleta tells me that he’s
going to get me a fight with this guy who just lost the championship and that’s
going to be the test for me,” said Duran. “If I win that fight, then Eleta assured
me of a shot at the lightweight championship of the world. I ask him who it is,
and he tells me this Chinese guy. I tell him that this Chinese guy is a dead man
and I’m going to kill him.” Kobayashi was in fact Japanese, a veteran of
seventy-four fights, and had reigned as champion for almost four years. He was
Duran’s sternest test to date.
They fought on 16 October 1971, in Panama City. Despite a remarkable
ability to absorb punishment, Kobayashi wilted under Duran’s attack. He landed
some clean shots but was stalked, hunted down and overwhelmed. Like a man
trapped in a closet with no space to move his arms, yet still trying to block
punches, Kobayashi was pummeled into a seventh-round stoppage. A national
hero arrived back in the dressing room.
“I’m in the locker room and Freddie Brown comes in with Eleta and I get
introduced to him,” said Duran. “The gym is so packed. At the time Eleta was
friends with John Kennedy Jr., who was young, and Joe DiMaggio, who Eleta
had brought to Panama. Carlos Eleta knew all those people. Ray Arcel and
Freddie Brown sat next to me and they tell Carlos Eleta, ‘This guy is a natural
and I’m going to convert him into a champion. And from what I saw, there isn’t
much he needs to change because from what I saw he knows a lot.’”
While Eleta mingled with elite figures from all stratospheres, Duran rarely
bothered to look far past his own circle of friends. “I told Roberto that I wanted
him to meet Joe DiMaggio one night, and he said, ‘Why, who has he fought?’
That was Roberto,” laughed Eleta.
Arcel and Brown made a point not to tamper with the kid’s bullishness.
Passivity was not in Duran’s nature and they did nothing to change his
aggression; they just upgraded it. Together they provided the polish to Plomo’s
wax job, so when Duran went into one of his rages, there was purpose behind it.
Indeed, Arcel told Brown and the other trainers, “Don’t you dare tell him what to
do. Leave him alone. He knows what to do. Just condition him. See that he’s in
shape.” The instinctive defensive skills that kept him from absorbing heavy
punishment during his first twenty-five fights were also being honed. Most
importantly, Arcel saw that Duran knew how to think in the ring, not just fight.
“Plomo was a little jealous of Ray and Freddie and would start things,” said
Eleta. “I always used to tell Duran that his fights were won during training and
he would tell me that it didn’t matter because he had a right hand like Ingemar
Johannsen.”
“We had only heard about him,” said New York boxing writer Bert Sugar.
“Carlos Eleta called me and said, ‘You have to see this kid.’ He had Ray Arcel
and Brown with him, which was a helluva mark. The kid obviously had
something. I give Arcel and Brown a lot of credit. Anytime you have a force you
have to direct it, and although he also had natural talent, I think you have to
harness it. I mean some kids are great street fighters who piss away a career.
Now, you had two of the greatest trainers of all-time. Just like Charley Goldman
could shape and mold a clumsy Rocky Marciano, who I saw in training once fall
over his own feet and knock himself down, if you can shape talent … and when
Eleta brought them in, you knew he thought he had something. And if Arcel and
Brown accepted the assignment, you knew they saw something.”
Duran returned to his hometown in January 1972 to face the globe-trotting
Cuban Angel “Robinson” Garcia. Nicknamed for his likeness to the great Sugar
Ray Robinson, Garcia was almost old enough to be Duran’s father and had the
longest fight record of any boxer then active: 119 wins, fifty-five losses and
twenty draws – and they were just the bouts the record compilers knew about.
His indefatigability was exceeded only by his appetite for women and booze; he
would often enter the ring after a bottle of wine and box none the worse for it.
Duran, however, was too much for him.
“He was dangerous,” Garcia said in an interview years later, “but I knew how
to work the ring. I shuffled back and forth and worked angles and kept him out
of range, confusing him … I caught him with some good shots but he was too
young and strong. He won the decision but after the fight he looked at me and
said, ‘Cuban, you know a lot.’”
The ten-round decision ended Duran’s streak of ten straight knockouts. “I
made a mistake and took a pill to make weight,” said Duran. “I only needed to
lose one pound and I ended up losing six pounds against Robinson Garcia. I tried
to knock him out but I lost too much weight and I didn’t have enough strength. I
think if he would have stood up to me and come to fight, I would have knocked
him out, but he didn’t come to me. I learned something that night. Whenever I
fought, I would learn from boxers because I was very smart. I would learn from
them and find their defects.”
Garcia was too intelligent to brawl with Duran. From the outset, he realized
that the young tiger was too strong to stand in front of. Duran took this as an
insult. To him, fighters were meant to fight, not hide. “Duran was all the time
throwing his punches, but Garcia was blocking him all the time,” said Plomo.
“Garcia was a good boxer. He had fought twice with Laguna, and had knocked
him down twice. After this fight, Garcia was in New York to help us as a
sparring partner during the fight with Buchanan, but he only lasted two days. He
was not able to continue because Duran hurt him badly during the training.”
Soon after the Garcia fight, it was reported that the World Boxing Council
would order its junior lightweight champion, Ricardo Arredondo, to defend
against Duran, the number one contender. But Duran had outgrown that weight.
His sights were set instead on Ken Buchanan, the lightweight champion who had
beaten his idol, Laguna. On 10 March 1972, Duran knocked out the little-known
Francisco Munoz in the first round. Three months later, he would step into the
ring to fight for the championship of the world.
 6

The Scot

“I’ll never forget you. Every time I take a piss I’ll think of you.”
Ken Buchanan

AT THE AGE of eight, Ken Buchanan went to the cinema with his father to
watch The Joe Louis Story, a biopic of the famous heavyweight champion. “I
kept thinking throughout the film, I want to be like that guy, champion of the
world,” he recalled. “That was my inspiration.” A short time later, he walked
into the Sparta Boxing Club, lied about his age, and within four months was
boxing his first three-round bout.
The Buchanans lived on a public housing estate near the Portobello district of
Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city. Word traveled through his school that little
Kenny was a fighter, and that soon made him a target for bullies wanting to try
him out. “I never lost one street fight,” he recounted with pride. “Kids used to
pick fights with me, not because they didn’t like me, but some of these guys, I
found out later on, would say, ‘That little guy Ken Buchanan in our school, did
you know he was a boxer?’ So they challenged me. I didn’t want to fight; I
thought it was stupid. But I beat them all. In fact it was good practice for me. I
popped a few…”
Little Kenny admired the then-fading Sugar Ray Robinson as the “ultimate”
boxer and harnessed his own skills in a successful amateur career that spanned
ten years and took him to the European Championships in Moscow in 1963 and
a silver medal at a tournament in Germany in 1965. “All I wanted to be was a
world champion, all my life was for this one goal,” he said. “Everything after
that was secondary.” He turned professional at nineteen and, boxing in trademark
tartan shorts, won thirty-three straight bouts before a controversial points loss in
Italy when challenging for the European lightweight title. By the time he met
Laguna, he had won thirty-six out of his thirty-seven bouts, but had never fought
outside Europe, at a time when most of the world’s best lightweights were from
Latin America or Japan.
By Buchanan’s definition, a “patsy” was a challenger who had little chance of
winning. Outside of Great Britain, a patsy might be categorized as soft or a
“pussy,” a fighter lacking a hard edge and with a record bloated by weak
opponents. Popular opinion outside Europe held that the Scot had built his
record against the tea-and-crumpet crowd, and when Laguna’s American agent
was instructed to “find someone Laguna would be sure to beat,” Buchanan
seemed to fit the bill. “The people in Laguna’s camp thought I was a patsy,” said
Buchanan. “He was an undisputed champ, both the WBA and WBC champ. But
the WBC didn’t want to recognize me because they didn’t think I was a
worthwhile opponent. Ismael was supposed to defend against [Mando] Ramos in
a rematch. Ramos was in Panama and he got all cut up in the gyms, so they had
to take him back to California. I ended up thanking Ramos. I got my shot and
that was it.”
Laguna was recognized as world champion by both of the sport’s international
governing bodies, the US-based World Boxing Association (formerly the
National Boxing Association), and the World Boxing Council, formed in 1963
and based in Mexico. When Laguna signed to fight Buchanan instead of Ramos,
the WBC and the affiliated British Board withdrew their recognition of him as
champion. The WBA, however, sanctioned the bout and it went ahead in San
Juan, Puerto Rico.
“A fellow Scotsman of mine fought [light-heavyweight champion] Jose Torres
in Puerto Rico some years before that and the heat beat him that night,” said
Buchanan. “Jose knocked him out and I think Ismael thought it was going to be
much the same for himself. We shook hands, said hello. I didn’t speak Spanish
and he didn’t speak English, or Scottish, so we weren’t exactly on speaking
terms. We went out and fought in the open-air stadium and it was 125 degrees.
My manager was putting Vaseline on my face and my dad was putting suntan
lotion on my back. I must be the first British boxer to win a world title and get a
suntan at the same time.”
Buchanan had a plan to neutralize Laguna’s famed left jab. “I would throw my
jab a split second before he threw his,” said Buchanan. “I had to keep on top of
him because he knew that this was the first time that I’d be boxing in this heat
and I think he thought it was going to be a lot easier than it was. He was a wee
bit surprised that I was taking it to him so much. I don’t know exactly when it
happened, whether it was the sixth, eighth or tenth round, when Laguna finally
realized that it wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought it would be.
 “I don’t know what kept me going that night, I really don’t. When we were
younger my dad used to take my brother and I to swimming baths because his
dad was drowned at sea. I built my strength up with swimming. We used to do
underwater swimming. I could hold my breath and swim an Olympic swimming
pool underwater. I think that’s what helped me with Laguna and the heat. I was
used to holding my breath for several minutes.”
It wasn’t until the late rounds that Buchanan felt he had the edge. “I think it
was the eleventh or twelfth round where I thought that I had the faith, not much,
but I thought, I have to keep pushing myself. I have to keep on top and tough
with my jab. The last two or three rounds got it for me on a split decision. By
then, all my hopes and dreams had been answered on that sunny afternoon in
Puerto Rico.”
Yet not a single British reporter was at ringside for his title win, partly because
it was costly to send a writer all the way to Puerto Rico, partly because of
indifference about a challenger who had failed to capture the public imagination
back home, and partly because the British Board had refused to recognise it as a
world title bout. Buchanan’s feeling of being a prophet rejected by his own
people grew even stronger when he returned home. “When I got back, the
British Boxing Board was going to fine me. They said they didn’t recognize
WBA champions and didn’t give me permission to fight Laguna.”
In the trade, however, people were taking notice. If the hard-bitten US fight
scribes retained any doubts about Buchanan’s ability, they disappeared when the
wiry Scot took on Donato Paduano, an unbeaten Canadian welterweight who
outweighed him by a stone, at Madison Square Garden. Buchanan boxed rings
round him, wowed the New York crowd and was voted Fighter of the Year for
1970 by the American Boxing Writers Association, a rare accolade for a
European boxer. A magnificent, even-tempered boxer who could brawl when
needed, the soft-spoken Scot didn’t lose his cool in the face of adversity.
Buchanan was due to make his first defense against Mando Ramos in a bout
which the WBC deigned to recognize for the title. However, Ramos pulled out a
few days before and instead Buchanan trounced Ruben Navarro in Los Angeles.
Ramos’s sorry decline would be not untypical of Latin American champions.
“What happened was that he had postponed the fight for a month, so I had been
in the camp for six weeks already and I’m worn out,” recalled Ramos. “I fucked
up. I went out to this jazz bar [and] we’re in the back snorting coke and my
trainer comes in and everybody leaves the room except for me. This pretty little
girl comes in and asks, ‘You looking for a party?’ We went into a room and we
had sex and I caught some disease. Then, I went home and had sex with my wife
and gave it to her and she divorced me. So I was going through a lot of mental
stuff.”
For a short period, Buchanan was the undisputed world lightweight champion,
but in June that year he forfeited the WBC belt after a contractual dispute,
deepening his bitterness towards the sport’s governing bodies. Then came the
rematch with Laguna in September 1971 at the Garden, the night that Roberto
Duran took out Benny Huertas in one round. “I got cut a couple times in the
second fight. Laguna poked me in the eye in the first two rounds,” Buchanan
recalled. “My left eye was blowing up like a balloon. So my trainer Eddie
Thomas took a razor blade and he slit my left eye open at the bottom to let all the
blood out and have the swelling go down. Sylvester Stallone owes me money for
that because he stole that off me. He bloody well did. Did you ever see that
happen?”
In the eleventh round an inadvertent clash of heads opened another cut over
Buchanan’s right eye. “In those final rounds, the doctor kept coming to my
corner to check my eye because there was so much blood, but my manager
would stick his thumb in the cut over my right eye and showed the doctor my
left eye and it wasn’t deep. It was OK. And just as the doctor had turned to go
away, my trainer takes some grease from his hand and puts it in the cut. Once
they said, ‘Seconds out,’ he put the grease right in the cut. They couldn’t see it.
Eddie Thomas was a great cornerman. It saved me, and saved the championship.
I know they would have stopped it.”
Buchanan wasn’t the only one who appreciated his cornerman’s magic. “That
was a helluva job Eddie Thomas did in Buchanan’s corner,” said fight publicist
Harold Conrad in the book The Hardest Game. “I’ve watched a lot of corners
and I’ve never seen one worked better. Thomas was like an icicle. No matter
what was happening in the ring, how much damage was being done to his guy,
he never got flustered in there. He watched every move and seemed to hand out
the right advice, for he turned his guy over to fighting right when he had to. But
during the rounds he kept getting ready for what he had to do during the rest
period. That minute really flies by when you’ve got problems. That man gives
the impression of knowing more about all aspects of working a corner than
anyone around right now.”
The cut that Thomas slit would need ten stitches, eight on the outside and two
on the inside, and Buchanan would later need plastic surgery to remove the scar
tissue. Laguna, the idol of Panama, never climbed through the ropes again.
The bout between Buchanan and Duran wasn’t just about a championship, but
revenge. “One day, he came to me and told me about the fight where Laguna
fought with Buchanan and Laguna lost,” said Duran’s mother, Clara. “Roberto
did not like this. Then Eleta came to talk to me and told me Roberto wanted to
fight with Buchanan. I reminded him my son was only twenty years old, but
since he wanted to do this fight, I had to sign some papers giving my
authorization; he asked me to do it. At the time, when Duran had to fight I felt
sick and was taken to hospital to be operated on. After the operation I learned
they wanted to tell Roberto about it, so I asked the doctor to let me travel
instead, so that Roberto did not get worried before the fight. I got my permission
to leave the hospital. When I arrived home, Roberto called me and asked me
whether I was sick. I told him everything was OK. I was holding the scar the
operation had left, but calmed him down telling him I was all right.”
Buchanan’s camp saw nothing complicated in Duran’s aggressive style and
felt their man would take charge in the later rounds, when they expected the
challenger to tire. “Duran didn’t have an unorthodox style, he was a complete
fighter who could punch to the body and to the head, move good,” said
Buchanan’s American cornerman, Gil Clancy. “There wasn’t anything special
that we did for the fight except to tell Kenny to use his jab a lot and keep
moving. We were going to wait for Duran to get tired.” There was nothing
illogical about Clancy’s plan. Having seen Duran in the States only against
Huertas, and knowing his history of quick destruction, he expected the young
boxer to “blow up” after a few rounds.
Duran also had his usual pre-fight dramas. “I went to train with Plomo in
Chiriqui,” said Duran. “I’m at a hotel, the National Hotel and when I’m done
training I throw myself in the pool and I’m already hot and sweaty. I get this
fever and I feel like I’m going to die. I call Eleta and tell him everything that
happened. I started crying because I thought I was going to lose my chance to
fight for the world championship. I come back and three or four days later I’m
fine. The doctor tells me I’m ready to fight. I’m happy as a ham and they send
me to New York.”
Before Duran left for New York, he made the plane and hotel reservations for
a dear friend. “I was gaining fame in boxing,” Duran recalled. “When I was
boxing like eight or ten rounds, Chaflan came to me and asked me that if I
fought for the championship one day, if I would take him. So I promised him I
would. For my world championship fight, I asked Eleta to bring Chaflan. I came
a week before the fight to train at Grossinger’s [and] Eleta brought Chaflan over.
I was in New York staying at the Mayflower Hotel. I was very happy to see him
because it was a promise I made to him and I kept it.”
Duran wasn’t the type of person to ignore those who had helped him when he
couldn’t afford a meal. It wasn’t long before the smiling Chaflan made himself at
home. However, this wasn’t Panama, where everybody knew his name. To the
New Yorkers, he was a crazy guy panhandling in the bars. Look at this guy’s
dance. He’s fucking crazy. It would mark the last time he and Duran traveled
together.
“Eleta took Chaflan to his room. That night Carlos couldn’t find him, but the
next morning he found him sleeping in the bathtub,” said Duran. “He thought it
was a bed. Chaflan would go to the bars and try to make money like he did in
Panama. When I realized about it, I told him that if he did it again and the police
caught him he wouldn’t be able to see the fight and would have to go back to
Panama and never come back. So he stopped dancing.”

ON JUNE 13, 1972, Buchanan and Duran signed contracts for the fight at a
press conference at Les Champs Restaurant in midtown Manhattan, then sat
down to a roast beef lunch. It was the first time they had met. Garden publicity
director John Condon did his best to play up the challenger’s rough past for the
assembled hacks. “Street fighting in Panama is as popular as baseball is in
America,” he said. Duran, speaking through an interpreter, predicted he would
knock out the champion within nine rounds, and added that he thought Ismael
Laguna was a better boxer.
Buchanan, six years his senior and playing the elder statesman, responded
rather loftily, “Duran is a young lad so I guess he’s entitled to boast if he wants
to, but I don’t believe in predicting and prefer to do my talking in the ring. He
hasn’t really fought anyone of note. There are probably other lightweights who
have worked their way up the ratings who are more deserving of a title shot, but
the Garden offered me a $125,000 guarantee for this fight and I took it.”
Buchanan said a Panamanian promoter had offered him $150,000 for the fight
but he turned it down in favour of the Garden, where he had been treated well in
the past.
Film of Duran knocking out Hiroshi Kobayashi was shown, then John Condon
asked if anyone wanted to see it again in slow motion. “I thought that was slow
motion,” dead-panned Buchanan. The Scot and his party left immediately after
lunch to set up training quarters at the famous Grossingers country club in the
Catskill Mountains, 100 miles north of New York City.
Buchanan’s sarcastic remark was not lost on Duran. “I had an interview, and
they put a video of mine on the television. Ken Buchanan is next to me with
some trainer, and I’m watching my own fight. Buchanan had a bread with butter,
and this writer asks, ‘Why aren’t you looking at Duran’s video?’ He said, ‘He’s
too slow for me,’ and I start laughing. He didn’t know the surprise I had waiting
for him.”
 Duran trained at the nearby Concord Hotel, but Buchanan didn’t take time to
study him. Since beating Laguna a second time, he had easily won two non-title
bouts and was in great shape. He had heard the reports about how strong this
young Panamanian was but felt confident he could handle him. “I didn’t even
watch when Duran fought Huertas,” said Buchanan. “I knew he was winning all
of these fights by knockout. He was young and apparently he wanted to emulate
Ismael. When we fought he was just too keen at times to get on with it. When
the fight goes on, you could see that when he threw a punch and missed, he got
real frustrated. If you could say what he felt, he was like, ‘Why don’t you stand
still because I want to hit you?’”
Days before the fight, Duran had to deal with his first set of “groupies,”
something he attributed to dirty tricks by his opponent’s camp. “The week after I
was in New York, they got news that I wasn’t an easy fight,” Duran said.
“American girls would call me over the phone at eleven-thirty in the morning,
‘Mister Duran, come and spend the weekend with me because you look so good.’
I told Plomo that all these girls are calling me and he said, ‘Don’t pay attention
because it’s just a trick.’ I tell him, ‘What the hell am I going to do in New York,
I don’t even know how to take a bus or anything like that.’ Freddie Brown tells
me, ‘It’s just Buchanan’s people and because they saw you train they’re trying to
distract you. They know you’re not going to be an easy fight at all.’”
On 26 June 1972, 18,821 fans jammed into the Garden, paying $223,901, a
new indoor record for lightweights. Bagpipes played the Scot into the ring, while
the Panamanian contingent responded with drums. Duran came in at 132¼
pounds, with Buchanan at 133½. The champion had lost only once in forty-four
bouts and was a 13-5 favourite, though many in the crowd hoped that the raw
power of the young challenger, who had won twenty-four of his twenty-eight
bouts inside the distance, would be enough to upset any odds. He also had
Chaflan, whose presence in his eclectic attire screaming at Buchanan to
“sacudele la minifalda” or take off the skirt, a reference to the Scottish kilt, was a
pricless sight at ringside.
As they faced each other in the middle of the ring, Buchanan knew that this
was no speedy, elusive Laguna in front of him. While Buchanan had to time
Laguna, throw his jab a second earlier, while not worrying about his power, he
had to be aware of Duran every second. Just seconds into the fight, he had his
first test of the young man’s power. A right cross made him stumble and his
glove grazed the canvas, causing referee Johnny LoBianco to rule it a
knockdown, though many thought it was a slip. Later in a fierce first round,
Buchanan landed a wild left hook that sent an off-balance Duran into the ropes.
The fight quickly became a free flow of elbows, uppercuts, knees and feints.
Buchanan wasn’t handling the pace with much aplomb over the early rounds and
his knees buckled in the fifth round from another Duran right hand. Later,
Buchanan’s mouthpiece shot out of the ring from another straight right. “Laguna
would stick and move and he was a survivor,” said Buchanan. “But Roberto was
young and strong and was in there to make his mark … to be just like Ismael
was when he was young. He would do everything, throw everything, until the
referee told him to stop.” At times during the fight, as Buchanan later noted, it
was almost as if Duran was trying to kick him. Few men would have been
capable of withstanding such an onslaught as the challenger built a clear lead on
all three cards over the first twelve rounds, but Buchanan stayed calm as Duran
rushed in.
The fighters headed out for the thirteenth. Duran continued to charge forward,
hurling a blizzard of leather at the beleaguered champion, but Buchanan was
made of stern stuff. In the dying seconds of the round, he caught Duran with a
decent right hand. As he followed up with a couple more straight punches, the
bell rang. Neither fighter seemed to hear it as referee LoBianco moved in and
grabbed Duran by the shoulders to pull him back. As he did so, Duran fired a
low, almost casual right hand that hit Buchanan squarely on his protective cup.
Buchanan grabbed his groin, his face contorted in pain, then keeled over and
rolled on the canvas. Later he would claim the punch was destined to arrive
under his testicles, in an upward trajectory against which the cup offers less
protection. Buchanan’s cornermen leapt into the ring and tended to him as the
boxer squirmed in agony on the canvas. After about fifteen seconds, he was able
to rise, still hunched in distress, and sat down on his corner stool. There, he was
visited by referee LoBianco and the ringside doctor. After a few more seconds,
LoBianco turned away from the corner and waved his arms in the air, as if to
signal the bout was over. But no one seemed sure. As Buchanan’s cornermen
protested, the Scot, his face battered and weeping blood, rose to his feet and said
several times to the referee, “I’m okay, I’m okay,” though he was clearly still in
pain.
Despite this, as the warning buzzer went off for the start of the fourteenth
round, LoBianco walked across the ring to raise Duran’s arm in victory. Bedlam
ensued, with Duran leaping into Eleta’s arms, a huge grin on his baby face, as his
supporters skirted the edges of the ring.
The fiesta lit Panama and New York City until the sun rose. Boxing writer
Papi Mendez described the scene in Panama as a mar de enthusiasmo, a sea of
enthusiasm. In La Critica the headline read, “Buchanan received a beating like
the one you get in the worst slums of New York.”
“I felt like I was King of the World,” recalled Duran. “I had avenged the loss
of my idol Ismael Laguna. I wanted to come right back to Panama because I was
in love with my wife and she was pregnant at the time.”
Going into that thirteenth round, the scoring was one-sided. Judge Bill Recht
had the bout 9-2-1 for Duran, while LoBianco, 8-3-1, and Jack Gordon, 9-3, also
gave it to the challenger. Two of the three officials forgot to score the last round.
“I felt that I was doing okay going into the thirteenth round,” said Buchanan. “I
didn’t feel I was losing the fight. I remember the commentary saying that I was
cut under the left eye, and then when I came out for the fifth round, they changed
and said, ‘Buchanan isn’t cut, the blood is coming from Duran’s nose.”
“He was an awkward fighter but I didn’t even have a bleeding nose; it was his
nose that was bleeding. If they had given me a few minutes to recover I could
have continued. LoBianco didn’t want to know, he just saw a chance to stop the
fight and that was it. I didn’t know why Duran wasn’t disqualified. LoBianco
was in the ring, number one man, and he just took it upon himself to do what he
did. As far as I was concerned he was paid to do a job and he done it, so he goes
for the money. And the proof is in the pudding. He should have went to the
judges, and said to them, ‘Did you see what happened there?’ If LoBianco had
went to talk to them, then I would still be champion.”
Originally, Clancy wanted Buchanan to pace himself, hoping that Duran
would punch himself into exhaustion. The punches kept coming as if Plomo
recharged Duran’s battery between each round. Some fights can be blamed on a
trainer’s strategy, but this had nothing to do with Buchanan’s corner, and all to
do with Duran.
“First of all Duran hit about four times harder than Laguna,” said cornerman
Gil Clancy. “He was really nailing Kenny with some pretty good shots. It was
partially my fault that Kenny lost that fight, because Roberto was knocking
everybody out early and I figured if my guy could get him into the last six
rounds of the fight that Duran would be tired and Buchanan could take over. I
was dead wrong. The guy had so much energy you can’t believe. Buchanan’s
best round was the round before, and then after he got hit low it was all over.
Some people thought it was a knee Duran hit him with.”
Instead of utilizing Buchanan’s strengths, the idea was to wait for Duran’s
weakness, one that never surfaced. The Buchanan camp thought Duran couldn’t
go fifteen rounds because he’d never had to. The strategy involved risk, but they
had no choice. How else could he have fended off Duran? A trainer had to work
with the skills in front of him, and although Buchanan was a slick boxer, he
wasn’t going to overwhelm Duran with quickness, the type of plan that
occasionally gave Duran fits.
After the punch, boxing people had their opinions. Former light-heavy champ
Jose Torres revealed his theory. “When you know your man is badly hurt, no
matter how many punches you throw, you cannot get tired. Tiredness is mostly
psychological, so when you are kicking the shit out of the guy you do not get
tired. When you see a fighter get hit low and go down and start screaming, he is
losing the fight. If you are winning the fight and you get hit low a hundred times,
you don’t go down a hundred times. You kick the shit out the guy, but if you are
losing you stay down, unconsciously. The cup protects you a hundred percent,
you have to be punched from under the leg.”
Reality set in for all involved. “He did hit him low and there was no question
about that, but LoBianco never called it a low blow or anything else,” said
Clancy. “No time out or five-minute rest, nothing. The best they could have
done, if Kenny did have a protective cup on, was give him a five-minute rest
period and let the fight continue. Again, Kenny was way behind in points. The
only way he could have won the fight was by a late knockout. There wasn’t a big
controversy after the fight.”
Covering the fight at the time, Bert Sugar concurred with Clancy: “LoBianco
caught shit, mostly from the Buchanan followers. [Buchanan] was going
nowhere. He was a very slick, good fighter but he was no match for Duran. In
the thirteenth round Buchanan got the shit kicked out him. LoBianco didn’t see
the punch that ended the round. I can still see Buchanan melting on the ropes. I
clutched my cojones.”
For Buchanan, the pain would never subside as he was holed up in a Scotland
hospital for ten days following the bout. “The referee let Duran hit me anywhere
he wanted,” said Buchanan. “In the thirteenth round, LoBianco has a hold of
Duran and a hold of me, and when the referee touches you, you have to stop. But
Duran never did. Bang! He hit me. But he never hit me straight on … at one
point his hands were like ten inches off the ground. Next thing that happens, he
hits me right up there and busts a vein in my right testicle.”
LoBianco could have disqualified Duran; he could have declared Buchanan
unable to continue and ruled the bout a “no contest”; he could have given the
champion time to recover, warned the challenger, then allowed them to continue.
Instead he declared Duran the winner because he had not seen the low blow and
felt Buchanan was in too bad a state to continue. With a relatively muted protest
from Buchanan’s corner, LoBianco’s ruling stood. “A lot of people who said that
if Buchanan had the right corner Duran would have been disqualified,” said
promoter and matchmaker Don Elbaum. “I know if I had Buchanan, I would
have gone nuts. I would have been fighting that.”
Others, like Philadelphia promoter J. Russell Peltz, rubbished the various
excuses. “I don’t understand all the Buchanan stuff that’s come up. He was
getting his ass kicked when Duran hit him. It was a low blow, but if he got up he
would have just got beaten even more.”
Most fighters lack impartiality when it comes to analyzing a poor
performance. They all got screwed at one point in their careers. It is hard to deny
the fact that Buchanan was in dire need of a knockout if he was keeping his
crown. Even if Buchanan shook off the pain and continued, he was in there with
a fighter not willing to give him a break. While fighters keep a running tab and
decide when their lead is big enough to stay away from their opponent in the late
rounds, Duran rarely exhibited such reticence. As “cute” as some experts felt he
was as a defensive fighter, Duran came forward all the time. While other fighters
used their feet to get away from danger, Duran always went toward his foe or cut
off the ring, trusting his instincts to steer him clear of trouble. Often he would
throw a right hand or a left hook, go with it, then force his way inside, clinching
and locking his opponent’s arms. That way, nothing would come in return.
No single punch in Duran’s career would cause so much animated discussion.
No previous Duran punch landed with so much on the line. In fact, the only
punches that would place Duran under such scrutiny were ones he didn’t throw a
decade later in New Orleans.
“We talked one night at his hotel [in England] into the small hours,” said
Buchanan. “I told him that after I fought him, I became European champ and I
was boxing in Italy when I got poked in the eye by the referee. Roberto started
laughing. I asked him why. ‘Ken hasn’t been very lucky in boxing, between the
referee sticking his finger in your eye and me punching him up the balls,’ Duran
said to me.
“I told him, ‘I got you! I got you!’ Even today the liquid doesn’t get up that
way and it stops and I still get a pain there every time I go to the bathroom. I’ll
have that until the day I die. I told Roberto, ‘I’ll never forget you. Every time I
take a piss I’ll think of you.’ Over the years you mellow, but there are times
when I feel a wee bit like, what would have happened? You know, Carlos Eleta
bought that fight. It never cost Madison Square Garden to pay me because Eleta
put the money up. He was a millionaire. You know the old song, ‘Money talks,
but it don’t sing or dance.’ He brought in the referee. I was really annoyed with
Madison Square Garden and the referee because he wasn’t competent. He
shouldn’t have been in there, it should have been Arthur Mercante or someone
like that.”
Eleta appeared to want nothing to do with Buchanan after New York. Few
believed that Duran feared any fighter, but he had little say over who his next
opponent would be. “Duran never, ever wanted to fight me again,” said the Scot.
“I tried to get the rematch … but there was no chance, nothing. I think Eleta
knew a wee bit more and thought, this Ken Buchanan is better than we thought
he was, so let’s stay away from him. For years there was an anger because I
never got my shot. I would have given him a shot, why didn’t he do it for me?
But I never blamed Roberto. I tend to think Duran wanted to fight me again, but
Eleta didn’t want it to happen. He faced Hagler, and fought them all. I think he
would have fought me anywhere, anytime.”
After the fight, Eleta told a reporter, “We would be willing to give Buchanan a
return bout any time.” However, he had a way of placating people at the time,
then backtracking when he felt pressured. Years later, he claimed, “Omar
Torrijos wouldn’t allow the rematch with Buchanan. He told me, ‘Carlos, don’t
make that fight. Don’t trust another fight with him in the States.’ He told me that
the first defense had to be in Panama. Buchanan wouldn’t fight in Panama, so it
was cancelled.”
Despite the recriminations and the bitterness that lingers in Buchanan,
Roberto Duran no longer haunts him. Late-night pisses bring back memories, but
he no longer boils over with frustration. Still, when so many people remember,
it’s hard to forget. “I was no longer world champion and I was beginning to see
how corrupt the sport was. It left a sour taste in my mouth,” said Buchanan. “But
that was boxing and you take the good with the bad.”
New York State Athletic Commission physician Dr A. Harry Klieman
reported that his examination of Buchanan showed “fluid on the testicles.”
Buchanan returned to Scotland and a hospital in Edinburgh, where he was
treated for swollen testicles and bruised kidneys, then flew to the Mediterranean
island of Majorca for a restorative holiday with his wife and young son. At the
same time, he vowed to return to New York and train harder than ever against
“real rough and tumble boys” in a bid to regain his crown. “If Duran wants to
repeat his kind of fight, then I too will throw the kind of punches that aren’t in
the book,” he promised.
 7

The Left Hook

“Violence is terribly seductive; all of us, especially males, are trained
to gaze upon violence until it becomes beautiful.”
Martín Espada, Puerto Rican poet

THE LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION has a long and colorful pedigree. It can be

traced back to the end of the eighteenth century, to the days of bareknuckle
pugilism, when men fought to the finish in illegal or quasi-legal contests held at
secret locations. Various boxers from Great Britain and the United States, the
two hotbeds of the sport, claimed the “world” title after the adoption of the
Queensberry Rules late in the nineteenth century, but the first man who seems to
have been recognized as champion on both sides of the Atlantic was one George
“Kid” Lavigne after he knocked out England’s Dick Burge in seventeen rounds
at the National Sporting Club, London, in 1896. At that time the weight limit for
the division was 133 pounds, but it would eventually settle at 135 pounds.
The most notable early champion was the wonderful Joe Gans, the “Old
Master,” who in the pre-First World War period combined form and power,
stamina and technique, in a manner rarely seen before or since. His three bouts
against Battling Nelson, an imperishable Scandinavian known as the “Durable
Dane,” were among the most terrible in history; one went forty-two rounds
before the bloodied Nelson was disqualified for a low blow. Gans died in 1910,
his slender body ravaged by tuberculosis.
The Twenties brought more gifted fighters like Freddie Welsh, Lew Tendler,
Charley White and, above all, the peerless Benny Leonard, a New York Jew of
matchless guile and execution. Leonard inspired a generation of boxers from the
crowded tenements of America’s biggest cities and deeply influenced trainers
such as Ray Arcel. The Thirties saw a great triumvirate of box-fighters, Tony
Canzoneri, Barney Ross and Lou Ambers, and the relentless Henry Armstrong, a
one-man army who once held world titles at three weights simultaneously, a feat
unlikely to ever be repeated. Ike Williams, Jimmy Carter and Joe Brown,
talented black Americans who could box and punch, ruled the Forties and
Fifties. Latin fighters then became the dominant force in the division with the
arrival of Carlos Ortiz in 1962.
Indeed, by the time of Roberto Durán’s ascencion, non-US boxers topped not
just the lightweight division. With the exception of Joe Frazier at heavyweight
and Bob Foster at light-heavyweight, every single champion was from either
Central or South America or the Far East. Great fighters like Argentina’s Carlos
Monzon and the Cuban-Mexican Jose Napoles were regarded as the best, pound-
for-pound, in the sport and, odd as it may seem to those who now look back on
the Seventies as a golden time for heavyweights, the bellwether division was
moribund. Champion Joe Frazier was much maligned for defending against no-
hopers and only the no-longer-youthful Muhammad Ali brought color to the
division.
Panamanian boxing not only benefited from this boom, but was about to
become an unlikely arbiter in the sport worldwide. It now had two champions,
Duran and Alfonso “Peppermint” Frazer, and would soon have two more,
bantamweight Enrique Pinder and former Duran conquest Ernesto Marcel. For a
country of only 1,600,000 people, fewer than most major cities, this was a
remarkable achievement. The most important development had been the political
takeover of Omar Herrera Torrijos, an ambitious army officer and keen advocate
of the national sport, after a coup in October 1968. Torrijos ousted the right-wing
nationalist president, Arnulfo Arias, won an internecine power struggle with his
co-conspirators, and emerged as sole dictator. He pitched himself as the first
ruler to represent the majority of the people, who were poor, Spanish-speaking
and of mixed indigenous, Hispanic and African descent, as opposed to the
rabiblancos or “white-tails,” the light-skinned social elite who lived in Panama
City and dominated commercial and political life. He instituted wide-ranging
reforms aimed at the middle and lower classes, opened schools and redistributed
agricultural land. He also suspended democratic institutions and persecuted the
wealthiest families, as well as independent student and labor leaders who
opposed his rule. Boxing and physical fitness were encouraged and given state
funding.
Sportswriters visited the tiny state at this time to find out its secret. One noted
that only the Brazilians’ passion for football compared with the Panamanians’ for
boxing. “The Panamanians not only want to watch, they want to get in there and
have a go themselves,” he wrote. “One only has to walk through the streets of
Panama City’s shanty towns, the makeshift slums … to see evidence of their
keenness. Contests are organized by the locals, and young boys, sometimes no
older than ten years, stand in an imaginary roped square and slug it out.”
Many of the newest buildings were spacious gyms to accommodate the hordes
of would-be fighters. Up to fifty boxing contests were held every week – as
many as in the UK in a month. “The second oldest trade in Panama City, next to
the prostitution, is that of the shoeshine boys,” wrote journalist Dave Fletcher.
“These youngsters, usually between eight and fifteen years old, have enough
foresight to realize that fighting is the only way to make a name for themselves.
Many can be seen sparring amongst the bars and shops when custom is at a low
ebb. Panama is one of the few places in the world where the term ‘hungry
fighter’ can still be used literally. Although the standard of living is generally
low, the average young Panamanian is generally fit, and obesity is considered to
be a disease of the ‘Gringo.’ A Panamanian would think nothing of walking
twenty miles in search of employment, or to say hello to friends in one of the
neighboring villages.
“Many hundreds are employed in Panama City and take to selling drugs or
pornography. It is the theory of some that boxing is a natural safety valve,
through which the unemployed can release their depression. However, this
theory is soon cast to the wind when one ventures to the more provincial parts of
Panama, to the huts and shacks on the banana plantations where giant posters of
Ismael Laguna, complete with crown, scorch in the midday sun, and where sacks
of sweetcorn and grass are used as punchbags. Even the villagers of the Darien
jungle province of Panama know the name Buchanan, which they pronounce
‘Bookanar.’”
Buchanan, however, was far from Carlos Eleta’s thoughts. Duran’s next
proposed opponent was not the Scot but veteran former champion Carlos Ortiz.
The bout was first intended to be a title defense in Panama but was then
switched to a non-title bout – meaning Duran’s championship would not be at
stake – over ten rounds, on the undercard of the Muhammad Ali–Floyd Patterson
fight at Madison Square Garden that September. “Duran and I signed to fight,”
said Ortiz. “We were supposed to fight in 1972, in Madison Square Garden. I
don’t know what happened to him, but he ended up going back to Panama. He
didn’t want to fight me. They saw that I was in good condition. They came down
to see me at the Gramercy Park Gym where I was training at the time, and that I
was training with middleweights at 138 pounds. It was a problem because I was
in condition and then ten days before the bout, no one knew where he went. I
found out he checked out of the hotel room and went back to Panama. He gave
no excuses. He didn’t want to fight. But he was the champ, so he could do it.”
 According to members of Duran’s camp, he had been diagnosed with
bronchitis and had to return to Panama. “But he was not sick in reality,” admitted
Plomo. “This was just to prevent him from fighting with Ortiz, who was a well
qualified boxer and much loved as well. So after spending twenty-two days
there, they did not let Duran fight, and we came back to Panama.”
“I couldn’t force him to fight me,” said a frustrated Ortiz. “That’s why I came
back. I had to fight for the championship and prove again to myself that I could
do it. I spent eight months training for the fight, fighting here and there, getting
in shape. I was going to fight the champion, whether it was a title fight or an
over-the-weight bout. As soon as I’d fight for the title, then I’d prove something
to myself and quit. I think it was more of a managerial decision because Duran
didn’t duck nobody. A real fighter doesn’t duck anybody. The ones who make
decisions about the fights are the managers. They thought I was going to make a
fool of Duran, and he’d be in trouble. If he looked bad, he’d have to fight again.
They didn’t want that.
“I had that feeling inside of me that I could beat him, not that I would look
good against him or make a good fight out of it but that I could beat him,” said
Ortiz decades later. “I wouldn’t have signed for the fight if I couldn’t beat him.
My comeback was that I was going to go as far as I could go. I got Buchanan,
but it wasn’t my fight. Buchanan was far away from my mind, until they brought
him up to me.
“When Duran went to Panama, the Garden was in deep trouble. If I didn’t
fight, they were going to lose that date and a lot of money. So Teddy Brenner
gave me the situation, he said, ‘Carlos, this is what’s going to happen. This is a
problem. He’s not going to fight you. We are going to lose a lot of money
because we already have publicity and the fight has to go on. I have a few kids
that you would want to fight.’ I didn’t prepare for Buchanan; he meant nothing to
me. I wanted to fight Duran. Once Duran left, that was it. When something you
love goes away and you don’t have it no more, that’s how I felt when Duran left.
I lost my passion. He didn’t have to tell me why he didn’t fight because that was
his priority.”
Eleta was not the first manager to protect his investment. It was announced
that Duran had a stomach upset, and Ken Buchanan stepped into his place as a
late substitute on the Madison Square Garden bill. The Scot fought Ortiz on nine
days’ notice, returning from a holiday to get in a few days’ sparring before the
bout, and beat him easily, forcing the thirty-six-year-old former champion to
retire at the end of the sixth round – for good.
Ortiz has an interesting insight into the competing merits of Laguna and
Duran. “I think Laguna would have boxed the shit out of him. Laguna would
have outboxed him and outpunched him. I don’t think he would have caught him
because Laguna had a good chin, he was tall and had a good reach.”
It was next reported that Duran and Buchanan had signed contracts for a
rematch in New York on October 20. However, Duran then claimed the
Panamanian Government was insisting he made his first defense in his own
country, and sought to put the bout off until the following year. In October 1972,
it was reported that Buchanan had signed a new contract to challenge Duran at
Madison Square Garden on November 17, and if Duran did not accept, he would
be banned from boxing in New York.

DESPITE THE confusion around the proposed Ortiz and Buchanan bouts, Duran
was enjoying the perks of being a champion. Thousands of admirers had been
waiting to greet him at the Paitilla airport when he returned with the belt; he was
now a national celebrity, and everyone clamored to be near him. After settling
back home, he attended a night in his honor in Clara’s hometown. “They held an
homage here in Guarare for Roberto,” said longtime fan and Guarare resident
Lesbia Diaz. “Many people came from all the provinces.”
Since he was young, he had brought back his purse money to help his mother.
Now, he was champion, all his promises were coming true. No longer did Clara
have to cook and clean for the Americans in the Canal Zone.
“Momma, I do not want you to work anymore,” Duran told Clara.
“All right papa, I will not go on working then,” she responded.
By his side was a beautiful young girlfriend, Claudinette Felicidad Iglesias.
She had an angelic face, an addictive smile, and long flowing hair that draped
over her shoulders. Acccording to Clara, the couple met in their teens through
Felicidad’s mother, who sold numbers, an illegal but widely tolerated street
lottery. “They were very young,” said Toti. “They were still minors. The parents
did not want Felicidad to go out with Duran because they were too young. And
they did not want Roberto because they knew that he was a boxer and they
believed boxers became crazy.”
Felicidad came from a relatively wealthy family. She was petite and pretty and
Duran was smitten, but she was expected to find a suitor in her own social circle,
not a poor boy from Chorrillo. Although Clara adored Felicidad and welcomed
her into the family, the feelings were not reciprocated. “Duran lived at that time
in Caledonia,” said Plomo. “There was a furniture shop called Montemarte.
Duran’s apartment was right on top of this shop. On the other side of the street
there were some shops. When Felicidad used to go past that place after school,
Duran used to look at her and say, ‘I like that girl very much.’
“So I would tell him to go to her and to tell her something. But in the end, it
was as if it had been destiny. One day Duran went downstairs to talk to her, the
girl smiled at him, and right away they started talking, and went together
walking and talking. That was the beginning of their love. But he had problems,
because her parents, once Duran and Felicidad were already in love, opposed
this relationship. Duran took Felicidad to where his mother was in Chorrillo,
because he wanted to live together with her, but Felicidad’s parents accused him
of having violated their daughter. They told all kind of stories about Duran. But
Felicidad herself said she had agreed to becoming Duran’s woman because she
was in love with him. Duran was arrested because of this, but he was later set
free. Later on they got married, but they lived together before their marriage.
“After meeting her, Felicidad became his most important woman. Being a
Panamanian man, as he was, he had several women, but always his home was
with Felicidad.”
Although Duran had many girlfriends, none affected him like Felicidad or
“Fula” as she was known. In 1972, after much coercion, she moved into his
apartment in Caledonia. Their first son, Chavo, or Roberto Jr. was due to arrive
later that year.
Instead of defending his title, in September and October of 1972 Duran took
on two relatively easy opponents, Greg Potter and Lupe Ramirez, in non-title
bouts. Potter, from Joplin, Missouri, was a college graduate and former US Navy
champion, a stand-up boxer who had turned pro only a year before but had
already gone the distance with both Carlos Ortiz – “a master,” said Potter – and
the highly ranked Ruben Navarro. He was relaxing at home after the Navarro
bout when his trainer called to say they’d been offered a short-notice, non-title
fight against the new champion, whose scheduled opponent had pulled out.
Potter trekked to Panama, where he suffered from diarrhea and was weakened
when he climbed into the ring.
“It was a slugfest,” he remembered. “I went out and slugged with him and you
don’t do that with Roberto Duran. As a young man he grew up on the streets and
he shined shoes and had to fight from a young age to keep the money he made,
and he had a lot of … the word that comes to mind is hate, built up in him. He
was a vicious fighter. He was fighting when he came out of the corner.”
Potter was no match for the fired-up champion and was knocked out in the
first round. He later gained a Masters in psychology and a PhD in counseling,
and runs a practice counseling on personal performance and goal-achieving. He
still recalls his opponent with rueful admiration. “I don’t remember a whole lot
about his punch because he knocked me out in the first round. But I think he
could hit pretty good.”
Lupe Ramirez, who had previously gone the distance with both the brilliant
Antonio Cervantes and the hard-hitting Chango Carmona, was also blasted out in
a single round.
Duran’s next opponent was a much stiffer test. Twenty-two-year-old Esteban
DeJesus, from Puerto Rico, belonged with the best that his proud country had to
offer. He came from the rowdy town of Carolina on the Atlantic coast, otherwise
known as “El Pueblo de Las Tumbas Brazos,” or the Arm Hackers’ Town, for
the natives’ predilection for violence, often involving machetes. It was also
called “La Tierra de Gigantes,” Land of Giants, because it was home to a seven-
foot-eleven-inch goliath called Don Felipe Birriel. Baseball hero Roberto
Clemente was another celebrated Carolinan. Having survived such a dangerous
place, DeJesus learned his trade in the rings of San Juan. An all-rounder who
could box, move and punch, he went on to win the Puerto Rican lightweight title
in New York’s Felt Forum. He had already boxed in the Garden and his last win
had come just three weeks before the Duran bout. He boasted a 29-1 record, with
eighteen knockouts to his credit, his only loss coming against WBA
featherweight champion Antonio Gomez. DeJesus was the third-ranked
lightweight in the world and he was sharp and ready.
Throughout his career, Duran would badmouth Puerto Ricans about how they
couldn’t take a punch, and they would respond in kind. Both he and they seemed
to enjoy the jingoistic rivalry between two small but proud Latin-American
states, both of which lay in the long shadow of the USA. Added to that was the
special intensity when Latin fighters face off with their countrymen at their back.
“If a Latino man fights a non-Latino you can bet we’ll be rooting for the man
who speaks Spanish,” said former world champion Jose Torres, himself a Puerto
Rican. “But the rivalry doesn’t stop there. The competition between Latinos is
even more exciting. You see, we know each other. We know how to intimidate
each other. And we know how to resist it. But we are very dramatic in the
process. Some of us even get violent, a luxury we seldom get off the
gringo.”Added to that was Duran’s chilling intensity. “When I went up into the
ring, I would look at them hard so they knew that I wasn’t just coming to play,”
he said. “That’s why I would go out to kill them fast. My deal was always to win
by knockout.”
But still enjoying his emotional championship victory over Buchanan, Duran
had been criticized in the local press for over-celebrating and constant partying.
He also had a complicated personal life. Despite his relationship with Felicidad,
he had another gilfriend, Silvia, who would bear him a daughter called Dalia.
She lived in the town of Puerto Armuelles, though she would later move to
Miami, and Duran would drive over every weekend to see her. Two months
before the DeJesus bout, he was driving his Volkwagen through the hills of
Chiriqui when a rainstorm came down.
“I couldn’t see the road and either way there are hills,” remembered Duran.
“I’m going really slow in the car, and I’m scared as hell. All of a sudden the
lights come on and I step on the brakes. I’m going downhill. I picked up a
hitchhiker on the way, going downhill and the car hits something, and I hit the
steering wheel and I split my lip in two parts. The other guy hit the windshield. I
get out of the car, I’m dizzy and my lip is open in two pieces.
“When I look up, I told the guy we have to get out of here, and I look down
and I have a hole in my elbow. So I have a hole in my elbow and a split lip, and
it takes five minutes to walk up the hill. When we get to the top of the hill, it
stops raining. A car is coming, and it stops to ask me, ‘Duran what happened?’ I
tell him what happened, and we go to a town called San Felix. And the doctor
checks me and gives me stitches. His hand is shaking as he gives me stitches. I
say, ‘Why is your hand shaking?’ And he said, ‘I’m afraid that you’re going to
die here on me.’ By that time, people had heard that I had an accident and the
hospital was full. He sews my elbow up. A friend of mine who was a major in
David comes and picks me up. The doctor said I could have a couple drinks.
When I get the drink, all the stitches break open again. I cover it up, and I went
to New York to go fight with Esteban DeJesus.”
“Duran Injured in Car Mishap” announced the headline of an Associated Press
report on September 15, 1972. “World lightweight champ Roberto Duran
escaped serious injury in an automobile accident,” read the report. “Duran’s
Volkswagen overturned. He was forced to brake suddenly when the car ahead of
him slowed down without warning. Duran suffered a slight cut on his right
elbow and lacerations of the face.” The report named Mariano Ramirez as the
passenger.
“After the accident I go to New York because we took the fight with
DeJesus,” said Duran. “I still have my open wound on my elbow. Carlos Eleta
shouldn’t have sent me. He sent me up there to train for a month. If you really
look at the fight the only thing that DeJesus did was knock me down in the first
round. The only thing he did was hit me with that left hook. He never beat me. I
saw the fight; he didn’t beat me. Remember he’s Puerto Rican, and lived
between New York and Puerto Rico. Remember he’s always there, so to the
Americans it was always more convenient to have him win there than a
Panamanian who’s in Panama.”
Featherweight legends Willie Pep and Sandy Saddler were introduced before
the fight, a premonitory meeting of two of the great rivals in boxing. As they
stood toe-to-toe for the introductions, DeJesus, 138, in blue trunks and white
stripes, settled in at eye level to the five-foot-seven, 137½lb Duran. They were to
compete over ten rounds, without the title at stake, on November 17, 1972.
Neither Duran nor DeJesus was willing to look at the other for more than a
split second; their eyes focused on the canvas until they touched eight-ounce
gloves to initiate battle. Puerto Rico had a history of great boxers and DeJesus
wouldn’t always get the respect he deserved for his skills. “I was very surprised
at the trouble that DeJesus gave Duran because I didn’t think he was a great
fighter,” said fellow countryman Carlos Ortiz. “But when he fought Duran, he
did a great job. He would hit Duran with that left hook.”
The punch would live in infamy. “That” left hook thrown by DeJesus would
be the first punch to expose a chink in Duran’s style. The perfectly placed shot
put Duran on his backside early in the first round. Never before in a pro bout had
Duran felt the canvas against his back. Stunned more than hurt, he rose at the
count of six, shaking his head as if to say, okay, I felt that, now I’m awake and
you will pay. Duran’s gut reaction was immediately to attack, but wading in
without caution against DeJesus was regrettable, as he absorbed more
punishment before returning to his corner. All three men in Duran’s corner were
in constant motion at the bell, sponging, massaging, exhorting, cajoling.
With confidence rising, the polished DeJesus opened the second with a right
to Duran’s chest followed by a left hook to his head. He began to control the
flow of the fight, breaking through Duran’s defense with another jaw-numbing
left hook in round four that made Duran stumble and nearly fall. He struck again
a round later as an off-balance Duran stumbled into another powerful hook and
had to clinch. Not only was DeJesus out-muscling the Panamanian, but he was
using one of his own signature moves against him: a faked left followed by a
quick, hard right.
Through the shouting of the largely pro-DeJesus crowd, Duran’s mother
Clara, a rare sight at ringside, could be heard shrieking, “Throw the hook to the
liver!” But the champion continued to get picked off. DeJesus stayed in a crouch
and sprung from his toes with every punch as Duran pawed, frustrated at his
impotence. Ringside broadcasters speculated that the champion’s lackluster
performance might have something to do with him being five pounds heavier
than for Buchanan.
With the bout slipping away, Duran was active enough to win round five,
dancing, picking his angles and landing a solid uppercut, but it was a shortlived
rally. An energized DeJesus danced in the sixth and seventh, overcame a low
blow and jolted back Duran’s head with two left hooks, a punch he couldn’t miss
with. Pawing at air with his little-used jab as a range-finder in the eighth round,
Duran finally connected with some quality right hands that DeJesus would
quickly shake off. In desperation, Duran landed punches after the bell, his blood
boiling at the prospect of a loss. He would not get another opening.
The voice of Luis Henriquez could be heard between rounds urging Duran to
come alive. It was too late. Although Duran was energized in the ninth round, he
lost his way in the tenth, fruitlessly chasing his elusive opponent. To drive home
his supremacy, DeJesus nailed Duran with a final clean hook. Even while
Duran’s handlers took off his gloves, he pawed at DeJesus with his right hand.
Reluctantly he then shook his opponent’s hand.
In the non-title affair, judges Harold Lederman had it 6-3-1, Bill Recht 6-2-2
and Arthur Mercante 5-4-1, all to DeJesus. The Puerto Rican from the Town of
the Arm Hackers jumped up and down in his corner with his hands to the sky.
Few in the 9,144 crowd could argue that Duran deserved his first defeat in thirty-
two pro outings.
The Panamanian media, already developing a love-hate relationship with
Duran, quickly picked up on stories that he had been enjoying the nightclub
scene a little too exuberantly. On November 21, reporter Macume Argote wrote
a piece entitled, “Duran needs to learn how to box.” Another local reporter,
Tomy Cupas, added, “Duran had his mind on other things in Madison Square
Garden.” It had been noted in the Panamanian press that “before the trip the
Duran camp denied the rumors of the little Hercules having relations with certain
lunatics that he had been seen with on the isthmus.”
If former world champ Jose Torres was right in his assessment that all fighters
know when they have not done enough conditioning, then Duran couldn’t fool
himself. He left the ring in his shiny green robe and took out his frustration on
the bathroom walls of his hotel. His bloodied hands reminded him of his
dispassionate performance.
“After that fight, we went with Ray Arcel to a restaurant and Duran was
crying,” said Eleta. “I told him that you don’t win the fight in the ring, but in
training. I said, ‘Always remember that. Never forget that I say this.’ He wanted
the rematch immediately, but I postponed that fight … so that he would get out
of this feeling. I wait until he is ready and then I tell him that he would fight
DeJesus again.”
Two and a half weeks later, Ken Buchanan stopped Oriental junior
welterweight champion Chang Kil Lee in less than two rounds and then took a
blast at Duran. “He’s doing everything he can think of to get away from me,”
said the embittered Scot. “If he beat me as easily as he claimed, why is he
waiting so long to give me a return?”
Despite the defeat, and his continued avoidance of Buchanan, in November
1972 the British trade magazine Boxing News, which had the most reliable
ratings in the sport, rated Duran as the true champion of the division, and listed
the top ten contenders:

1. Rodolfo Gonzalez (US), WBC champion

2. Ken Buchanan (Britain)
3. Esteban DeJesus (Puerto Rico)
4. Chango Carmona (Mexico)
5. Mando Ramos (US)
6. Pedro Carrasco (Spain)
7. Ruben Navarro (US)
8. Antonio Puddu (Italy)
9. Javier Ayala (US)
10. Jimmy Robertson (US)

Two months later, the World Boxing Council dropped Panamanian boxers
from its rankings following a dispute with the Panamanian Boxing Commission.
The commission had broken off relations after WBC President Ramon Velasquez
stripped Enrique Pinder of his bantamweight title for refusing to fight the top
contender, a Mexican. Bizarrely, according to Velazquez the Panamanian
Commission had never been a member of the WBC anyway. It forced the
Panamanians to side decisively with the rival WBA, something that would have
far-reaching consequences for world boxing.
 8

Revenge

“Ads, commercials and, indeed, all the media itself, are dedicated to
identifying – and hyping – male machismo. So much so that boxing
crowds in Latin countries immediately boo if a defensive fighter is
successful in preventing his opponent from connecting solidly while
not doing much himself in return … There is not much fun in winning
unless you can show evidence of machismo.”
Jose Torres, The Ring, May 1981.

IT WAS THE middle of the day in Panama in January 1973 and Roberto Duran
was walking around with a gun sticking out of his jeans. It was not an accessory
he needed, but it certainly enhanced his bad-ass persona. If the promise of his
fists wasn’t intimidating enough, the shine of a pistol indicated in simple terms
the man’s invincibility. In a couple days, he was due to defend his title for the
first time against Jimmy Robertson, who was white, durable and willing.
Robertson, from Los Angeles, reportedly wasn’t keen on the fight, but couldn’t
turn down a title shot.
Robertson had come over with the LA-based promoter Don Chargin, and
neither of them were under any illusions. “Then, that guy was hard as a rock,”
Chargin said of Duran. “He’d wear Levis and a tight, tight T-shirt. The first time
I saw him he was at a hotel talking to people by a pool. He would walk around
with a gun in his waistband. Nobody would do anything to Duran and he could
get by doing anything.”
A few years earlier, Chargin had taken a phone call from his friend Andy
Russell, a Latino singer out of LA. Russell was in Panama and had seen Duran
fight. “He said, ‘You won’t believe this kid. You’ve got to come see this kid.’ So
I wrote the name down, but I just never got a chance to get down there and I
missed out.”
Robertson went into the bout with a reasonable 24-6-1 record, though he had
lost three of his previous four fights. Duran, meanwhile, had been complaining
about having to train over the Christmas season. On January 20, 1973, they
climbed into the ring at the Nuevo Panama Gymnasium. “We knew [Jimmy]
wanted a chance and he knew how tough it would be,” said Chargin. “Duran
destroyed him. In fact, he knocked out three [recorded as two] of his teeth in the
first round. He took a beating and earned every cent.”
Robertson went four more rounds minus his teeth. In the third, he was drawn
into a perfect overhand right that left him on one knee, although he gamely
bounced back up and managed to survive the follow-up onslaught. Duran would
comment on his opponent’s bravery after the fight. In Spanish, a fighter of
Robertson’s mold is referred to as bastante duro or very tough. And in the fourth
round, as Robertson was bounced along the ropes by triple right hands, it was
clear that he deserved the compliment and had earned respect from the partisan
crowd. Unfortunately that meant nothing in the middle of the ring.
Robertson rolled along the ropes during the fifth, his body movement
disappeared and his face left wide open for a right and left hook. Without
warning, his legs gave way like a fast-collapsing table. The young fighter had
met another straight right hand. Now, he was on the canvas leaning on his right
hand, trying to decide what his next move would be.
“One, two, three, four, five, six …”
Robertson could hear the count clearly and he would redirect his body weight
so he was now on one knee.
“… seven, eight, nine, ten!”
After surveying the scene, Robertson understood the gap between possible
gain and permanent injury and elected to fight another day.
The clean-shaven Duran laughed with reporters after the fight, acknowledged
that Robertson had the edge in the second round and that he was “feeling weak.”
Meanwhile a Panamanian journalist practicing his English had wandered over to
speak to the loser.
“Jimmy, I am very, very, sorry that you lost the fight. You did a good fight.”
“Thank you,” said the beaten fighter.
“What is your opinion about Duran? He punch too hard?”
“Yes, he is very strong and hard to fight.”
“Duran said you got him in the second round and that he felt weak, did you
notice this?” asked the reporter.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you lose teeth, tooth?”
 “One tooth.”
“OK, Jimmy I am very sorry that you lost today,” said the reporter.
Robertson trudged back to the dressing room.
“Now, bring me to Esteban DeJesus,” said the champion. Toti remembers that
his brother began to be called “El Dentista” for his power punching.

THE WBC LIGHTWEIGHT champion, Rodolfo “Gato” Gonzalez, was based

on the West Coast, where he was popular among the large Mexican community.
With his champion banned from New York, Eleta decided to establish him in
California too, and Duran’s next two bouts took place in Los Angeles.
First, he stopped southpaw Juan Medina in seven rounds on February 23,
1973, in a non-title fight. For Medina “just going the distance would be a
victory,” recalled promoter Don Chargin from ringside, and he tried all he could
to stay away from his pursuer, but eventually Duran caught up and stopped him
in the seventh round. Finding his opponent in the ring strictly to survive was
something Duran would have to get used to.
The West Coast trip was more important to Duran for events outside the ring.
“I went to train in the Olympic Auditorium with Luis Spada behind the Hotel
Alejandria,” he said. “I was twenty-one at the time and waiting to fight Medina.
Three people came to me and said that I had the same face as Margarito [his
father]. They were my aunts and uncles. They said my father was coming to see
me and that’s also when I met my uncle, Roberto, whose name was given to me
because my father loved him so much. I went to the hotel and after a couple of
hours my father came to see me. I knew it was him after he told me who he
knew in my town in Panama.”
Margarito had failed for two decades to even ask about him, and had never
even sent money. Suspicious and resentful of his father’s timing, Roberto saw
someone looking for a handout. “He is a very sensitive person and would always
complain about not having lived with his father,” said Plomo. “He used to tell
me he wanted to find out about him, to know what he was like, and I remember
he once said he had left Germany and was living in Arizona. At that time he had
already fought in the USA, and had turned world champion, but he still did not
know who his father was. We had two fights in Los Angeles, after being world
champion, and he repeated the story about his father being a Mexican, and his
wish to know whether he was then living in Arizona or not. This interview was
broadcast by radio and TV, and in the end, his father did come one day to our
hotel in Los Angeles.
 “Roberto got very angry, and asked him why was it that he was only now
interested in meeting him, now that he was a champion. He added he could not
be sure he was really his father. After asking what his name was, to which his
father said, ‘Margarito,’ he inquired about the other people in the family he
knew. Margarito answered he knew Uncle Joaquin, with whom he used to spend
long hours. I told him not get angry at his father, after all he was his father.
“Roberto left the room for a while, and upon returning he went on with the
questions. He asked whether he knew who his grandfather was, to which
Margarito answered his grandfather’s name was Chavelo. They looked at each
other for a while, after which they embraced strongly, and when they finally
looked at each other again, they heard the words they had longed for so long:
Father, Son. That was the beginning of a totally new friendship.”
Margarito wasn’t after anything except to see his son. “The reason I got in
contact with Roberto was because I was in California and I was reading a boxing
magazine,” he said. “At the time I was visiting my oldest brother. Then I see
Roberto Duran in the magazine. I told my oldest brother that he had to be my
son. ‘I bet it is my son,’ I told my brother. Soon enough I saw him when he came
here to fight.”
Despite the reconciliation, they rarely kept in touch afterwards. Duran would
face Javier Ayala less than a month later. Duran weighed 140 for Ayala, and
went in at 139 for Medina. “There was a belief that Duran struggled to make
weight for some of his fights,” said West Coast promoter Don Chargin. “Of
course, the fighters don’t always let you know if they did have trouble. Duran
was very popular with all the Latin fans. His father was Mexican. He would mix
around with everybody around the gym and that’s what Latin fans liked. You
know, he might have been wild in Panama, but when he came to Los Angeles he
was always on time at all the press events and was always good with the press.”
Ayala proved to be a testing opponent. He came in with a poor 13-7-1 record
but was able to fend off Duran; Chargin recalled that Duran made “Ayala fight
the best fight of his life.” During the bout, at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on
March 17, Duran knocked Ayala down in the last round but a bizarre occurrence
meant he couldn’t finish him off, and left him feeling short-changed by promoter
Chargin and the locals. “There was quite a bit of time left, maybe a couple
minutes in the round,” said Chargin. “Duran knocked Ayala down and his head
hit the bell. Back then the bell was a box with a button on it. So everybody
stopped because of the confusion. Ayala was hurt, but he cleared and was able to
finish the fight. We had a tough time with Duran after because he thought it was
something we did on purpose. It took us a week before he finally understood
what had happened.”
 Before he left the West Coast, Duran spent some more time getting to know
Margarito’s side of the family. “We went to my father’s house and we were
drinking beer,” said Duran. “They gave us food, but we didn’t eat it because it
was too spicy. I only saw my father maybe four times during my boxing career.
Twenty-one years had passed after that first time. I always called him, but only
his woman answered. He never did and never returned my calls.”
Margarito countered, “I used to see him every time he used to fight. They’d
call us beforehand and reserve our seats.”
Although people give sundry testimonies on the person Duran really was,
from a hard drinker who would enter New York bars and call out the toughest
guy, to a party lover, to a legendary womanizer, the people who dealt with him
inside boxing painted the same portrait of a maniacal figure. Was he acting out
against his father each time he entered the ring?
“It wasn’t an act. He used to be a mean little guy when he was younger,” said
Kronk trainer Emanuel Steward. “But that’s what made him who he was, that
rage. You couldn’t take that away from him. But he mellowed with age. He’s
such a nice guy and you can just see that in his body language, he just likes to be
around people.”
The rage hid sensitivity. Duran put up walls that only a select few could get
beyond. One of the barriers was a refusal to learn English. The belief was that he
didn’t want people to misinterpret him. Ironically, the situations in his life that
left him damaged were also the easiest to talk about. Duran doesn’t clam up
about his feelings for his father and refuses to hide his feeling of abandonment.
Yet he never received a satisfactory answer for why his father didn’t love him
enough to look after him, and they would never become close.
“One night I was done fighting once and we all went to have drinks at
Caesar’s Palace,” said Duran. “My dad was drunk and he started dancing. He
fell! So he has to go to the room, but I had no clothes so I gave him my boxing
robe. Later on, when he wouldn’t call back, I thought that he didn’t want to talk
to me or maybe his wife talked to him so that he didn’t contact me. But I don’t
want to know anything about that family anymore.”
After the Ayala fight, Duran knocked out Gerardo Ferrat on April 14 in
Panama City in another over-the-weight match. Ferrat, another Mexican, had
fought the best in the division but spent a sizeable part of the fight looking into
the referee’s eyes, as he was dropped three times before succumbing to a straight
right hand in the final moments of the second round. “Ferrat came out with the
determination of swapping punches, and Rocky didn’t hesitate in answering the
call,” described Ring magazine succinctly.
Next came a true test. Duran’s second title defense was against Australian
aborigine Hector Thompson, who had never boxed outside his native country but
who was unbeaten in his last twenty-six contests. “Hector was a legend in
Australia,” said Eleta. “They didn’t believe that anyone could beat him.
Supposedly, he killed a man in the ring or something like that. The guy was a
killer.” In 1970, Rocco Spanja had died in hospital after losing to Thompson.
Born in Kempsey, a river settlement on the Pacific coast midway between
Sydney and Brisbane, Thompson was raised in a boys’ home after the death of
his mother. He was introduced to boxing there at just five years of age, and
developed into a skilled and very strong fighter who could box, stay poised in
heated exchanges and was adept at beating opponents to the jab. An Australian
champion at two weights, he had just won the Commonwealth light-
welterweight title and had lost only twice, both early in his career, in forty-three
pro bouts.
The bout was held in Nuevo Panama on 2 June 1973. Duran came in at 134
pounds, a pound less than Thompson, who often fought at the slightly heavier
light-welterweight. At the weigh-in Duran had predicted a knockout within five
rounds but it was soon clear that the rugged Australian was both strong and
smart and would be no pushover. Duran stung him with a right to the ribs and an
overhand right to let him know whose turf he was on.
Duran broke down Thompson early in the second round with a left hook to the
head, and then landed four straight head shots to end the round. Thompson tried
to counter but with no success as a patient Duran ducked and swayed with
marvelous economy while maintaining his forward drive. Every move, every
punch followed a precise pattern, as if he had orchestrated every second in his
mind in training.
The fight wasn’t without its oddities. Four times after rounds ended, Duran
walked to Thompson’s corner instead of his own. Duran seemed stupefied by his
own actions. The confusion didn’t halt his attack as he knocked down Thompson
with seconds remaining in the third round. After a mandatory eight count,
Thompson walked into another big left hook before the bell sounded. Using the
intermission to clear his head, Thompson boxed well in the fourth and in the
fifth he traded with Duran, hustling points and landing two solid uppercuts. As
the intensity increased, both men traded body shots and uppercuts in the sixth
and seventh round.
A jarring left hook to the neck sent Thompson sprawling in the eighth and
blood squirted from his nose like a spigot. He was up quickly but disoriented,
and after the second mandatory eight-count Duran landed two more shots and
referee Nicasio Drake stepped in to halt it with fifteen seconds left in the round.
Thompson was slumped against the ropes and appeared unable to defend
himself. The Australian later complained that the stoppage was premature, but
Duran was well ahead on points and had clearly outworked him.
That night, Thompson faced an indomitable champion. Some would contend
that Duran never fought a more vicious, focused fight. “Thompson, a classical
stylist, had gambled on his skill being too much for Duran, but like Ken
Buchanan before him he learned the hard way that technique without power is
not enough to counter Duran’s explosive hitting,” concluded Boxing News.
“I think the one fight where people realized how great he could be was against
Thompson,” said Eleta. “You should have seen that fight, they went at each
other, tried to kill each other, but not in the way it is translated. It means that
they fought very hard in Spanish. It showed that Duran had that something extra.
“Duran didn’t like any fighter that he had to fight. After that they got together
and were friendly. But that’s why Duran was Duran, because he got everybody
afraid of him. That’s why he would say, ‘I am going to kill you’ and all that.”
Thompson went on to be one of the greatest Australian boxers ever but a
world title would elude him. In 1976, another of his opponents, American Chuck
Wilburn, died in hospital from injuries sustained during their bout, and
Thompson himself was eventually forced to retire after an electro-
encephalogram revealed he could suffer permanent brain damage if he
continued.
The title had also brought Duran a new home with a pool in Nuevo Reparten,
an upscale community in Panama, a place where he could indulge both his
generous conviviality and his roughly playful sense of humour. While later
taking pictures during a party at Duran’s home, a local photographer was
standing by the side of Duran’s pool. Next thing he knew Duran was telling the
people that “it was time to push a photographer in the pool.” At the moment it
seemed a harmless announcement that Duran made to get some laughs. Minutes
later the man and his equipment were in the water, while Duran and his friends
basked in the moment.
Duran asked how much for the equipment.
“One thousand dollars,” said the dripping photographer.
“I’ll give you two thousand dollars,” replied Duran.
“I couldn’t stay mad any longer,” said the photographer, after fishing out his
equipment.
A little over two months after the Thompson fight, Duran was surrounded by
Puerto Ricans in the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. On
DeJesus’s turf, he faced Adolphus “Doc” McClendon, who had nine losses in
eighteen bouts, in a ten-round non-title bout, and banged out a unanimous
decision, with few notable exchanges. “Doc didn’t do much after holding his
own for the first three rounds,” reported Ring. “He also managed to land a
sneaky right hand. That won the plaudits of the fans, but they were few and far
between.” After the fight, the generous Duran gave McClendon an expensive
gold watch as a gift. Material things meant little to him. It wasn’t unusual for
him to offer a piece of clothing to a stranger in public just to see their reaction.
In an airport one day, he ripped off his T-shirt to give to an admirer, and
continued to walk shirt-less through the terminal.
His Nuevo Panama haven was the venue for his third defense against Japan’s
Ishimatsu “Guts” Suzuki, on a bill that also featured fellow WBA champion
Ernesto Marcel defending his featherweight crown. A crowd of 16,000 turned
out to watch the two local heroes on September 8, 1973. Suzuki, a flamboyant
personality with more courage than skill, was an attention-lover who later
became a comedian and actor (Black Rain, Empire Of The Sun) and was noted
for unintentionally humorous comments, such as, “My life has turned three
hundred and eighty degrees because of boxing,” and, “I know the human being
and the fish can coexist peacefully.” He came into the fight with a 25-10-5
record and the intention of unseating the brash young champion, and succeeded
in gashing Duran’s eye in the third round, but was sent to the canvas five times
before the bout was stopped in the tenth round. The champion attacked from the
outset, producing some of the best boxing of his career, and by round eight
Suzuki’s eye was badly swollen. Duran floored him twice in the ninth and a
further three times in the tenth before the referee called a halt. Marcel also won
in style.
In a post-fight interview, Duran said, “I am a little tired. Suzuki was very
good.”
“Who was better, Suzuki or Thompson?” asked the reporter.
“Thompson, muy fuerte. Very strong.”
From December 1972 to February 1973, Duran only needed eleven rounds to
dispatch Tony Garcia in Panama, Leonard Tavarez in Paris, France, and
Armando Mendoza in his hometown in three non-title bouts. “Duran had a
problem when he traveled to Europe,” said Plomo. “He fought against Tavarez
who was [French] champion. It is not known whether Duran ate something that
made him sick, a beefsteak or something else, or if he was given something in
bad condition on purpose, you can never be too sure about what people who love
their country may do, the cook perhaps…I was already getting him ready and he
asked to go to the bathroom. Then, in the middle of the fight, when they were
interchanging blows, all of a sudden, pruuff! The excrement went off. He had
diarrhea. That happened after he had already knocked Tavarez down and they
had put up his hand. He had to go running to the bathroom.”
 A dramatic photograph of a thunderous Duran right cross appearing to cave in
Tavarez’s face later appeared in several publications. “The 35-year-old
Frenchman was bleeding from the nose as early as the first round and barely
escaped a knockout when he was floored at the end of the third, only to be saved
by the bell,” reported Boxing News. “Duran launched another fierce attack in the
fourth and Tavarez’s manager, Jean Traxel, threw in the towel after one minute
of the round.”

A WEEK BEFORE Christmas, 1973, the promotional group Top Rank, headed
by the ambitious former attorney Bob Arum, announced that Duran would
defend his title against the only man to beat him, Esteban DeJesus, for his
biggest ever purse of $125,000. DeJesus, as challenger, would receive $40,000.
Arum had promoted most of Muhammad Ali’s title defenses in the Sixties and
was one of the first to spot the opportunities afforded by closed-circuit cinema
broadcasts, foresight that would make him a major player. The fight would have
happened sooner but Eleta had deterred previous approaches with his stringent
demands, including not leaving Panama to fight. “The trouble started when
Duran … reportedly had been assured that he would be too tough for DeJesus,”
wrote columnist Alberto Montilla, after the first fight. “However, Esteban gave
Duran a boxing lesson and Duran, report had it, felt he had been suckered into a
bad deal in New York. This was not true.”
If there was an ideal mix for a prizefighter, Esteban DeJesus had all the
ingredients, just not in sufficient abundance to qualify for greatness. A
magnificent counter-puncher, he instinctively understood the nuances of the fight
game. DeJesus had not received due credit for beating Duran in their first fight.
Many blamed poor conditioning on Duran’s part, while Duran had the excuse of
his injured elbow. DeJesus was undefeated since beating Duran at the Garden.
Eleta urged Duran to remember the feeling he had in the restaurant after the
first loss. Losing was a sign of weakness, and no man could strip him of his
virility. He wore gold rings and the Armani suits, but Chorrillo was still inside
him. He was fighting for every Panamanian who grew up with nothing. The
Duran name would become ingrained in the hearts of the Panamanians for his
generosity as well as his accomplishments. Although he earned and spent to
excess, money meant nothing to Duran; people did. Money was just something
that would arrive after each bout.
Duran fought his best when he had something to prove, never more so than in
the return bout with DeJesus. He wanted DeJesus with a passion, while lesser
opponents were merely a break in his carousing. DeJesus had to be taken
seriously; Duran knew this much. This was the guy who floored him in their first
fight, whose left hook was the hot topic in pre-fight interviews, who cursed
Duran in public and challenged him during press conferences.
Weeks before the fight Duran told a local reporter, “I wake up with DeJesus. I
breakfast with DeJesus. I lunch with DeJesus. And I go to sleep with DeJesus.
There is not a moment that I don’t think about him. I have no fear. In the first
fight, I was not in good physical condition. This time I am in better condition
than I was when I massacred Buchanan. I hope that DeJesus doesn’t run like a
coward.” On March 15, a photo in La Critica showed Duran holding up six
fingers to signify the round he would knock out his opponent.
He further elaborated in a radio interview with journalist Tomy Cupas.
“How do you feel about the fight?” asked Cupas.
“I am in perfect condition and DeJesus is covered in shit,” said Duran.
“Listen, champ, we are on air …”
“Excuse me, but I will take him out at all costs.”
Ray Arcel arrived on March 9 to train Duran in a gym in the interior in
Veraguas, Santiago, while DeJesus stayed in Panama City and trained at Juan
Demostenes Arosemena. There were rumors that Duran hurt his hand in
sparring, while DeJesus, whose sparring partners were the Puerto Rican Benitez
brothers, allegedly suffered a cut days before the fight. Trainer Gregorio Benitez
complained about the training conditions and tried to postpone the fight a week,
though this may have been because DeJesus was struggling to get down to the
weight.
It was also the hot season, when humidity became almost unbearable, hardly
the best time for anyone to step into the ring against the local hero.
“Duran didn’t have trouble with guys who moved. He had trouble with a guy
who was a good fighter,” said Gil Clancy. “And DeJesus was a guy who could
fight. What you are looking for is to see the effect of when a guy lands a punch,
to see how well the other guy stands up.”
DeJesus also had one weapon that no mortal man could counter without help:
magic. He brought with him his brujos, the shamanic wizards or witch doctors in
whose magic many black and native Americans believed. Brujos are respected
and feared from Mexico to Chile. They can cast a spell on enemies, cure ills and
stop a straying husband. In Chile they believed that to become a brujo one must
perform evil acts, even killing a family member to acquire magical powers.
According to some legends, brujos can fly when wearing a vest made from the
skin of a virgin worn inside out. 
Newspapers referred to DeJesus as “the sorcerer from Puerto Rico.” Clara
Samaniego prayed to Virgen del Carmen, patron saint of the mestizo population,
for her son’s safety but also took measures to counter his opponent’s dark magic.
“Esteban DeJesus did not know me at that time,” said Clara. “He came to
Panama, and said that anyone who wanted to meet him could go visit him. I
went to see him, and I immediately saw the African brujos. I sensed this was not
going to be a good thing for my son during the fight the following day. So I sent
Roberto [a religious object] so that he did not fall on the first round. But Roberto
threw away what I had given him.
“When I arrived I said I wanted to talk to a lieutenant, and I asked him to take
me to see Roberto, for I was his mother. When Roberto saw me, crying, I told
him to hook him up from downwards and upwards, combining them. I then
claimed for the help of my late mother, ‘Mrs Ceferina Garcia, give Roberto a
breath, and help him stand up.’ Roberto says he felt her breath after a while, and
he stood up. I started shouting at him where to hit his rival, and this was when
Roberto finally recovered.”
Despite stifling heat and humidity, Duran, resplendent in green trunks with
yellow stripes and a Super Malta advertisement, wasn’t even sweating as he
entered the ring for the showdown at the Nuevo Panama Gymnasium on 16
March 1974. The combatants had nearly identical records with Duran 40-1
(thirty-five KOs) and DeJesus 41-1 (twenty-nine KOs). Sixteen thousand fans
had snatched up tickets ranging from $10 to $100 apiece, and Duran was a 2–1
betting favorite. HB soda and Atlas beer flowed as the fans watched local fighter
Mario Mendoza ignite proceedings with a seventh-round knockout victory.
Once again, Duran would find himself looking up at DeJesus. DeJesus started
strongly and set up the first big left hook with a straight right that landed flush
on Duran’s jaw. Duran’s unruly black locks flew up in the air as he tried to
balance himself. Unable to recover, the next left hook flattened him, again. He
rose quickly with a disgusted look, took an eight-count and promised to exact
revenge.
“I don’t agree that he beat me in the first fight,” said Duran. “DeJesus fought
with Roberto Duran who just had an accident. When I fought the rematch, I was
having too many problems making the weight for the fight here in Panama. I get
a pimple on my face, I break it and keep messing with it. I burn it and get
scarred. When he knocks me down in the rematch, Plomo says to me, ‘Hey what
happened, he knocked you down with the same hand as before?’ I said, ‘Take it
easy man, I’m about to rip his ass up.’”
Cornermen Arcel and Brown knew their fighter was only temporarily shaken.
Between rounds, Duran sat without emotion, no snarl or disdain, just innocence;
a surreal snapshot of detachment. Whatever the old men preached, Duran looked
through them. He knew what to do. In truth, DeJesus, 134½, had also struggled
mightily to shed pounds to reach the 135-pound lightweight limit, and lacked the
vim of their first fight.
The old adage that you “don’t hook with a hooker” was forgotten as Duran
tore into DeJesus in an action-packed second round. In the third, Duran
responded with a blizzard of punches. On the inside he shortened his blows, used
his shoulders to crowd the Puerto Rican and raked DeJesus with the top of his
head. He ended the round with a furious nine-punch barrage. It marked the first
clear-cut round for Duran in over thirteen rounds of boxing with the Puerto
Rican.
The champion began to move and show his defensive skills in the fourth,
landing and avoiding DeJesus’ counters at blink speed. He had the ability to “go”
with a punch, turning or tilting his head slightly, but decisively on impact to
negate the force. Blows that looked solid to spectators and seemed to jolt his
head were in fact robbed of power. Rarely did Duran take a clean shot. The
challenger was always dangerous, but was clearly bothered by both his
opponent’s attack and the Panama heat. His blows arrived singly, not in
combination, and he began to jab and move to dodge punishment. Brawling with
this Duran was not an option.
The champion bled first, a gash opening under his left eye after the sixth
round. But he ignored it to land a left-right combination and then artfully fall
into DeJesus, bringing his elbows up to his chest to grab him in a clinch to
prevent any counter. It was a beautiful sequence, executed in rapid succession.
By round seven, the writing was on the wall. The force of Duran’s punches
could be measured by the swaying of the crowd; with each solid hit they rose in
a wave, arms aloft. The roar became deafening when Duran clubbed DeJesus to
his knees with a quick right hand halfway through the round. For a few seconds
it looked like DeJesus wouldn’t get up. He looked all in, yet he couldn’t stay
down. Being a boxer came with a steep price. Defeat was no shame but any
perceived lack of courage was. The life he had chosen gave him only one option:
to fight. DeJesus willed himself to rise, and survived the round on instinct alone.
After the break, Duran continued to ravage his challenger with left hooks to
the liver. One eight-punch combination in the middle of the ring put the seal on
his dominance. DeJesus had a hopeless look in his eyes as he doubled over from
each hook. Each break between rounds was merely a temporary respite from the
torture. The sixty-second interval forces a boxer to confront the truth. In these
brief periods of introspection, DeJesus had to decide whether to come forward
with the same intensity and risk injury, stay away from his opponent or even
quit. In what other sport must an athlete answer such profound questions? As
promoter J. Russell Peltz said, any fighter who gets in the ring “has stones.”
DeJesus pondered the eighteen minutes of warfare thus far, he sat with eyes
ahead and mouth agape, stare blank, thoughts jumbled, as his handlers tried to
revive him and urge him on. They flushed his entire body with water. One
massaged his shoulders while another jostled his cheeks like a proud
grandmother. DeJesus never changed expression.
By the end of round ten, the Puerto Rican was grimacing at every punch. He
again slumped on his stool at the bell and told his manager, “No voy más. I’m
finished, I can’t go on.” Gregorio Benitez, an uncompromising character who
always believed he knew best, responded sharply, “You aren’t going to quit now.
You have come for the title…to fight.” He brooked no argument.
Not a minute later DeJesus was back on the canvas from a Duran right to the
side of his head. Referee Isaac Herrera crouched close to the fallen fighter’s head
and counted him out, conscious but spent. As soon as he signaled the end,
DeJesus rose and walked back to the corner.
Duran bounced over to Eleta and threw his arms around his manager. With
security forgotten, fans flooded the ring. A journalist jabbed a microphone into
Duran’s face and he smiled, happy amid chaos. Soon he disappeared among
back-slapping military brass. A white-haired and angry Ray Arcel tried to fight
through the melee to reach his fighter, to no avail. Somewhere else, Eleta was
talking to a reporter about a possible return bout with Buchanan. “After Duran
hit him in the kidney early in the fight I knew it was over,” he said.
“With Heart and Truth Cholo Retains Title,” declared the headline in La
Critica.
 9

Hands of Stone

“I almost killed that guy.”
Roberto Duran

FROM JULY 1974 to February 1975, Duran took just twenty rounds to dispose
of six opponents. Flash Gallego fell in five in July, while Adalberto Vanegas,
Masataka Takayama and Andres Salgado were all blown away in first-round
knockouts. Only the bout against Japan’s Takayama, who was dropped three
times in short order, was a title defense. “I was the matchmaker for that bout
with Takayama [in Costa Rica],” said Luis Spada, who worked for Carlos Eleta.
“Roberto knocks the guy out in like a hundred seconds, and they are mad at me
because it was so quick. I said, ‘You told me to make the bout and I did.’”
Puerto Rican Hector Matta was the only one of the six to go the distance,
losing a ten-rounder in San Juan. Matta, whose father trained fighting cocks as
well as boxers, fought well; Duran was under par, and some of the local boxing
writers even called the bout a draw. Esteban DeJesus fought in the co-main
event, but a “rubber” between him and Duran was unlikely given that DeJesus
now seemed unable to make 135 pounds.
Duran was also forced to pull out of a non-title fight at Madison Square
Garden that August. Carlos Eleta was unwilling to sign an agreement to defend
against Ken Buchanan within ninety days of the Barreto bout, even though he
apparently had a two-year-old contract to give the Scot his chance, and so the
New York State Athletic Commission suspended Duran from boxing in the state
for more than a year. Commission chairman Edwin Dooley then called off the
Barreto bout. Before Duran headed back to Panama, a reporter went to his room
at the Mayflower Hotel seeking an interview with the champ. “Duran is in the
shower and he is ready to go in a motorcade to a party in Brooklyn where
everyone wants to see him,” said translator Luis Henriquez. He hinted that there
might be “a physical confrontation” if any reporter attempted to interview the
champ. “I didn’t like being pressured,” was Eleta’s memory of the ban.
Instead, a lightweight from Portland, Oregon, entered the picture. Ray
Lampkin had dreamed of being a fighter since his childhood, but at first lacked
the discipline needed to excel in the fight game. He made the Olympic national
qualifiers as an amateur but not the finals. “I smoked cigarettes for ten years,”
Lampkin admitted. “Even though I was winning fights in the amateurs, I wasn’t
a good fighter. I was in no shape because I was still smoking. All the fights that I
had lost, I ran out of gas in the last round.”
Lampkin looked to turn pro but had no trainer or manager. While promoter
Sam Singleton tried to find him a spot on a local card, the boxer worked three
jobs out of necessity. His plea to “just find me someone to fight” was repeated
often, until one day in 1972 it was answered. “They found me someone to fight
named Gordon ‘Newsboy’ Johnson,” said Lampkin. “I didn’t even know who he
was, so I just got out there and started to train. I knew some guy who told me,
‘You’re going to get some newspapers thrown at you.’ And I said, ‘He might be
throwing some newspapers, but I’ll be throwing punches.’”
After winning the decision in his pro debut, Lampkin woke up to what was
possible. “If I did this well without being in the proper shape, imagine what I
could do if I stopped doing the things that were holding me back. I didn’t want to
wonder how good I could really be.” He didn’t lose in his first twenty pro fights,
the only blemish being a single draw. Lampkin became something of a local
attraction in Oregon, but his progress was slow. “I decided if I was going to
make a move in the boxing game, then I had to get a manager,” he said. “Some
guys who have trainers and managers don’t even go ten-zero, I thought.”
He eventually hooked up with Mike “Motormouth” Morton, a Runyonesque
mainstay of the Pacific Northwest boxing scene, and early in 1973 traveled to
Puerto Rico to fight Esteban DeJesus for the North American Boxing Federation
lightweight title, with only Morton by his side. “I went over there without my
trainer Jack Brackey, who was the best teacher of the game that I ever had,” said
Lampkin. “He taught me how to be a pro, and my manager wouldn’t send him
over there with me. Since the promoter only provided two plane tickets, he was
left out. Fighting DeJesus without my trainer was one of the biggest mistakes of
my career.”
Not only a trainer and teacher: Brackey was also Lampkin’s shadow. When
the sun went down and Lampkin didn’t want to finish his routine, it was Brackey
who prodded him. When the young fighter needed a pick-me-up in the latter
rounds of a fight, it was Brackey who put his hands around his waist and urged
him back out there. When the left hook was thrown too wide, Brackey was there
to shorten it up. When Lampkin got knocked down, Brackey went with him.
Now Lampkin, who had never traveled to another country, was alone.
“When I got to San Juan, there were a lot of things I didn’t like. People were
telling me, ‘Don’t drink the water.’ I was so scared to drink the water and by the
time the fight came around I was so weak. My manager should have gotten me
bottled water or something.”
Fighting in the new Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Rato Hey was also a
problem. “It was a brand new ring and it was real slippery,” said Lampkin.
“Every time I tried to swing or throw a punch, I was slipping. In the first round,
DeJesus hit me with a right hand and I went down. He dropped me for the first
time in my life. I got up and went twelve rounds with him. I slipped two or three
times during the fight. If we had prepared ourselves for this, and checked the
ring, we would have known beforehand that there was a rod in the middle and
that we needed rubber shoes. I knew that I could have beat him if we were on
even ground.”
Despite the decision loss, the fight proved that Lampkin could compete with
the elite in his division, and several months later he got his wish for “even
ground” when he fought DeJesus again at New York Felt Forum. “I had inflamed
gallstones in this fight,” said Lampkin. “It may sound like excuses, but I
shouldn’t even have been fighting. I couldn’t do any roadwork, but their mindset
was that I could wait and see a doctor [when I got back to] Oregon. I was like,
‘But I could die now.’”
Lampkin survived the painful disorder, which his doctor would later note as a
“miracle.” Once again, however, he lost the decision. “I have respect for every
fighter because I don’t want to disrespect anybody,” Lampkin said, “but I still
think that I could have beaten Esteban. I was too fast for him, and I could box.
“I was always hoping to meet up with Duran,” Lampkin said. “I figured the
longer I stayed up there, one day he would have to fight me. When they finally
make the fight, they tell me that I’m going to have to go to Panama. He wouldn’t
fight me anywhere else. I told him that I would go straight to his house and
fight.”
The match was made for Nuevo Panama, Panama City, on 2 March 1975.
Lampkin knew that the man he was facing had more to offer than attack. “People
never gave Duran credit for being such a good defensive fighter,” said Lampkin.
“Boy, he wasn’t easy to hit.”
To Lampkin, the logic of the fight played out like this: DeJesus beat Duran,
Lampkin almost beat DeJesus, therefore Lampkin had a good chance to dethrone
Duran. Lampkin didn’t regard Duran as an unstoppable force, even though the
champion was coming off a trio of first-round knockouts. “They were trying to
make Duran out to be this Superman character,” said Lampkin. “He was human,
and when you cut him, he bled, just like I did. They were acting like he couldn’t
be beat, and I saw Esteban do it. They tried to intimidate me and tell me that if I
beat Duran, I probably wouldn’t leave there alive. I told them that if I die, then I
would be a dead champion, because if I beat him they were going to have to kill
me.”
Lampkin and his team arrived in Panama on a Friday before the fight on
Sunday. “No fight could prepare me for Duran,” Lampkin reminisced. “Duran
had his own style, and there wasn’t another fighter who had that same style. My
sparring partners, well, none of them could really fight like Duran. Duran’s
always looking to punch, and had pretty good speed and power. He also had a
good right hand, a weird style and was very hard to hit. I just trained hoping to
make him fight my fight. I didn’t worry about his style. I wanted to make him
adjust to my style. I figured if I landed everything I wanted to land, he would
fall.”
Although lack of conditioning would occasionally blight Duran’s career, as a
lightweight he was young, strong and savvy enough to prevail even when his
energy ran low. He knew when to clinch or claw, hit low, take needed breaks, go
toward the ropes or plant himself in the middle of the ring. It was usually enough
to keep him out of trouble or allow him to catch his breath. Despite being able to
hide his flaws from certain boxers, others quickly recognized Duran’s mouth
agape searching for that second wind, along with a decrease in punches, and then
attacked. Duran’s power, for a lightweight, was a hot topic. It was a straight right
hand often prefaced by a left hook to the body. If the one punched missed,
several were fired from every angle. And with the mind of a crafty veteran,
Duran knew that his punches might leave him off balance. So Duran perfected
the punch-and-hold tactic that threw off all the challengers who expected the
staple bum-rush to leave him vulnerable for counters. Those challengers who ran
from Duran were caught in the late rounds. On Panama’s boisterous street
corners over dominoes, many wondered aloud how many rounds it would take
for Duran to destroy Lampkin.
“They kept him away from me,” Lampkin added. “They knew he would try
stuff like that, and they didn’t want me and him together. The only time I saw
Duran was in the ring. They didn’t want us to be at the same weigh-in or
nothing. In fact, he weighed in first, and then they got him out of there … before
he would act the fool.”
Keeping Duran hidden before the bout not only stopped any possible physical
or verbal assault, but left the challenger in the dark. “I didn’t know who he was,”
Lampkin remembered. “I really didn’t. I kept asking, ‘Is that Duran there?’ And
they said, ‘No, that’s not him.’ I didn’t know when I was ever going to see the
guy.” One thing that Lampkin dreaded was the heat. Duran had spent his life
training in veritable tanning-salon gyms; Lampkin hadn’t. This was Duran’s
land.
“The building is hot, there’s no air-conditioning at all,” said Lampkin. “It’s
like an oven with the temperature at five hundred degrees ... and it was like the
summertime back there. When you get there you don’t think about that stuff; we
never knew. All you do is get in there, go to the dressing room, and come out
when it’s time to fight. We thought it was like any other arena.”
By the time Lampkin was walking down through the aisles of the Nuevo
Panama Gym, however, everything was forgotten: the jungle heat, the crowd, the
pressure. It was man against man, and the American began well. Duran cut off
the ring, using his jab to set up three left hooks to the face, but Lampkin, whose
upright style and sculpted body made him seem much the bigger man, responded
with a clean straight right that made Duran lose his footing. “When I hit him
with a body shot, he would kick his leg up real high, and people thought he was
trying to kick me,” Lampkin said. “I can’t remember what round it was, but I
know I hurt him.”
There was nothing squeamish about Lampkin. He elbowed Duran in the head
during a clinch in the second round, a warning that any dirty stuff would be
countered in kind. Clean shots bounced off Duran’s devilish beard throughout
the round, which Lampkin earned.
Through the early rounds, Duran looked to have a slight edge. Breathing
heavily by the fourth, he scored with combinations and staggered Lampkin in the
fifth with a clubbing right cross. Legs weazy, but mind intact, Lampkin wobbled
around the ring, took another right and instinctively fell into and wrestled Duran
to the floor. After the brief delay, Duran refused the head and cracked Lampkin
with a left to the ribs that sent him hobbling back to his cornermen.
But always Lampkin fought back. Even inside, a space Duran called his own,
Lampkin often ended several close-quarter exchanges with a chopping right and
scored on the outside with a left-right-left combination. Few men had hit Duran
like that, and several rounds were too close to call. Still, Duran was landing the
bigger punches and between the seventh and eighth rounds an issue arose in
Lampkin’s corner. It was reported in the New York Times that Lampkin was
forcibly sent out by his handlers for the eighth round, though it wasn’t explained
why.
The pace was torrid as neither man looked to back down. Even those blinded
by bias had to admire the American’s persistence. Few lightweights could have
taken the punishment Duran gave Lampkin and kept going forward. In the ninth,
Lampkin walked through a punishing left hook to the body and a pair of rights to
the head; his courage never wavered. Duran concentrated on a huge welt that had
formed under Lampkin’s left eye, banging the puss out with a vicious uppercut.
Duran forged on and caught his second wind in the late rounds. By the end of
round thirteen, both of Lampkin’s cheeks were swollen and his step was heavy.
He had given his soul, yet still he wouldn’t fall. He took solace in the middle of
the ring and raged back at Duran.
“He was a guy who would do anything to win,” Lampkin said. “He was a
dirty guy and I knew that but he was the main guy. I figured I was holding my
own. All I wanted … to keep him in the kitchen and hit him with some good
shots and knock him out. But it was very hard to do. I was the first one to take
him fourteen rounds. What got me was that my corner had defeated me when
they ran out of water. It was like amateur night in my corner.”
Lampkin plodded out of his corner for round fourteen; he wouldn’t return the
same fighter. Within the first thirty seconds, Duran had landed a short, glancing
left hook that set him up. Lampkin, near the ropes, dropped his guard for a split
second. A whipping left hook sent him to the canvas and out on his back, his
head bouncing off the floor like a weight dropped on cement. Ringsiders cringed
at the sickening force of the fall. Even before the referee had knelt down to
count, Lampkin tried to raise his head, but couldn’t. He had no chance of beating
the count. By that point, ringsiders were more concerned about his health.
As soon as the hook had landed, Duran knew the possibility that something
grave had occurred. “I almost killed the guy,” he noted later. Handlers, security
guards and medics began to crowd around Lampkin, a wounded man lying
among strangers. “I remember him taking me down and my head hit the canvas
pretty hard and I tried to get up and I have a picture of me on my elbows,” said
Lampkin. “From the slamming of my head, all of a sudden I tried to raise up real
fast and then I just fell back out.”
Duran capped the nightmare off with his most infamous quote: “Next time I
send him to the morgue.” The media ran with it, and it became emblematic of the
Panamanian’s perceived callousness and brute hostility. However, Duran’s camp
denied that their fighter was a monster. “No, those are lies,” said Plomo. “The
guy was half-dead, he did not need to frighten him any further. They took him to
hospital on a stretcher because he failed to react.”
“I told him that I never had been knocked out in my life and I don’t feel that
he would have done it if I had water in my corner,” said Lampkin. “I sensed that
we were both tiring. They weren’t expecting me to last, nobody did, especially
the Panamanian people. When I went back there they told me that I had beaten
Duran, but I didn’t win the fight. His daughter and son told me, ‘We’ve never
met you Mister Lampkin, but my daddy said you were his toughest fight.’”
The punch, and the quote, would cement Duran’s reputation. Society believed
that Duran didn’t have the capacity to feel compassion, not in the ring. The
media blew up his quote on the morgue, thus enhancing Duran’s ugliness.
“[Lampkin] could have died after that fight,” said Duran. “I told him I would kill
him next time. I fought him with very little training. I lost too much weight; I
was dying. I always have a quality that I would never lose … I have a gesture
where you don’t know which two hands are coming. It’s the moment where you
think the right is coming and it’s the left, and then you expect the left and I hit
you with the right. That’s why I had a lot of boxers confused, I was just too
smart for them.” Duran would call Lampkin his toughest challenger.
WBA President and ringside physician Dr Elias Cordoba originally called
Lampkin’s condition “delicate but not serious.” However, it wasn’t until thirty
minutes after reaching the local hospital that Lampkin regained consciousness.
According to WBA doctor Keith Arthur, the reason for Lampkin’s delayed
consciousness was “a severe accumulation of blood in the thorax which
diminished the blood flow to the brain.” At this point, the number one contender
was fighting for his life. A wire story even reported that Lampkin had died.
At the Santo Thomas Hospital, Lampkin went into convulsions. “They took
me back to the dressing room or somewhere and everybody was all over me,”
Lampkin recalled. “‘Give him some room,’ and then someone said, ‘Get this
man to a hospital.’ I can vaguely remember that, and then I went to the hospital.”
Although Duran claims that he, Toti and his mother visited Lampkin at the
hospital twice after the fight, Lampkin doesn’t recall it. “Sure, Roberto and I
went to the hospital together,” said Toti Samaniego. “Lampkin was acting crazy
and was talking about a rematch and stuff like that.” Plomo also remembered the
visit, as Duran was worried if “the guy was alive or dead.”
Lampkin tested his legs two days after the fight but couldn’t walk. Most men
would have taken the knockout as a sign to quit boxing, but not Lampkin. “One
thing, I did suffer a concussion because I couldn’t walk. My left leg was
paralyzed,” said Lampkin,“from the fall on my head. I was dragging my left leg
and I had to go home in a wheelchair.” After being cleared to return to Oregon,
Lampkin was met at the airport by the mayor. He was immediately taken to the
hospital for more tests and to make sure he didn’t have blood clots.
“It was a very difficult time,” Lampkin recalled. “I had to go to a
neurosurgeon. Then I was under treatment for six months. A woman was
working with me so I could walk again. First, I could walk; then I could run
again. If you didn’t know it, you would never think that anything was ever
wrong with me. I was just as strong as ever.”
Lampkin continued, “Maybe some would call, but he didn’t. Duran never
called or anything. Maybe twenty-some years later, I saw Duran. He and Sugar
Ray Leonard came to Oregon to a casino. I saw it in the paper, so I went down to
the casino and I walked up to Duran and said, ‘Hey, you remember me, Ray
Lampkin? We fought each other.’ He looks at me, ‘Huh, huh?’ But I made him
remember. Then we took some pictures together. We got to know each other like
good friends. And he had his lawyer call me in Portland to come to Panama as a
guest.”
Even now, when people look at Ray Lampkin they remember the knockout,
the trauma. Some wonder how he survived such a beating to keep fighting. “I
didn’t get rich or win the championship of the world, because of that fight and
the injury that I suffered,” said Lampkin. “That was the fight that sent me
downhill into retirement. I had seven more fights after the Duran fight and I was
never the same. I never recuperated from the injury. I wanted to make myself
believe that I did, but I kept getting hurt. I didn’t want to die, so I left it alone.
After that concussion it got to the point that I couldn’t take a good head shot. I
didn’t want to be crazy or walking around like a vegetable or something. I’d
rather be rich, but have some sense with it so I could enjoy it.”
Duran, however, felt no remorse. “If I did not do this to him,” he told Plomo,
“he would have done it to me.”

ROBERTO DURAN reveled in his “killer” image but on occasion he also tired
of it. “I do not wish by any motive to have this public image,” he told La
Critica. “I am human and not invincible. When I was in front of the North
American Ray Lampkin and I knew that he was in bad condition after the
knockout, I prayed to God that he would recover soon.”
Yet what he said and what he did were often at odds. After an easy knockout
of Jose Peterson in Miami in June, he traveled to the Nicaraguan capital of
Managua to face Pedro “El Toro” Mendoza. In Nicaragua, Duran met the despot
Anastasio Somoza, who asked him to take it easy on his local opponent.
“Somoza, the President of Nicaragua, invited Duran for a fight with another
boxer they had at his weight,” said Plomo. “But the President asked [Duran] to
let him fight a bit, not to hurt him right at the beginning, so that he can show
how he fights. This is what Somoza told Duran when he went to visit him at the
presidential residency. So Duran told me what Somoza had told him, not to be
too hard at the beginning. He liked to hear what I had to say about things. He
knew I was right most of the times. And I told him this was not the right thing to
do.
“In the end, this boxer, called El Toro, did not last long. After Duran had
struck him twice, he fell down. Then a woman came to the ring, and Duran
thought she was coming to greet him, for she called out his name. ‘Duran,’ she
said, and suddenly, PAH, a terrible blow. She was a Nicaraguan woman, and
when Duran moved away, she received the impact of this blow and fell down as
well. At that moment all the Nicaraguan people outside got on the ring ready to
beat us.
“They shouted that they wanted to get us because that man had hit a woman.
The police were not there yet, and Duran and I were fighting against them, our
backs stuck together. We fought there against those fanatics for about ten
minutes until the police came. They rescued us and took us to the hotel. But
then, while we were there, some two hundred people came and started shouting,
‘We are going to kill this Duran, because he hit a woman.’ We did not know
what to do, we could only think of leaving. We had to leave using the back
entrance at the hotel, hiding, towards Costa Rica. There were always flights
leaving for Costa Rica. The people stayed there shouting in front of the hotel.
They did not know we had left already. It was total madness what happened
there. We could have faced a terrible problem.”
The story quickly became yet another piece of the Duran legend, like the
street fighting, the flattened horse and the “morgue” quote. Don King’s publicist,
Bobby Goodman, told a version in Alan Goldstein’s Fistful of Sugar. “He’s just
an animal in the ring. I remember the time he knocked out Pedro Mendoza in
one round. Some woman, I think it was Mendoza’s wife, jumped in the ring and
made a beeline for Duran. He just whirled around and flattened the broad with a
right hand, better than the one he starched Mendoza with.”
La Critica also had a feature on the melee. One of its correspondents in
Managua reported, “The woman threw a punch at Duran…and he threw a punch,
effectively knocking out the young woman.” Another report named the woman
as Eleanora Baca.
Carlos Eleta, however, disputed the adverse press reports. “A woman came
running into the ring after the knockout,” he said. “She started throwing punches
and screaming at Duran. At first, he thought she was going to embrace him, but
she kept using abusive language and swinging. Roberto put up his arms to
protect himself and in the scuffle she fell down. That’s all there was to it and I
have the film to prove that Duran didn’t throw a punch.”
Duran also wouldn’t admit it. “I never hit a woman, never in my life,” he said.
“Just swatted her away with the back of my hand.”
WITH CONTROVERSY dogging the champion, it was perhaps unfortunate that,
after next knocking out one of the Acuna boxing family, Alirio, in three rounds
in Panama, he had his first run-in with the abrasive Viruet brothers. Born in
Areceibo, Puerto Rico, the Viruets had made New York City their home. As
quick with an insult as a jab, the cocky brothers – including Dorman, Edwin and
Adolpho – cruised through the Big Apple’s amateur scene, using the canvas as
their dance floor.
“I dropped out of the school while in the eighth grade because I was impatient
to become a boxer,” Edwin told The Ring. He couldn’t punch, but had a great left
jab and a highly elusive, showboating style. He was 21-1-2 as a professional
when he signed to meet Duran in a non-title fight in Uniondale, New York, on
September 30, 1975. The Panama–Puerto Rico rivalry brought a 14,396 crowd to
the Nassau Coliseum, breaking a box office record set by Frank Sinatra.
The old adage that styles make fights never held more weight. Tall, rangy and
tricky, Viruet went through his full repertoire, dancing an Ali shuffle in the
opening moments, tying up Duran and shaking his head after punches to show he
wasn’t hurt, sticking out his tongue at Duran’s cornermen and generally
infuriating the short-fused champion. Several times in the middle rounds he took
off around the canvas, strutting like a man in a walking race, and in the tenth
even jogged a lap of the ring, to wild applause from his supporters. Duran
struggled to find a way past Viruet’s long jab, but each of his punches was worth
three of Viruet’s gentle pats, and by the middle rounds he was landing solidly.
The judges were unimpressed with the showboating Puerto Rican and
awarded Duran the unanimous decision. Ring reported that the bout “was a
Sunday stroll for the champ once he changed his style and stopped dignifying
Viruet’s bag of running tricks by chasing him.” Though the largely pro-Viruet
crowd lustily booed the verdict for ten minutes, Duran had won hands-down
from the sixth round onwards. Both men had words at the final bell, with Viruet
telling Duran, “I can’t even break an egg with my punches but you couldn’t
knock me out, and you’re supposed to be a knockout puncher.” Duran responded
with a foul-mouthed tirade.
“Edwin frustrated the shit out of him that night,” said Viruet’s handler, Al
Braverman. “Afterward, in the dressing troom, Duran came up to me and said,
‘Why did you put that jumping jack in the ring? He should have stood there and
fought me?’” But Braverman and Viruet knew what a fighter called Sugar Ray
Leonard would later realize too; there was a way to frustrate Duran in the ring, to
make him blow his top – and it might be the only way to beat him.
Duran was not the only person frustrated. A crowd of 7,000 attended the
Revolution Stadium in Panama City to watch the bout on closed circuit, but
when the picture failed to come through they started to smash up the place and
the National Guard had to be summoned.
As the dominant fighter in his weight division, Duran was now regularly
mooted for a possible “dream fight” against either junior welterweight champ
Antonio “Pambele” Cervantes or WBC welterweight champ Jose Napoles.
However, a rift between the two world sanctioning bodies put paid to the
Napoles bout, while Cervantes, who had knocked out Duran’s friend Peppermint
Frazer, was deemed too dangerous by Carlos Eleta, thus ruling out what would
have been built up as the greatest Colombia-Panama clash since Panama was
liberated in 1903. “I didn’t want to put Roberto in with him,” admitted Eleta
years later in Panama City. “He was a very dangerous fighter.” Cervantes was a
dark-skinned native of Palenque in Colombia, a village that produced an
inordinate number of world champions. He was a masterful and highly
experienced technician who had beaten Esteban DeJesus, Nicolino Locche and
many other prominent fighters. The closest he came to fighting Duran was a run-
in in the street when Cervantes was in Panama to fight Frazer.
“Duran knew he would win this fight, but I do not know why he did not want
to fight it,” said the ever-loyal Plomo. “It might have been because of the money.
But let me tell you a bit about Cervantes. One day, Duran and I were walking in
the street when we came across Cervantes. So Duran said he was going to show
me Cervantes was afraid of him. ‘What’s up? When will we be fighting, you and
I?’ he said. To which Cervantes said they were going to fight when the fight was
signed. Duran told him he was ready to fight right then and there, to which
Cervantes answered he did not fight just like that, only for money. Duran,
believing he was afraid, told him he was a coward. But this fight was never
signed.”
The Cervantes question surfaced years later in Panama.“Pambele was a very
disciplined man,” said Duran at a press conference. “To me, he was a slow
boxer. Besides he was a boxer who would open up to anyone. And a man who
opens up to Roberto, and who is very slow, I get him out quite quickly. I am not
going to stand the beating, and I can hit better than Benitez and Frazer [both
fought Cervantes].”
Given his oft-repeated antipathy towards Puerto Rican opponents, the Roberto
Clemente Coliseum in Hato Rey seemed an odd choice for his next defense,
especially against a local opponent. Unlike Edwin Viruet, whose quick feet
stifled Duran, Leonico Ortiz suggested resilience through ignorance. His
billboard back was wide and hairy, his legs were thick as a linebacker’s and his
nest beard as bushy as Serpico’s. He looked like he’d keep plodding ahead even
if you hurled a rock between his eyes.
Ortiz came into the ring on December 14, 1975 with an alleged 24-5-1 fight
record. A southpaw and the father of four children, he adopted a peek-a-boo
style and decided early that he would fight with his back against the ropes,
perhaps in an attempt to tire out Duran. Even the most accomplished of pugilists
weren’t encouraged to adopt such a claustrophobic style. The ropes were best
used as a place to force your opponent to. Only the great ones, most famously
Muhammad Ali in his epic “Rumble in the Jungle” with George Foreman, could
use them to advantage. As though fighting from the back seat of a car with a
seatbelt strapped around his waist, Ortiz trapped himself in Duran’s zone.
“Occasionally the bewhiskered Ortiz would attempt to fight his way out of his
uncomfortable situation,” reported Ring, “but his spurts were short lived as the
champion continued to wear his man down by the steadily exerted pressure and
power of his gloves.”
A Duran left hook and right uppercut jammed Ortiz’s head back in the first
round, delivering a message that he would pay for his mistakes. Ortiz landed a
big left hand of his own at the end of the second round, but returned to his
safety-net, the ropes in the third. For both boxers, many punches landed
awkwardly on arms and shoulders. As if chopping down a tree, Duran took out a
tiny piece of Ortiz in each round.
Remarkable recuperation bought Ortiz several more rounds, angering Duran
in the process. Inside, Duran challenged himself to destroy the man; anything
less was inexcusable. Ortiz rarely moved or jabbed. It was his wish to stand and
deliver, and as the seconds ticked away in the seventh, a Duran hook along the
ropes left Ortiz staring absently at the canvas. Ortiz collapsed and stayed parallel
to the canvas, while throwing his hand into the air to locate anything to clinch.
Somehow Ortiz survived the round.
At the bell for the tenth round, Freddie Brown held Duran back, then shoved
him into the ring as a master would a fighting cock. Blood seeped from Ortiz’s
mouth as Duran’s left hook landed flush. The champ slid away immediately,
leaving his opponent’s counter to whistle in the breeze. Although Ortiz showed
life in the twelfth, and shoved Duran at the end of the following round, he took
nearly twenty unanswered blows in the fourteenth.
Few men could withstand such a consistent beating. Trying to last the final
three minutes, Ortiz couldn’t escape a huge right hook which put him flat on his
back. The ropes, no longer his friend, couldn’t hold him anymore. He was
counted out with only twenty-one seconds left in the fight; twenty-one seconds
for Ortiz to explain to his children that one day he faced a monster and stood up
to him. He rose to his feet, but too late to stop the ensuing celebration. Plomo
extracted Duran’s mouthpiece and the crowd surged from each corner as Duran
leaned over the top rope to point at someone in the seats.
Some critics suggested that having made very heavy weather of stopping two
skillful but relatively harmless men in Viruet and Ortiz, Duran had lost his
motivation, and his next opponent was another man it was difficult to look good
against. Saoul Mamby was a black Jew of Jamaican-Spanish descent who lived
in New York.
Duran and Mamby had run together in Central Park and even sparred on
occasion. “We had worked together when he was getting ready for DeJesus,"
Mamby later told Boxing Insider magazine. "I knew he was a very good fighter.
Very strong, very sharp. He could box and he could punch. I remember he hit me
with a right hand and the punch – the pain lasted for about three months, in my
rib. And I still had to go and fight Antonio Cervantes after that.”
Mamby, who had served as a soldier in Vietnam, cleaned windows and drove
a gypsy cab in the Bronx to supplement his boxing income. He was the
archetypal have-gloves-will-travel journeyman. With his green duffle bag slung
over his shoulder, he turned up for short-notice bouts and drew the wrong end of
hometown decisions. His cagey style was strictly for the purists, he was never
seen on national television and was never in a position to object to the choice of
opponent, or how much he was paid. But he could box, had beaten Benny
Huertas and Doc McClendon and drawn with Edwin Viruet, and had never been
knocked down. “Mamby boxed the way Sarah Vaughan weaved a melody,” said
Boxing Illustrated, “economical and exact, without flash.”
After thirty-two fights, Mamby was a top-ten junior welterweight, yet he
weighed in the lighter, at 138¾ pounds to Duran’s 140, suggesting the
Pananamian had not trained as he should. Mamby was aware that Duran had
already signed to defend his title against Lou Bizzarro three weeks later, and
took this as a sign of disrespect, as if Mamby was nothing more than a stepping
stone.
They met in a ten-round non-title affair in front of 2,060 on May 4, 1976 in
Miami Beach, Florida. Mamby needled him with a strict, decisive jab that
annoyed and stung at the same time. Once again, it was persistence versus
resistance.
Boxing historian Hank Kaplan had a ringside seat. “The turning point of the
fight came in the sixth round,” he wrote. “By design, Duran was out to destroy
the body. Duran broke through Mamby’s defenses and crashed left and right
hooks to the body, which must have unsteadied him. Mamby made the battle
close up to round six, but Duran showed why he is the most respected champion
in the second half. The long distance does not seem to minimize his power, an
attribute seldom seen….”
Referee Cy Gottfried scored the bout 48-44, while the judges’ scores of 48-45
and 48-42 also saw it one-sided for the champ. Mamby, however, felt he “gave a
good account of myself.”
“I did that fight,” said promoter Don Elbaum. “Even though Saoul might not
admit it, he told me after that fight that he’d never been hit that hard in his life.
Every punch hurt, he said. Duran could really hit.”
Mamby also revealed a rarely seen side to Duran after the fight. “I was
supposed to be an opponent and I got paid like one,” said Mamby. “Would you
believe I got only three thousand dollars for fighting a champion? When Duran
heard about it, he chewed out the promoter and apologized to me.”
Mamby would go on to win the WBC junior welterweight title and to defend
it five times, but ended his long career with little money, partly, he claimed,
because of Don King and his stepson Carl, who managed Mamby and for at least
one fight managed his opponent too, a clear conflict of interest. US authorities
even asked Mamby to participate in phone-tapping King during one of their
periodic investigations of the controversial promoter but Mamby refused. He
would box until the age of fifty-two and always remained a big Duran fan.
Four days later, twenty-five-year-old Esteban DeJesus became a world
champion at his third attempt when he roundly outpointed Guts Ishimatsu of
Japan over fifteen rounds in San Juan to take the WBC lightweight title.
Ishimatsu had been tempted to Puerto Rico by a purse said to be $160,000 tax
free, a record for the lightweight class, and the decision against him was
overwhelming. Puerto Rico’s boxing boom matched that of Panama. DeJesus
was now one of four concurrent Puerto Rican world champions, and his win set
up the mouth-watering prospect of a rubber match with Duran to unify the two
rival versions of the lightweight championship.
 10

“Like A Man With No Heart”

Has anybody here seen Roberto Duran?

I met him once yeah I shook his hand
I looked in his eyes and now I understand
The love and the anger in the eyes of Roberto Duran
Tom Russell, “The Eyes of Roberto
Duran”

THE RUST BELT city of Erie, Pennsylvania, was a boxing backwater and so
seemed an odd choice for Roberto Duran’s first title defense in the United States.
His opponent was the Italian-born, American-raised Lou Bizzarro, and their fight
was originally set for the wealthy European principality of Monaco, but CBS
bought the television rights and moved the fight to Erie, Bizzarro’s adopted
hometown, to fit its schedules. Duran and his entourage had the hardest time
even finding the place.
“We were driving to Pennsylvania and we couldn’t find the boxing
commission,” said Carlos Eleta. “It was three or four days before the fight and
the commission disappeared. So I call Ray [Arcel] and tell him what happened.
Nobody knows anything. So I call Jose Sulaiman in Mexico and tell him I need
some advice because I don’t know what is going on. They were going to name
their own referee and judges. This wasn’t the real commission, but they weren’t
doing anything because they were planting a lot of money on Bizzarro to go
fifteen rounds.”
The problem with the state boxing commission arose when co-promoter Don
King moved the bout to a Sunday to fit the prime-time TV slot. “Back in those
days in Pennsylvania they had the ‘blue laws,’ where there was no professional
boxing on a Sunday,” explained Lou Bizzarro. “The fight was supposed to be on
Saturday, but King changed it to that Sunday and knew that the fight would be
outlawed, and if I won I wouldn’t get the belt because the Pennsylvania State
Athletic Commission wasn’t involved. King was going to do it his way. But what
was I going to do? I wanted the fight.” The blue laws, a legacy of the state’s
Puritan past, forbade certain activities on Sundays, such as liquor sales and
boxing matches.
Sanctioned or not, the title fight had the city buzzing. “It was the biggest thing
ever in Erie,” said King’s co-promoter, Don Elbaum. “We paid him about
$125,000 for him and King. It was either that or Duran got $125,000 and King
got $10,000. We thought we could steal the title.”
After getting lost in Erie trying to find the commission, the Duran camp was
then astonished to see the boxing ring that Elbaum had erected. Bizzarro was a
noted “runner” and so the bigger the ring, the better his chances. “The day before
the fight, we go to see the ring and it was like one for a bull fighter,” said Eleta.
“It was huge, so Bizzarro would run all over the ring. They didn’t even have any
cushion, all they had was a table and the canvas, all so he could run – and he did.
The only problem was that because there was no padding, Bizzarro got blisters
on his feet.” Seeking any advantage for his fighter, Elbaum had apparently found
a ring big enough for Bizzarro and all his family. “It was the biggest ring ever
made,” admitted Elbaum. “I actually had a thirty-foot ring built. When Ray
Arcel came in with Duran, he looked at the ring and then looked right at me and
said, ‘I thought you had class.’”
Eleta joked, “I didn’t believe in the mafia until I saw that ring.”
Lou Bizzarro, however, dismisses the stories as yet another boxing myth and
says he has the evidence next to him every day of his life. “The ring was twenty-
four by twenty-four feet,” he said. “I know because I still have it sitting in my
restaurant.”
Born near Naples in 1948, Bizzarro had moved with his family to the USA
soon after. His brother Johnny built the family boxing name while facing and
losing to lightweight greats like Carlos Ortiz and Flash Elorde, and skinny young
Lou followed him into the pro ranks without having a single amateur fight.
Sparring with his highly ranked brother and others had already given him a
thorough grounding in the game. “Not having any amateur fights actually made
my career go faster,” he said. “By that time, I had gotten a lot of good ring work
and felt I could handle some of the top fighters in the world.”
A sometime Sears model, the good-looking Italian prospect went undefeated
in his first twenty-four fights. With wins over common Duran opponents Hector
Matta and Benny Huertas, Bizzarro used both those fights as a measurement of
how he’d fare against the great Duran. “Huertas was a tough kid who hit hard
and walked right through you and threw bombs,” said Bizzarro. “In fact, he hurt
Duran before getting knocked out. Matta was a slick kid and when I beat him it
moved me into the top ten.”
Lou was a local hero in the small, blue-collar city, and talked up his chances to
the press. “I look at it this way,” he told reporters. “Duran is only human like
anyone else.” But having previously visited the notorious Fifth Street Gym in
Miami, he knew what he was up against: a twenty-four-year-old terror already
considered by some to be the best fighter, pound-for-pound, in the world.
“I knew Roberto because he was the talk of the Miami Beach Gym,” said
Bizzarro. “He was knocking out middleweights with sixteen-ounce gloves and
headgear. He’d just kick them right out of the gym. And he was sparring with the
toughest guys from Miami. He was just so vicious that nobody wanted to get in
the ring with him anymore. When you got into the ring with him, he was your
enemy. It was a fight every time, just a fight to get him off of you.”
Most notoriously, Duran flattened Vinnie Curto, a middleweight contender, in
the Miami gym. “Sure, he knocked down Curto,” said trainer Angelo Dundee,
whose brother Chris ran the gym. “Roberto used to always work with bigger
guys. I couldn’t believe what happened, so when he came down from the ring I
checked his gloves. Roberto was wearing these old, old, heavy gloves and they
were all water soaked. I changed them immediately and he got back in the ring.”
Bizzarro had spoken to Curto about the incident. “Vinnie was a real slick
boxer. He told me that every time Duran hit him, it hurt. And that was when
Curto was a nice, nineteen-year-old prospect. [Duran] couldn’t separate between
the gym and the ring. It was always a fight. Then, there were the guys called
gym fighters who were the toughest guys during sparring, but fell apart when
they got in the real bouts.”
Stories of Duran’s prowess were becoming legendary. There was another one
about a middleweight who sparred with him at the Fifth Street Gym and wanted
to take it easy because of his greater weight, but Duran insisted they slug it out.
“Holy Christ!” said the middleweight. “He hit me on my left arm so hard I
couldn’t use it for a week. If those punches had landed on my ribs, I would have
been knocked out.” Duran was also said to have flattened a highly rated
welterweight in a Puerto Rican gym.
A dignified, classy guy who cared about others, Bizzarro had never met
anyone quite like Stone Hands. “I brought Duran in a week ahead of time and we
had a press conference,” Elbaum recalled. “Louie was 24–0 and at the press
conference he was all dressed up. He was a good-looking, handsome kid. He got
up and he was thanking everybody from the mayor down to the sponsors, me,
and then he looked at Roberto and he said, ‘Thank you, Mister Duran.’ It was so
… I get sick, it was too sugary. But this was Louie. Nice, nice, nice.
“Lou sat down, and Duran got up and said ten words in Spanish and sat down.
Luis Henriquez, his translator, started shaking his head, and the sportscaster Al
Abrams asked what he said. And Henriquez said, ‘He said he would send him
home in an ambulance.’”
Bizzarro remembered a similar Duran. “I saw him a couple days before the
fight at the press conference. Oh, he was vicious. He wanted to kill me before
the fight. He didn’t say much, but it was more the way he would look at you and
stare you down. You have to remember that Duran wasn’t a pleasant guy to be
around. He was a mean guy.”
Unfortunately for the Erie contingent of 4,500 fans who arrived on May 22,
1976 stealing the title was probably the only way they would get it off Duran.
Built like a character from a video game, Bizzarro was a spaghetti-thin boxer
whose legs moved too fast for his body. His game plan was to lace up his boots
and circle that ring until the final bell. Duran didn’t like dancers. Anyone willing
to move and get out of harm’s way affronted Duran’s machismo, and a man not
willing to trade in the middle of the ring, or at least make an effort to fight, was a
payaso, or clown.
As Duran has admitted on several occasions, he felt nervous in the moments
before the fight began. Expectation weighed on him. “Something’s wrong if
you’re a fighter and you’re not nervous when you go up to the ring,” said
Bizzarro. “Before every fight I had butterflies. But as soon as the bell rings, they
go away.”
From the first round, Bizzarro took off, and Duran had a weary look as he
tried to cut off the ring. How long could Bizzarro run and hide? Shaking his
shoulders back and forth, Duran moved in a cool fluency, fully aware that the
motor would eventually quit on Bizzarro. “He could go backwards faster than
anyone could go forward,” Elbaum recalled. “And I felt we had a helluva shot to
get a decision, especially in his hometown.”
As the bell sounded at the end of the second round, Duran hurt Bizzarro with
an uppercut to the chin. Bizzarro stumbled as he located the corner. Whether it
was after the bell or just a punch Bizzarro wasn’t ready for, the damage was
done. “It was a little overwhelming for me, absolutely,” said Bizzarro. “It was a
dream of mine. I beat him and the money rolls in. But it was all too much for me
at the time.
“In the second round, I knew I was hurt when he hit me with a punch after the
bell. I made a mistake by dropping my hands. Don [Elbaum] had told me to be
ready for anything with this guy and not to drop my hands in the clinch. As soon
as I did it for the first time, ‘Boom,’ he gets me. It took me four rounds to
recuperate.”
The third man in the ring that evening was Puerto Rican referee Waldemar
Schmidt. “In the seventh round, I hit Duran with a right hand and knocked him
down, and Schmidt called it a slip,” claimed Bizzarro. “It happened again in the
eighth with a hook and he called it a slip again. I couldn’t believe it when he was
talking to Duran in Spanish. Elbaum thought he was going to be German, and
that’s why he OK’d him. It turns out that the guy is from Puerto Rico.”
In the clinches, Duran and Bizzarro held a running dialogue. Duran also raked
his gloves across Bizzarro’s no longer model face and hit him late. A left-right-
left combo dumped Bizzarro for a count of nine in the tenth, and he was on the
floor again before the end of the round. Surprisingly Bizzarro came back to have
his best round in the eleventh, but it was his last throw of the dice. “I didn’t want
the referee to stop the fight,” he said. “I came back and beat him in the eleventh
round.”
Heeding his camp’s advice, Bizzarro sketched a circle around Duran. It was a
strategy implemented in training which made his handlers seem like geniuses for
the first ten rounds. However, it was a strategy plagued by inconsistency. When
people searched for weaknesses in Duran’s repertoire, the holes were so slight
that they had to invent their own. Buchanan’s trainer Gil Clancy was guilty of
this, and Elbaum wasn’t far behind. Duran threw so many punches with so much
force behind each one that it seemed an impossible feat for any boxer to keep up
the pace. Elbaum thought Duran would burn out by the late rounds. Others had
made the same mistake. “Don told me that Duran would start fading by the tenth
round, but I don’t know what he was talking about,” said Bizzarro. “If anything,
I started to fade. He would never fade the entire fight. Duran hurt me from the
second round on.”
Duran closed the gap considerably as Bizzarro slowed, and in the fourteenth
he finally cornered his man. “Late in the round a savage right uppercut sent
Bizzarro reeling onto the ropes and referee Schmidt gave him a standing eight
count,” reported Boxing News. “Another right dropped Bizzarro for six, and
Schmidt continued the count to eight before waving Duran in for the finish. A
tremendous right to the head made Bizzarro’s legs fold under him, and he lay on
his back without moving as he was counted out.”
Though just one second remained in the round, many spectators believed the
fight should have been stopped before the final knockout. Elbaum wasn’t one of
them. “No, because he was hurt but he wasn’t out on his feet,” said the promoter,
“even though it was a situation where his brother Johnny wanted to stop it, he
was running up the steps to stop it and I had to grab him and we were wrestling
on the ground outside the ring so he wouldn’t stop the fight.”
 In fact, the end came so suddenly that there was little time for intervention. “I
didn’t see Johnny running up to the ring,” Bizzarro remembered. “All my focus
was on Duran. That was just my brother looking out for me. He had been in
there before and knew everything that Duran was doing. But I was fine. The only
problem was that the new shoes I bought gave me blisters down to the bone. I
couldn’t walk for weeks after the fight.”
Duran eventually made his way over to the fallen fighter, arriving with his
hands extended. At that moment, Bizzarro looked anything but a male model.
“The challenger fought the first nine rounds with his legs, and the last five with
his heart,” summed up Boxing News.
“The one thing that angered me the most was that they were taking Bizzarro
around as if he were the world champion, in a very expensive and fashionable
car. And I was given no importance at all,” said Duran. “That is why I was so
angry that I did not want to win; I wanted to kill him. The referee should have
stopped that fight but even the referee was against me. There was the entire
Italian colony there, all against me. When I knocked him down [the referee] did
nothing so I asked him what was going on, but he refused to act. That was one of
my best knockouts.”
Duran would find his way back to Erie years later, in his career twilight.
Through manager Mike Acri, Bizzarro and Duran still get together. Bizzarro
would have an uneventful end to his career but followed Duran’s never-ending
saga.

DURAN NEXT TOOK on the tough Colombian Emiliano Villa on July 31,
1976. Villa had just given junior welterweight champion Wilfred Benitez a
surprisingly hard fight and was 25-3-1 coming into the bout. Duran took two
months to prepare.
“Villa was a huge Colombian boxer,” said Plomo. “During the fight, Duran hit
him and Villa fell down and made a turn on the floor, and stood up again.
Everyone was very surprised to see the impact of the blow. He decided to go on
fighting, but then Duran hit his liver, and with a cross to the head he knocked
him down. But the first fall had been incredible. He was already on the floor,
rolled down, and stood up again. That had never been seen before.”
Villa appeared to jump like a kangaroo after being hit. Years later, Duran was
watching a replay of the bout on his big screen TV in Panama City; he fiddled
with the reception so the seventh-round knockout comes in perfectly. As the
punch landed, a “Chucha madre,” a common Panamanian slang was heard from
across the room. Hesitating as if waiting for someone to remind him that he was
hurt, Villa stared at Duran for a long second, and then dropped. Villa was down
on both knees when the referee stopped the bout. “One of my best knockouts
was the Colombian,” said Duran. “I gave him a blow like this, pah! The guy fell
down, gave a complete turn, and ended up standing up. The referee did not know
whether to count or not.”
Next stop was the Hollywood Arena in California on October 15, 1976 and
title challenger Alvaro Rojas. Nearly 6,100 fans gathered for a fight card billed
as “Night of the Knockouts” in which Duran’s bout was part of a CBS-TV
double-header featuring heavyweight George Foreman in the main event. It was
another chance for American television viewers to get a look at this lightweight
king who knocked everybody out, and Duran didn’t disappoint.
“He had this thing about him,” said fight promoter Butch Lewis. “He had that
beard, that Manchu thing, and the guy used to look like the devil. He had the
black coal eyes and the hair. When Duran walked in the press conference with
his chest out, [Rojas] just stepped aside. Al Braverman was like, ‘Don’t move
out of the guy’s way, you’re letting him know.’” The champion had few doubts
about the outcome. “This fight will end,” he told one interviewer, “when I
connect.” BN 8.10.76
Rojas, from Costa Rica, was a poor challenger. A press kit distributed to
boxing reporters had his win-loss statistics as 26-8, with twenty stoppage wins,
but this was questionable. He had certainly beaten one former world champion,
Clemente Sanchez, but lost to the few other name boxers he had fought,
including former WBC champ Guts Ishimatsu, who had stopped him in the
fourteenth round of a title defence in Tokyo. Yet he was conveniently rated tenth
in the world by the WBA so he could qualify to fight Duran for the title. Ring
magazine called it “a gross mismatch.”
The champion, clean-shaven for the bout and as handsome as a matinee idol,
had trained at Gleason’s Gym in Manhattan and looked as big and strong as a
welterweight. He hurt Rojas with the first right hand he landed, and thereafter it
was only a matter of time. Rojas made the mistake of trying to trade punches,
and at 2:17 of the first round was spreadeagled face down on the canvas, like a
cartoon figure that had fallen from a high building, after another crushing right
to the chin. As the referee counted him out, Duran, standing in a neutral corner,
spotted Esteban DeJesus in the crowd and ducked between the ropes to berate
him, shouting, “I want you next.”
Duran was paid $125,000 or nearly $65,000 per minute of work. With every
strand of his slicked-back hair still in place, there was little evidence that Duran
had just earned a night’s pay. “I was in very good condition. I hit him in the
pecho,” Duran told an interviewer in the ring while Rojas was still lying flat on
his back. A guy with a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth handed
Duran a flag, which he waved at the crowd. Another fight, another body in his
wake and Duran was off. Carlos Eleta hurried to give Duran an ice cream cone
in the dressing room afterwards. “I told Duran not to worry about the title but
about the ice cream,” said Eleta. “It worked.”
The boxing fraternity was impressed. “Duran could be the man American
boxing so desperately needs to revive interest in the divisions other than
heavyweight,” said Boxing International.
Duran’s next bout was on another Don King show that February, this time at
the Fountainbleu Hotel in Miami Beach, on an indoor tennis court in front of just
1,200 spectators. His opponent was Vilomar Fernandez, a short, feisty challenger
born in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic but fighting out of the Bronx.
Fernandez’s record was an unimpressive 19-5-1, with only eight knockouts, but
he was a good boxer. It was the first defense of Duran’s title reign that had not
been transmitted to Panama.
Despite his lack of power, Fernandez was deft at pinpointing Duran’s head as
the champion bulled in. It was no one-sided affair as Fernandez, a water-bug
skirting the ring, often moved to his right, paused, then changed direction. His
peek-a-boo, in-and-out style kept him out of harm’s way as the rounds ticked off.
In round five, however, as Fernandez was once again backpedaling,
Panamanian referee Sergio Ley interceded and warned him to start throwing
punches. Fernandez fought bravely for the remainder of the fight, as if Ley’s
warning forced Fernandez to abandon an effective style to stand in front of
Duran. Does a referee have the right to tell a fighter that his brand of fighting,
although effective, isn’t what the fans want to see?
“The doctor who treated me that fight was Doctor Pacheco, who was a good
friend of Eleta’s,” said Duran. “I had a problem with the liver and the spleen and
after examining me he said he was going to give me a shot for my liver to
prevent damage in the spleen. He gave me the shot and I fell asleep. Then I
heard when Pacheco was telling Fernandez, ‘Strike underneath, underneath, his
liver is in bad condition.’ And I thought he was telling this to me, so I kept
hitting him in the liver. I then knocked him down with two strong blows.”
Although capable of knocking out anyone with his straight right, Duran’s
opponents also had to be aware of his left hook and right uppercut. In the
thirteenth round, Duran came out with hooks to the body. However, most of the
round was a demonstration on the clinch-and-hold tactic displayed by the Bronx
challenger. Duran finally released a left hook to the liver followed by a token
right to the chest that sat a dejected Fernandez down in a corner. Ley counted
him out as he sat there with his head slumped. Seconds later, Duran slung his
arm around his opponent’s shoulder, consoling him like a younger brother.
After the bout was stopped in the thirteenth, a group of reporters huddled
around Roberto in the middle of the ring. After telling one reporter that
Fernandez was a smart fighter who knew how to move effectively, Duran also
explained how he was cold until the eighth round when he started to look for the
knockout punch.
Then, in a spontaneous act that Duran rarely showed in fight interviews, he
started speaking English for the reporter. In the middle of the ring, Duran took
the microphone when it seemed to everyone that he was clearly done speaking.
“Gracias, thank you, thank you,” said Duran. Then, came a free-flow of emotion
that made more sense to Duran than the befuddled commentator. “Too much jab,
too much jab for me. Tired for me, needed rest. Move, move, move, me knock
him out.” His spontaneity was refreshing. Obviously frustrated with what he
wanted to convey to the audience, the fight also elicited similar frustrations.

STILL LOOMING in Muhammad Ali’s shadow, Duran fought Javier Muniz in

May at the Civic Centre in Washington, DC. Fighting on the undercard of the
Ali-Alfredo Evangelista card, Duran didn’t allow the lack of notoriety to get to
him.
“I’m not hurt that much anymore,” Duran told a Washington Post reporter
before the non-title affair. “The most important thing is that I perform better than
anyone else in the ring.” Muniz, a heavy-machine operator, tried to console
himself before the showdown. “I know Duran will come at me with a brick in
each hand,” he said. “It’s an eerie feeling, knowing his experience, his
reputation, but you can’t back out. You tell yourself that he can’t hit you with a
third arm.” Duran won a wide ten-round decision.
Another non-title win, over Bernardo Diaz by one-round knockout in August,
set up Duran’s eleventh title defense and a true grudge match. He headed back to
Philadelphia to take on Edwin Viruet at the Spectrum, on 17 September 1977.
Duran – who was 59-1 with fifty KOs – couldn’t afford to let Viruet mess with
his head again. This was the Puerto Rican who had slapped him outside the ring
after his bout with Leoncio Ortiz; Duran vomited street curses whenever he
neared. This was more than hype to sell tickets; the disdain was real for both
fighters. The fight was co-promoted by J. Russell Peltz and Don King and
Duran-Viruet was the main event, while Philly’s Matt Franklin-Billy Douglas
was the semi-final bout. Viruet, who had lost only two of his twenty-eight bouts
but won only eight inside the distance, worked out at Passyunk Gym in South
Philadelphia; Duran would train at Joe Frazier’s Gym at the corner of Broad and
Elmwood in North Philly and did his roadwork with local fighter Youngblood
Williams.
“Duran is cold, like a man with no heart,” Williams told a Philadelphia
reporter. “When we run he says things like, ‘I keel that s.o.b.’ or just, ‘Keel him,
keel him.’ He says it over and over. Once, a dog was standing down the road and
Roberto says to me that if that dog don’t move out of the way, we gonna kill
him. He wasn’t kidding man.”
Williams, who served several jail stints, spent time playing dominoes and
shooting dice with Duran. He was undefeated at the time and had earned a
reputation for inner-city sparring wars with Philly’s elite. “Duran runs for one
hour, then stops in one place and, for about ten or fifteen minutes, just keeps
throwing some of the fastest damn combinations I’ve ever seen,” he said, two
days before the bout. “Closest I ever saw in an American was Tyrone Everett.
But I believe Duran is quicker with his hands than Tyrone was. He may be the
meanest man I ever saw. I really do believe he don’t mind hurting people.”
More than most, Duran hated to be shown up in the ring. Trainers Paddy
Flood and Al Braverman handled Viruet, while Duran had his usual cornermen
in Brown and Arcel. Although Viruet had no problem treating Duran with the
same contempt with which he treated other opponents, he also was an evasive
fighter whose technique drew raves from boxing purists. His skill came not from
the blue-collar work of a one-dimensional fighter but from natural instincts,
sharpened on city street corners. People either enjoyed or reviled this “cute”
style.
The weigh-in heightened the tension. It was held at the Spectrum’s Ovations
Club, and the weights were recorded the day before the fight, which wasn’t
common at that time; the weigh-in usually was conducted at noon on the day of
the fight, and the switch thoroughly upset Viruet’s camp, which was distressed
by the fact that Duran would gain his strength back in the hours before the bout.
The change was made because the fight was being televised on a Saturday
afternoon rather than in the evening. Duran had no problem with the schedule
change and weighed in at 134½; Viruet was nowhere to be found. An hour and a
half later he supposedly made 135 pounds, dodging a fine by the commission.
“He eventually showed up, but they put him right on and yanked him off the
scale,” said Peltz. “Al Braverman did. And I don’t know if he was with King at
the time, but he was definitely with Viruet. He had trouble making weight, I
remember.”
“Viruet never made the weight,” Duran recalled. “He never weighed in. He
went to go lose weight and he never came back to weigh in. Both Eleta and
Flacco [Duran’s interpreter and helper] fell asleep on that one. The important
thing was that they wanted me to fight.”
Plomo concurred, “He did not get on the scale. Is the champion supposed to
get on the scale but not the rival? I believe Carlos Eleta was to blame there. No
manager can accept that his own boxer gets on the scale and the other one does
not. But Eleta was a terrible guy.”
While the fight officials dealt with the weigh-in, there was another problem.
“The most fun we had with that fight was with King’s canvas. He uses the
canvas with his big logo,” said Peltz. “We had the Spectrum and had a reputation
for having a great arena. I didn’t want King’s logo in the center. So I decided …
I told them to put our logo on the canvas. When they sent King’s logo on that
Thursday we had it shipped over to JFK Stadium, and had some guy scribble his
initials on it and hide it somewhere. A day before the fight they couldn’t find the
canvas and I was like, ‘Geez, we might have to use ours.’ He sent Richie
Giachetti down to my office and he stayed there the whole day trying to locate
that canvas. He said I got some paper here, but you couldn’t even read the name
of the guy who signed for it.
“We finally used our canvas and we got it on national television because that
was a touchy subject in those days, what could and couldn’t get on TV. When the
show was over, I saw King and he was wearing a crème-colored three-piece suit
with all these frills on it like George Washington. He pointed at me and said, ‘I
know you fucked around with the canvas. I can’t prove it, but I know.’ We
uncovered it the next day and got it back to him.
“The good thing about King in those days was that he could only deliver the
main event. Anybody else that he put on the show, he would have to pay for. I
expected a decent crowd, but I think we sold like 7,500, but 7,000 in advance. I
didn’t understand it because Duran was big in New York and they would come
to Philly for the fight.”
The fight was picked up by ABC for home TV broadcast, and King needed a
venue. In the early 1970s, Peltz and company had been drawing big crowds at
the Spectrum. Peltz would pay King a site fee, and expected to use Duran as the
bait. “The day of the fight we thought we’d sell another 7,000 or at least 3 or
4,000 like we were doing,” Peltz recalled. “But we only sold five hundred. The
problem with the Duran fight was that something happened with the scale and
ABC-TV was going to pull the plug the day of the fight. Jay Seidman came up to
me before the fight and told me ABC wasn’t going to televise the fight. He said,
‘They think that there’s some kind of shenanigans going on.’ It didn’t make
sense because I didn’t understand why they would care if Viruet made the weight
or not. We went into a room with Howard Cosell, Alex Wallau and maybe Chet
Forte was in the room. There had to be some big shots from ABC and they just
wanted to pull the plug. I was pleading with them they just couldn’t do that. Alex
was telling them how I was an honest guy and everything.
“The first fight started and the people were coming up to me, and Alex came
up to me and said, ‘We just got it settled.’ I was shaking and I couldn’t even
button my shirt. He fixed my tie and was like dressing me at ringside. The card
was anticlimactic. I didn’t have Duran losing that fight, but it was a tough fight
to get into.”
The fight also had its moments of farce. Viruet would dance, stick his face
forward and pull it back, laugh at the disdain on Duran’s face, pull his version of
the Ali Shuffle, and hold his left straight out to keep Duran at arm’s length. He
seemed to be enjoying himself, but it was the champion who was landing the
meaningful punches. “That was the thing with Viruet,” said boxing writer J.R.
Jowett, who covered the bout. “He would do all these cutesy moves, but he
couldn’t punch worth shit. It just wasn’t a good style to watch and I didn’t give
him many rounds against Duran.” Philly sportswriter Ray Didinger called
Viruet’s antics the equivalent of a “fly circling a lion’s mouth.”
Viruet did two things that other boxers tried, but didn’t produce the same
effects: First, he stood up to Duran following the unwritten Latin code of
machismo; then he made him miss. DeJesus did the same thing, but he could
also make Duran pay for his mistakes. He talk too much obscene, Duran would
say about Edwin.
During the fight, as Viruet ridiculed Duran, another problem arose. “The
doctors gave Roberto something before that fight that affected him a lot, trying
to reduce too much weight,” Eleta said. “Because of that medicine, he lost
energy.” At times it showed. “They gave me this injection to get stronger and
faster,” said Duran, “an injection that they gave to horses, and I almost died. I
turned red and pale at the same time. I had to do fifteen rounds with Viruet that
night. My strength and my know-how kept me from being knocked out.”
Duran took more risks and landed the harder punches. Although Viruet did
open a slight cut under Duran’s left eye toward the end of the fight, he was by
then a long way behind on points. After taking heavy punishment in the final
round, Viruet complained about the decision. Venezuela’s Isidro Rodriguez had
it 73-68, Panama’s Sergio Ley, 73-65, and Pennsylvania judge Frank Adams 71-
65, all for Duran.
Felicidad had by now become a steady influence as a boxing wife. While
some partners detest the fight game, Felicidad dabbled in promotions,
understood the boxer’s psyche and knew when to come and when to stay away
during training. She often ran in the morning with Roberto and even went into
the gym to make sure he was in condition. She also became a loud presence
during fights, shrieking encouragement and instructions to her man. “My
presence encourages him during the tedious ambience of his rigorous training,”
she eloquently told one reporter.
Duran himself was at ringside to watch a compatriot fight for a world title in
Los Angeles that November. Jorge Lujan was born in Colon four years after
Duran and grew up watching the fighters in the teeming gym known as the Box
of Matches. “Colon was the cradle of champions,” he said. “I think so because of
the beach, the ocean, the sun, fighting five or six times a day in the streets.” He
eventually found himself sparring with the bigger Duran. “Duran would practice
like it was the real fight. He was more heavy than me. I told him, ‘Don’t hit me!’
Then, bam, bam, bam, and he hit hard. But I still had to fight against those
boxers.”
Lujan’s life would become a cautionary tale and showed the path Duran could
easily have followed. Before facing Alfonso Zamora for the WBA bantamweight
title, he was stuck in prison on Coiba Island for forty-five days for a drug
offense. They had to get him out of jail so he could fight. “I was a flyweight
when I went into jail,” he said. “When I left Coiba I had gained weight, so I had
a fight at bantamweight.” The brash young Panamanian took on Zamora, a
pocket rocket, and tamed him, taking his crown in the tenth round. He noticed
that the champion was breathing heavily by the eighth round and knocked him
down with a left hook that had all his strength behind it. It paved the way for the
finish two rounds later. “I believed that I could win that bout because I was a
counter-puncher and Zamora, a Mexican, came to me,” said Lujan. “The place
was filled with Mexicans, but I was cool, not scared of anything. I had faith in
myself for that bout. I hit him with a right hand, adios.”
People immediately began to treat Lujan differently. “The boxing journalists
wouldn’t let me sleep,” said Lujan. “Everybody wanted to talk to me, champion
of the world. I was very happy. Before, when I used to fight and win, it was
tranquilo or cool. Now, ‘Hey, Lujan, knock, knock, are you home?’ I didn’t want
to talk with anybody. I was very tired. I had trouble dealing with the fame. You
don’t have any privacy, everyone is like, ‘Hey Champ, hey champ.’ The
drinking, the women, there is no privacy when you are champion. They don’t
write anything when you are no longer champ.”
Ismael Laguna noticed the difference. “He was doing drugs, cocaine, all the
time,” said the former champ. “He was in and out of jail. One time I bought and
was working at a kiosk, and I gave Lujan twenty dollars to get change for me. I
turn around and I never saw the guy again. He went to buy drugs.
“Another time I had a table at one of the fights, and we were sitting with
President Omar Torrijos and Rafael Ortega came up to ask Torrijos for money.
Ortega was always like that, asking people to help him out. Torrijos pulled out a
hundred dollars and gave it to him. Ortega started to jump up and down, ‘Thank
you, thank you.’ Lujan had been drinking heavily, and yelled to Torrijos, ‘I never
asked you for pinga [dick].’ I was so mad I just walked away from the table. He
talked that way to the President.”
These were the pitfalls Duran had so far avoided. Now he was heading into
his biggest bout, a date with destiny that would decide who was the undisputed
champion.
 11

Esteban And The Witch Doctors

“Duran said he would KO God if he had to.”
Miguelito Callist, boxer

AT THE START of 1978, only two of boxing’s thirteen weight divisions had
single, undisputed champions. The split between the WBA and the WBC meant
each had its own champion at every weight except heavyweight (Muhammad
Ali) and middleweight (Rodrigo Valdes). This unsatisfactory state of affairs
often saw two talented “champions” avoiding each other, both content to make
money against lesser opponents rather than risk all against someone of
comparable ability. When two rival champs did clash, the prospect was usually
mouth-watering for boxing fans, but politics and money meant it rarely
happened.
Few of these confrontations were more eagerly awaited than a rubber between
Roberto Duran, the WBA champ, and Esteban DeJesus, the WBC champ. Both
held a win over the other, and since winning his title DeJesus had made three
defenses and shown fine form. He was the only lightweight left in the world with
a realistic prospect of beating Duran.
The parties finally agreed to do it one more time in the desert resort of Las
Vegas. The combination of super-casinos, high-rolling gamblers and major
boxing promotions was beginning to shift the sport’s centre of gravity to the
desert town, and over the next two decades many of the biggest bouts would be
held there.
Before heading to Vegas, Eleta made plans. He knew that his fighter’s worst
fault was his occasional lack of training and so duped him into beginning his
preparations early. “It was a problem because when he was in Panama, people
always wanted to be near him,” said Eleta. “My trick was that I told him there
was a tune-up in Panama before DeJesus, so that he would start training hard.
When I told him that it had been called off, he just looked at me and smiled.”
Duran, already in trim for the non-existent tune-up, was then sent to training
camp in Los Angeles. This was DeJesus, and anything less than full strength
wouldn’t cut it.
Duran was noted for sparring hard, and he broke the nose of sparring partner
Mike “Youngblood” Williams, the undefeated middleweight from Philadelphia.
He then decided to break in another young prospect, Jorge “Kid Dynamite”
Morales, a DeJesus acolyte. What started out as a training session quickly turned
into fisticuffs.
“Well, Dinamita Morales is Puerto Rican,” said Plomo. “We started training in
Los Angeles, and while we were there at the gym, Dinamita always wanted to
train with Duran. He would ask him to fight against him every day, provoking
him. One day, when there was no one who could train with Duran, Dinamita was
there and started to provoke him again. Dinamita’s father was also there and he
started saying, ‘Can you see, Dinamita, he is afraid, because he knows Puerto
Ricans are stronger than Panamanians.’ So Duran told me he was going to train
with him, if that was okay with me, and I agreed.
“He hit Dinamita so strongly that one felt sorry for him. Even his father came
up to the ring, trying to stop the fight. I told him to go away, but since he refused
I kicked him and hurt his eyebrow. They claimed it was Duran who had hit him,
and put him to trial. In the end, he was made to pay thirty thousand dollars,
despite the fact that I had been the one who had injured him. I always take good
care of my boxers. If anyone wants to start a problem with one of them, I am
ready to defend him.”
Promoter Don Chargin had walked into the gym moments after the incident.
“They had known each other before and there was a problem with the workouts
and there was an argument in the gym. You know how everybody, when they
boxed with Duran, would try to work a little harder because he was a mean guy.
Even in the gym he was like that. One thing led to another and I think they threw
a couple punches after that. His father came up to the ring too, but it wasn’t
anything real bad,” said Chargin.
Though promoting the fight as the “Combat Zone,” Don King was not pleased
at Duran’s involvement in the unscripted spat. “He could have been injured
seriously,” King told Sports Illustrated. “What else can happen before this fight?
It was a job just to get the managers of the fighters to even think about a match.
They had fought twice and neither wanted to fight a third time. First, I convinced
DeJesus. But the hard part was convincing Eleta. Then, when we did agree,
trying to find a site that pleased him was impossible. One place was too cold; the
next was too hot. A third place, somewhere in Africa, was okay, but then Eleta
didn’t think he could get Duran’s money out. He finally said yes to Las Vegas.”
The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner profiled Duran the week before the bout.
The report would not have made pleasant reading for DeJesus and his camp:

A speed bag in the Main Street gym, shattered by the lightweight

champion’s brutality, had to be replaced. So did a sparring partner for much
the same reason.
Sylvester Stallone, the Oscar winner who is filming across the street,
spends most every lunch break at 318½ So. Main. So do scores of others.
Some bring cameras. They have been drawn to the gymnasium by a
Panamanian prizefighter who took the nickname of Rocky because guys
named Graziano and Marciano made it fashionable.
He is Roberto Duran, the WBA lightweight title holder of five and a half
years, who exudes a sort of animalism like perhaps no other fighter. You get
an insight into Duran’s feral ring style while watching him in the gym. He
remains a destroyer because he works at it. Savagery is his business.

The reporter interviewed sparring partner Youngblood, who had been sent for
because “he can’t hurt me”; Youngblood was two stones heavier than Duran.
“The man is one of a kind,” he said. “If he sparred with anybody his own size in
the gym, he would knock ’em dead. Duran is a nice person outside the ring. But
when you work with him, it’s like working with an animal. I think one reason
he’s so vicious in the ring is because he takes fighting so seriously. He’s not like
any American fighter I’ve seen. His work is like a crusade.”
Duran clearly enjoyed his training sessions and played to the crowd,
pummeling Youngblood, cursing and growling at the heavy bag, then punching
the speed bag into a blur before battering it with his head – an exercise, he
claimed, to strengthen his neck muscles. “He concludes his routine with rope
jumping,” said the Examiner. “It, too, is accentuated by savage sounds. He has
the rope going so swiftly at one point it seems he is only rocking back and forth
on his feet. The rope somehow passes under.”
Duran’s friend and longtime aide-de-camp Luis Henriquez related the story of
a meeting Duran had had a couple of years before with General Torrijos. The
Central American strongman wanted Duran to pose for a joke photograph while
stretched on the floor, to look as though the general had kayoed him. Duran
politely refused. Lying down was one thing he wouldn’t do in jest, even for the
dictator. “He seems to look on the arena as a place to kill or be killed,” added
Henriquez, “and he is not about to get killed.” Life had made Duran that way. In
classic Duran style, he told a reporter that if DeJesus got up this time, he would
send him right back down. He meant it.
First, though, he had to deal with the brujos again. Duran’s fear of witches and
wizards had been instilled by his mother, who would suggest her own counter-
measures to evil spells. “We’re standing in the ring before the fight trying to
choose a corner,” said Eleta. “There were lights in the one corner and it would
have made Roberto too hot during the fight, so we picked the other one. But that
was not good for Roberto because ‘the brujos told him to change corners.’ I told
him that I talked with the witches and they said it was okay. He believed in that
stuff. That was Roberto.”
The Caesar’s Palace Sports Pavilion sold out for the fight, which was telecast
by CBS. On January 21, 1978, the Hollywood stars came out. In one ringside
seat was Sylvester Stallone, while not far away was the Chairman of the Board
himself, Frank Sinatra. “Sinatra used to invite him to his suite at the end of the
matches,” said Plomo. “There were many movie actors that used to invite him.
Had Duran been a North American boxer, he would still be a rich man.
Americans know how to value what is worth giving value.” Sinatra wasn’t a
Duran favorite; he once gave the legendary crooner a pair of gloves and Sinatra
looked at them and just threw them to one side. Olympic gold medalist Sugar
Ray Leonard was also at ringside, already assessing Duran as a future opponent.
DeJesus trained until the final day before the fight due to weight problems.
Duran made $250,000 to DeJesus’s $150,000. For bettors, Duran went from a 2-
1 to a 7-5 favorite before the fight. Both fighters struggled to make the
lightweight limit, though DeJesus finally came in a full pound under it. They
clashed at the weigh-in, with DeJesus jibing in Spanish, “You’re too weak at that
weight. I’m going to murder you.” Scuffling broke out between their handlers
and Don King’s frustrations rose to his hair’s height.
“With the Puerto Ricans we started a great fight,” said Plomo. “An uncle of
Duran’s, a very heavy man, a logger [fought]. It was a very big fight, and four
Puerto Ricans fell down. Esteban tried to deceive Duran, but Duran reacted at
once and only touched him, and Esteban fell on a chair. Duran told him he’d
rather restrain them, for he was going to get him that night during the fight. The
only person who got hurt was Duran’s uncle, who was beaten by four of them.
Duran told him that he was going to beat him badly that night, and it was not a
lie.”
In the six years since he lost that first fight to DeJesus, Duran had convinced
himself that no one would beat him. Consequently, no one did. “I didn’t respect
anybody,” Duran said. “Boxing to me was a joke, I didn’t give a damn about
boxing. The third time I fought with DeJesus, I caught him and began to
understand his style. I learned it when DeJesus fought Antonio Cervantes. When
Pambele boxed DeJesus he didn’t know what to do. A lot of Panamanians were
in favor of DeJesus and I was even in his corner. When I saw that Pambele
started to box him, I said, ‘Look, there is DeJesus’ defect.’ He lost, time goes by
and then he wins the title from Ishimatsu.
“I find him in Miami training for a fight and he is putting wraps on his hand.
You could tell he was having trouble with the weight, to the point where he
didn’t even want to talk. He was having a terrible time. When a man’s hungry he
doesn’t have any strength. I tell Plomo that this guy is passing Cain and Abel.
When I get the third fight I knew I had to box him. DeJesus gets these witches
and they come up to me and ask, ‘What’s going to happen when DeJesus knocks
you out?’ I tell the woman that I’m going to knock the hell out of DeJesus. He’s
not man enough to knock me out. I’m going to knock him out with all of his
witchcraft. I told him that I could even knock him out if I was drunk.”
They stood across from each other for the last time. They had shared an
ongoing dialogue in the argot of the streets but now it was no longer about
Puerto Rico and Panama anymore, just two fabulous boxers who dominated a
division they were both outgrowing. Duran kept his distance at the opening bell,
jabbing and moving away from that familiar left hook. DeJesus also hesitated to
engage. Neither fighter wanted to rush to battle.
The fight erupted in round three. Duran pounded DeJesus with his signature
right hand to the head, followed him to the ropes but let him off. DeJesus
returned fire and pasted Duran with a right of his own. Still, the men couldn’t
equal the pace of the rematch.
Snarling and sneering, Duran barged DeJesus around and shook him again in
the sixth with a barrage of thudding hooks. DeJesus fell into Duran’s waiting
arms from the force of the punches, the weary look on his face was
unforgettable. Bruises loomed on his cheek and on his eye. Duran refused to let
up, but DeJesus took his best punches and danced away from any serious
damage.
The most telling punch of the night landed in round ten, a magnificent right
that sent DeJesus and his brujos back into a corner. It was only a matter of time
before Duran caught up with his opponent. Going into the eleventh, the judges –
one from the WBA, one from the WBC and one from the Nevada commission –
had Duran comfortably ahead. DeJesus, however, was brave, and landed his best
punch of the night, a left uppercut to the jaw that unbalanced Duran.
The Puerto Rican tried to follow up in the twelfth but a right to the chin –
thrown seconds before his own right hand – sent DeJesus down. He began to
paw helplessly, trying to grasp a rope, anything. In Panama people would refer to
it as puso a gatear, pawing like a cat. It seemed DeJesus did not want to go on,
but referee Buddy Basilico stared hard at him and felt he could continue.
These two fearless men had engaged in a boxing trilogy so macho and yet so
cerebral that it touched the highest peak of the Noble Art. Now the end was
nearing. DeJesus regained his feet and seconds later walked into another right
hand. Duran’s next eleven punches connected as DeJesus lay expressionless
along the ropes, as if praying that Basilico would step in. After the first nine
punches connected, DeJesus lazily slumped into the ropes. Duran landed two
more vicious shots before DeJesus handler Manny Sciaca entered the ring.
Surprisingly, Basilico, with back turned, had still not stopped the slaughter. The
fight was stopped at 2:32 of the twelfth round. “I cannot erase the loss,” said
Duran. “But tonight I erased DeJesus.”
He was, finally, the undisputed lightweight champion of the world. He had
also equalled the record of twelve successful defenses set by the Joe Brown. His
jubilation did not stop him engaging in a brief brawl in the ring with DeJesus’
brother, which was quickly broken up. “I knew I had the fight in the seventh
round when I punched him in the throat,” said Duran later. “I could have
knocked him out earlier, but I felt that I must fight cautiously because I had not
fought for a long time. DeJesus was best in the early rounds but after that I was
able to make him miss a lot.”
It marked the end of a three-fight feud steeped in Latin lore, where two men
forged mutual respect through bitter conflict. It is the nature for boxers to fight,
hug and forget. In forgiveness they form a brotherhood. Though not ranked
among the very greatest Puerto Rican fighters, DeJesus was well respected in
boxing. “He had a lot of fans,” said Jose Torres, the former world champion
from Puerto Rico who became a journalist in the USA. “In Puerto Rico, they
love all the champions. But when you lose, you also lose that popularity.”
Esteban DeJesus’ last fight was a losing bid for the junior welterweight title in
July 1980. By then, he was in the grip of drug addiction, having graduated from
marijuana to shooting up speedballs of cocaine and heroin, sharing needles with
his older brother Enrique and friends. “In general, you start first with friends and
you get so wrapped up with the drugs that before you know it you’re hooked,”
he later told Puerto Rican TV. “They take you to parties and you start using the
stuff. The worst part is when you open your eyes. It’s too late. You’re already
addicted.”
On November 27, 1980, DeJesus mainlined coke before getting in his car to
drive to a family celebration. On the way, he became embroiled in a traffic
dispute with eighteen-year-old Robert Cintron Gonzalez, and leapt from his car
brandishing a .25 caliber pistol. DeJesus shot the teenager in the head. He died
four days later. DeJesus was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder and
jailed for life.
In 1985, his brother Enrique died of AIDS. Having shared needles with him,
Esteban took a test and found that he, too, had the dreaded disease. His brujos
could not save him now; nothing could. As his health deteriorated, his jail
sentence was commuted to allow him to receive treatment at the House for the
Re-education of Addicts, an old milk factory. There he lay on a bed in a room
with eighteen men, all former addicts dying from AIDS. Prayer was their only
hope.
Days from the end, DeJesus fell to skin and bone. But before his body and
will gave way, DeJesus had one last, face-to-face meeting with his old foe.
Duran, who had regularly disparaged – and beaten – Puerto Ricans, was not a
popular figure in the country, but when a call came that Esteban was dying, the
instinctive generosity of spirit that was as much a part of him as macho bluster
quickly emerged.
“There was a man who was always around DeJesus who told me that he was
dying of AIDS,” said Duran. “He said, ‘I need you to go see him because he
could pass away any minute.’ We go to a place, the jail is here and DeJesus is
staying across the street from it. When I see him there so thin, my tears run out
because he used to be a pretty formed, muscular guy. I start crying and I hug
him, and I kiss him and I tell my daughter to kiss him. That was when I won
over the Puerto Rican public.”
Duran did more than win over Puerto Rico with the gesture: a love for Duran
was culled through his fearless response to this mysterious disease. Jose Torres
used to run into Duran at Victor’s Café, a popular Cuban restaurant and Duran’s
favorite hangout, on fight weekends in New York City. Torres knew firsthand
about death in the ring. He was there to see Benny “Kid” Paret when the beating
he suffered against Emile Griffith in March 1962 left him in a coma from which
he would never awake. Torres would drive Paret’s wife back and forth from the
hospital to see the fallen fighter before his death ten days after the fight.
Almost two decades on, Torres was caught in death’s web again. “When
DeJesus was dying in Puerto Rico, I went to see him,” Torres recalled. “Duran
went that same day. Duran walked to the bed and embraced him in the bed. He
was dying and he embraced the man. You knew he was dying of AIDS, so I
would not get that close because we didn’t know that much about AIDS at the
time. We knew that you could get it from anybody. I was very concerned about
that. He just walked over to him and just lifted him out of the bed. I will never
forget that. That made Duran for me as one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever
met. That attitude there, that move.
 “I wrote about DeJesus for the New York Post, a piece about that experience.
This is the first time I talk about it since then. It’s funny because every fighter
has that compassion. I think that anybody can be that way; you don’t have to be
a fighter.”
Fight promoter Butch Lewis added, “He went to the hospital and visited the
guy when nobody knew about AIDS. At this time it was like the polio scare in
the nineteen-fifties. Everyone was like, ‘What is AIDS?’ He went to the hospital,
held his hand and everything. I’ll always remember that. I thought, who would
be brave enough? As tough as he was, deep down he had an affectionate side to
him. It seems all guys who are so violent in the ring have that side to them.”
DeJesus succumbed on 13 March 1987. His death was reported briefly in the
London Times: “Esteban DeJesus, the former world-class boxer, who has died at
the age of 37 of AIDS, contracting the disease by using an infected needle to
support his drug habit in prison, was the only man to beat Roberto Duran in the
70s.”
Even in death, they were linked.

ON 27 APRIL 1978, Duran faced Adolpho Viruet, brother of Edwin, at Madison

Square Garden. It was stipulated that Adolpho had to weigh under the agreed
143-pound limit. Duran, at 142, was at his heaviest since Javier Muniz in May
1977. He had not fought at the Garden for almost five and a half years and
17,125 fans, the largest crowd there since Ali beat Frazier in 1974, paid
$275,366 to see him. Duran would take home a tax-free purse of $100,000 while
Viruet managed $15,000. Viruet, a southpaw, told a New York reporter, “We
both came from the same place, the streets. The Bronx, Panama, it’s the same
thing. You still have to rumble with your hands.”
It was Duran who came to rumble. Referee Arthur Mercante warned him for
being dangerous with his head and instructed the judges to take the seventh
round away from him for hitting low. It made no difference in the result as
Duran attacked his southpaw opponent from the opening bell and stayed on top
of him for the whole fight, his feet flat on the canvas so he was always set to
punch behind his full weight. After avoiding Duran for the first five rounds,
Viruet became more aggressive but didn’t have the firepower to keep him off. He
did land a cracking left to the Panamanian’s jaw in the seventh, and made him
miss hugely with a right uppercut, while Edwin Viruet at ringside led a large
Puerto Rican contingent in cheering his brother and abusing Duran in Spanish,
but neither Adolpho nor his voluble older sibling could punch hard enough to
defeat a fighter of Duran’s caliber. The decision was unanimous in Duran’s
favour. Afterwards Edwin climbed into the ring and Duran calmly walked over
and gave him a heavy shove. Edwin squared up before the cornermen intervened
and blue-shirted security police got between the two camps.
“Edwin was much tougher,” said Duran afterwards. “All Adolpho did tonight
was run and complain about my hitting him with low blows. I’ve fought guys on
a bicycle, but this guy was on a motorcycle.” Years later, from atop his
apartment building in New York City, Adolpho seemed to be delusional about
the result. “I don’t want to say nothing about ref and judge but to me they all
crooks. I beat Duran but Duran’s got connections.”
Rumors spread of a possible showdown with junior lightweight champ Alexis
Arguello, but the negotiations failed. While Arguello was moving up to the
lightweight division, Duran was abandoning it. “It was promotions,” said
Arguello. “They never signed nothing; it was only talking. It would have been a
great fight, but we moved to higher weight classes.
“I met him after I won my first title from Ruben Olivares. He’s a good person
who carries himself really well. There’s nothing that I saw that he behaved badly
except one time when I was invited by Don King to fight in Vegas. I was in the
lobby of Caesar’s Palace and he came up to me and I thought he was coming to
say hello. Instead he was pushing me and pushing me, telling me to sign the
contract or he would kill me. I told Duran, ‘I’m a serious person. Don’t push
me.’ That was the only rough encounter I had with Duran. In my heart I think he
was one of the greatest lightweights in boxing history.”
Arguello, from Nicaragua, was diplomatic but always felt that he had the tools
to take Duran. “Latin fighters are tough fighters with big hearts and courage,
especially Duran. In Latin America, there has been a variety of styles. For
example, Miguel Canto of Mexico was a great boxer; Monzon, from Argentina,
was a heavy hitter with a good heart; Duran was short, but a heavy puncher with
good movement, good head movement and combinations. I don’t want to
disrespect a great fighter. What I can tell you is that it would have been a great
clash. It would have been a collision where we both don’t know … I could say
that I would have won and he could say he could beat me. Time catches up to all
of us in the sport of boxing. It’s something that a friend of mine used to tell me,
‘What you do when you enter, they do to you when you go out.’ That’s life.
We’re born, we live and we die.”
At the end of July 1978, it was reported that Duran had broken two fingers on
his right hand in a car accident in Panama and would be out until October.
Conflicting reports suggested a thumb injury, others said that Duran was
feigning for commercial reasons, presumably so he would not yet have to
surrender his lightweight titles, which increased his marquee value while he
fought non-title bouts.
Duran went back to Panama after defeating Viruet, gained yet more weight
and prepared to fight light-middleweight Ezequiel Obando on September 1,
1978. It would reveal if Duran looked comfortable at the higher weight and if his
punches were destructive against a bigger man. Duran came in on the
welterweight limit of 147 pounds while Obando was four pounds over at 151.
“Obando was a guy with huge muscles, tall and looked like he was a
bodybuilder,” said Duran. “Eleta tells me, ‘I want you to fight him anyway
because I want people to see you.’ I said, ‘Give me the fight, I don’t give a
damn.’ When the guy comes into the ring he wants to impress me with his
physique. He wanted to knock me out, but he didn’t know that I could hit that
hard. He came in again and my hand was already in the air ready to catch him. I
hit him so hard with one punch that you could have counted up to a thousand and
he wouldn’t have gotten back up.” Duran needed only two rounds to dispose of
Obando, who was too green to give him a test.
Having cleaned up his division and run out of credible challengers, Duran
issued a statement that October from Panama City, possibly at the behest of the
publicity-minded Don King, in which he challenged “all the champions in the
other divisions, from bantamweight up to middleweight, to fight me.” The
statement went on, “I’ll fight them over the weight, for my title or for theirs.
This challenge goes for champions like Carlos Zarate, Wilfredo Gomez, Danny
Lopez, Alexis Arguello, Pipino Cuevas, Carlos Palomino, Samuel Serrano,
Saensak Muangsurin, Antonio Cervantes and Rocky Mattioli. I’d like to become
the first man in history to win four different world titles. The welterweight,
junior welterweight and junior middleweight titles are all within my reach.”
Don King’s grip on the heavyweight crown had loosened and he needed a new
global star. Duran was it. King had lost the inside track with heavyweight
champion Muhammad Ali after a failed attempt to drive a wedge between Ali
and his manager, Herbert Muhammad, and consequently missed out on some of
the biggest fight promotions of the late Seventies. At the same time, many of the
sport’s names now came from outside the United States, including the imperious
Carlos Monzon and the classy Alexis Arguello. Duran was probably the most
saleable of them all to US TV audiences, provided the right opponents could be
found.
On November 4, newspapers reported that Duran had signed a four-fight
contract worth $500,000 with Madison Square Garden. His first appearance was
due against light-welterweight Monroe Brooks, followed by a defense of his
lightweight title aganst leading WBA contender Alfredo Pitalua, then a fight
against light-welterweight champion Antonio Cervantes, and finally a challenge
to welterweight champion Carlos Palomino. That, at least, was the plan.

FIRST UP WAS the ranking black boxer Monroe Brooks, at the Garden on
December 8. A streetfighter in his youth, Brooks was ready for the challenge. “I
had no fear of him,” said Brooks. “I didn’t care if it was the Hands of Stone, the
Hands of Walls or anything. If I could I’d fight him again right now, I would. I
love the man. He was good for boxing.”
Brooks was born in Midland, Texas, and was introduced to the fight game at
the age of nine through a relative. “I had a cousin who lived a house down from
me and he used to have a bag hanging from a tree. He would just hit the bag
every now and then, and he would go to the park and there would be a bunch of
guys who would put the gloves and box. I got to the point to where I wouldn’t do
what he told me. One day I follow him and he said, ‘I’m going to stop your little
ass.’” His cousin forced him to box the other neighborhood youths. “I whupped
all of them. He made me box every one of them, and he was so shocked because
I was so young.
“I heard about a gym that was starting up and I wanted to go see this boxing
gym. I snuck away from home, walked in and I told the coach I wanted to box.
There must have been a hundred kids in the gym and I pointed them out and
said, ‘I can whup all these boys.’”
The coach, Sergeant Hamilton, responded the same way Plomo had to an
enthusiastic young Duran. He explained that boxing could not be picked up
without proper training. Hamilton had seen many youngsters arrive at the gym
willing to fight, only to vanish at the first sign of violence. “He just so happened
to have three sons who boxed,” said Brooks. “So I whipped his three sons, and
everyone else they put in front of me. I just realized I was already a fighter. If
you hit me I was going to hit you back. I was a fighter on the street.”
The meanest cats on the block don’t always make the best boxers, but Brooks
learned his craft during eight years as an amateur and would go on to win forty-
eight fights as a pro, thirty-three by knockout, and to hold a North American
Boxing Federation title. He drew inspiration from an unlikely source. “My mom
would beat up anybody,” he said. “She was a fighter who took nothing from
nobody on the streets or off the streets. She raised six kids by herself. My mother
always came to my fights. If there was a fight in town my mother was going to
be there. That’s where I got my fighting from, my mom.”
Brooks beat so many Mexican opponents that he was labeled “the Mexican
Killer.” He remembered, “The hardest puncher was Rudy Barro, a Filipino. Let
me put it this way; after that fight I said to myself, ‘Damn, you take a good
punch.’ Every time this guy hit me it felt like a truck running into me. Not just a
truck, a Mack truck.”
After losing to Adolpho Viruet, Brooks realized he was battling more than his
opponents. “I realized that I was anemic. I actually think I lost three fights from
being anemic. I know I lost my world title fight for being anemic. I couldn’t get
off with punches and do things that I could always do. I was shocked to be beat
by a boxer like that. I didn’t know exactly, but I found out when I fought for the
world title. In fact I almost died.”
Brooks traveled to the Far East to challenge for the light-welterweight
championship. “In Thailand, my blood was so low that they could hardly find a
pulse for me. I beat the boy nine rounds straight and they stopped the fight
because they said I was too tired to finish,” Brooks recalled. “I was going to
make that fifteenth round but they didn’t want me to come through with that
title. I beat that boy pitiful.
“I started losing energy from about the seventh round. Everything started to
become blurry to me and it was like I was drunk. I told my trainer that
something wasn’t right. But he didn’t know I was anemic, and there was nothing
we could do about it. He was just giving me instructions to fight. I fought like a
champion. After that fight I stayed positive all through my boxing career. If a
person is going to lose their positive thoughts, they should just quit before they
get hurt.”
Brooks, who boxed at light-welterweight (junior welterweight), was also
stepping up in weight. “I actually had to pick up seven pounds to fight Duran. I
didn’t feel as if I lost any strength. What I did to mess up my fight with Duran
was I pulled a muscle sparring with Wilfred Benitez in New York. I told Jackie
McCoy about it at the time. He said, ‘Let’s go home. Let’s get on the plane.’ And
I said, ‘No, Jackie, you pull me out of this fight and there’s going to be a fight
between me and you.’ I didn’t have no fear of Duran. He couldn’t intimidate me.
I was the one who had the mouth.” Back at the Garden, his old stomping
grounds, Duran weighed in at 147, surprisingly heavier than Brooks at 143, and
was even bigger by the time he entered the ring. To many boxing scribes, the
Panamanian was too short, too small, and was making a tactical mistake in
jumping up two weight categories.
On December 8, 1978 at the Garden, Duran had two things to prove: that he
could punch and take a punch in the 147-pound class. He answered accordingly
as he nailed the taller, wiry strong Brooks with a left hook as the first round
ended. Then, after absorbing some sharp punches from Brooks, he began to
methodically chop him down. In the fourth, Duran almost completely submerged
his right into Brooks’ face, and in the sixth he ferociously spun Brooks’ head
with a jarring left hook.
After punishing Brooks for the first seven rounds, Duran forced him against
the ropes and landed a left hook with the force of a bat hitting a tree. The manner
in which he set up Brooks was magnificent, as he perfectly positioned his body
to the left of Brooks, assuming that there would be a slight opening under his
right arm. There was and Duran delivered the decisive blow to the body. Brooks
slumped to the canvas, and Mercante threw up his arms and halted the bout as
the fighter reached his feet. The victory was official at 1:59 of round eight.
The damage might have come sooner had Duran not had to suffer mightily to
lose twenty-one pounds from his 168-pound frame during training. Even the
critics admitted that Duran was a legitimate welterweight contender. “Something
told me that I was watching greatness,” said boxing analyst Steve Farhood, who
covered the bout. “Basically he kicked the crap out of a world class fighter.”
At least Brooks had refused to run, and twenty-five years later could still hold
his head high. “You have to box, box, box Duran,” he said. “You know Duran
was more of a slugger but he had some boxing technique also. I had the boxing
skills that were phenomenal and I felt I had enough to do what I had to do.
Anemia didn’t play any part, not in this fight.” Were there any weaknesses in
Duran? “The only weakness I felt was in me.” Later a security guard at a high
school in Los Angeles, Brooks still thinks of Duran. Fighting him was an
“honor,” but he has one last wish for his Panamanian friend: “Man, Duran better
not ever get hit by Rudy Barro.”
In April, Duran walked through the game Jimmy Heair, veteran of ninety
bouts, to win a unanimous decision in Vegas. The rugged, blond-haired
Tennessee native, who had never been knocked down, took an awful beating but
somehow stayed on his feet till the end. “I have never seen anything more brutal
than that in all of my years,” said commentator Howard Cosell. Nit-pickers
complained that Duran’s punch was not as percussive as it had been and that he
should have stopped Heair. People held him to the highest standard. He was an
all-time great and fans expected him to fight like one every time he got in the
ring.
It was clear that, despite the four-fight program mapped out for him, Duran
was going to relinquish his lightweight title. Both the WBA and the WBC had
ordered him to make his next defense against different contenders – Alfredo
Pitalua and Jim Watt respectively. Not only was that impossible, but he had also
outgrown the weight. At the zenith of his profession, he abandoned his WBC
and WBA titles in January 1979. His future lay with bigger men. No longer
would he always be the strongest man in the ring, or punch the hardest, or have
the scariest reputation. He was about to head into the toughest division in
boxing.
 12

“The Monster’s Loose”

“I wanted to graduate, win a world title and retire by thirty.”
Carlos Palomino

EVERY TIME DURAN hit New York he created a spectacle, whether he was
playing softball in Central Park or piling into a steak at Victor’s Café 52,
surrounded by acolytes. He had grown fond of Gotham and the city embraced
him. Raucous crowds of Latin well-wishers flocked to his training sessions,
while actors, singers and famous athletes sought his company. .
“When I won the world championship, the Yankees invited me to the
clubhouse,” said Duran. “The pitcher Luis Tiant … gave me passes and shirts
and everything from the locker room. The game wasn’t started yet, but Reggie
Jackson told me he was going to dedicate a home run to me and after the game
he would give me the bat. I said, ‘Okay,’ and he hit the home run. At the end of
the game he called me to the locker room and said, ‘Remember what I told you?
This is the bat and I want to give it to you. But I want you to know something.
When I hit that home run I cracked the bat.’ He gave it to me and I carried it
back to Panama. Someone eventually stole it from me.”
In his huge white cap, satin baseball jacket, massive shades and gong-sized
medallions, the young prizefighter was every inch the barrio star, swaggering
into Gleason’s Gym to a pounding ghettoblaster or stopping traffic as he signed
autographs and posed for photos on the sidewalk. His favorite hangout was
Victor’s, which would relocate in 1980 from Columbus and 71st Street to West
52nd Street in midtown Manhattan. It was owned by Victor del Corral, who
became a great friend of Duran’s, and was a popular haunt for budding TV, film
and music stars.
Now the most feared fighter, pound for pound, in the world, Duran was
reaching the peak of his popularity when he signed to fight former welterweight
champion Carlos Palomino. The welterweight division was entering perhaps the
most thrilling phase in its history and Duran was about to assault a division full
of glamor, danger, intrigue and money. Chance had thrown up four of the most
exciting young boxers ever to compete together in one weight class at the same
time. The WBA champion, Pipino “the Assassin” Cuevas, was a daunting
Mexican puncher of almost criminal ferocity, a butcher of challengers. The WBC
champion was Puerto Rican wunderkind Wilfred Benitez, a defensive wizard of
bewildering virtuosity. And fast rising through the ranks were two prodigious
contenders: Olympic gold medallist Sugar Ray Leonard, a showboating genius,
and the menacing Detroit knockout artist Thomas Hearns. Amazingly, as of
February 1979 Leonard was the oldest of the quartet at twenty-two; Cuevas had
just turned twenty-one, while Benitez and Hearns were only twenty. Together,
this fearsome foursome promised a decade of ferocious competition.
Not to be forgotten was Palomino, who Benitez had recently deposed. Rugged
and experienced, a fierce body puncher with great stamina, he was a formidable
obstacle to anyone seeking welterweight glory. Palomino was the second of
eleven boys born in a small town in the state of Sonora, Mexico. Life was frugal
but his mother drummed ambition into him, and after crossing the border to Los
Angeles to find work he took up boxing. His amateur career blossomed after he
joined the US Army and he won All-Army and All-Service titles and almost
made the 1972 Olympic team before turning pro. In 1976, he accomplished his
first goal by knocking out Britain’s John Stracey for the WBC welterweight title.
In the same year, Palomino walked down the aisle to accept a diploma in
recreational administration from Long Beach State University.
Palomino treated boxing as a profession, one he pursued with dedication but
never loved. He had three goals: graduate from college, win a world
welterweight championship, and retire by age thirty, and with two of them
accomplished he was already planning for a career once his ring days were over.
He dabbled in acting, including an appearance in the popular TV comedy series
Taxi.
A stand-still hard-hitter who would go into the trenches, the moustachioed
Mexican successfully defended his title seven times but suffered two lengthy
layoffs due to bone cracks in his right hand and had been inactive for eight
months when he took on Benitez in January 1979. Not only did he face one of
the world’s finest instinctive fighters but also he was in Benitez’s backyard. “No
doubt in my mind that going into the Benitez fight that I had to knock this guy
out,” said Palomino. “I had seen too many times where a Mexican guy came to
Puerto Rico and got a bad decision. I didn’t even want to go there, but the WBC
made me go. The fight was outdoors and there was a canopy over the ring. It was
so hot that I lost fourteen pounds of water in that fight. All my fights had been in
Vegas and LA inside the auditorium, so I was not used to this weather.”
Palomino claims he hurt his opponent several times. “One of my sparring
partners told me later that Benitez said he was going to quit in the third round,
that Benitez went back to his corner and said, ‘This guy hits too hard.’” Minutes
later, trainer Gregorio Benitez slapped his son’s face as he sent him out at the
start of a round. It might have won him the title. “I guess it woke him up because
Benitez jabbed and stayed alive for the rest of the fight,” said Palomino.
“Benitez had no real punching power, but he was the best defensive fighter I
ever fought. It was like he had a sixth sense. He knew every punch I would
throw before I threw it.”
As Palomino sat disconsolately in his dressing room after the bout, promoter
Bob Arum came in and promised him a return bout. But the WBC would never
honor his rematch clause. Instead, Palomino was offered $250,000 to fight an
elimination bout with Duran, with the victor to face Benitez. “I was psyched for
Duran and I prepared for a twelve-rounder,” said Palomino. “At the time, people
were saying that he didn’t hit as hard as a welterweight. I knew it would be
difficult but I thought I could overcome it with my punching power.” In the run-
up to the Duran bout, however, Palomino learned that Wilfred Benitez signed to
defend his title against Sugar Ray Leonard rather than give him a rematch. “That
took the wind out of my sails,” said Palomino. “I didn’t want to wait around and
win a non-title bout.”
Ready for the charades Duran often played at press conferences, Palomino
was surprised when they actually met. “I told my manager that if Duran tried to
start anything at the weigh-in, I was going balls-out on the spot. I was not going
to take anything. Before the bout, he comes up to me and shakes my hand. He
tells me how much respect he has for me as a fighter. Then he asked me for an
autograph for his son. To this day we hug when we see each other.”
Asking another boxer for his autograph may have seemed out of character for
the Chorrillo wildman, but warmth and generosity were as much a part of him as
the myopic brutality he employed in the ring. His close friends were more
familiar with the playful Roberto than the beast that surfaced at fight time.
Duran’s training sessions weren’t without the occasional flashes of his darker
side, however. Journalist John Garfield was watching in the Howard Albert Gym
in the Garment Center when, with admirers crowding into the training area,
Duran went into the ring to shadowbox. “Somebody in the back kept yelling in
Spanish, ‘Pipino Cuevas will kill you.’ Duran paid him no mind and continued to
shadowbox,” wrote Garfield. “But the heckler was relentless. Finally, Duran
whirled on the heckler and leaned over the top strand of the ropes, right above
where the mothers and children were worshiping him, and he pulled down his
trunks and grabbed his nuts and yelled at the heckler in Spanish, ‘Pipino Cuevas
can suck my cock.’”
Palomino, who was 27-2-3 coming into the bout, doubted that Duran would be
as effective at the higher weight and thought he would lose both power and
speed. Duran, however, was the 7–5 favourite. The bill-topper was Larry
Holmes’s heavyweight title defense against Mike Weaver, which would provide
its own drama, but for most of the 14,136 crowd Duran was the attraction. As the
Garden faithful took their seats on 22 June 1979 and the boxers met in ring
center for their instructions, Duran rocked back and forth on his feet while
Palomino stood immobile. Duran stared hard at his opponent and received no
response. The fighters listened to referee Carlos Padilla’s instructions, touched
gloves and headed back to their corners.
Duran had come to fight, which had not always been the case in recent
contests. Those in attendance could see the difference in the way he moved, as if
to the addictively sassy rhythm of a salsa. He knew Palomino was good and that
he was a barrier to the millions of dollars with Leonard, and that meant he
needed to find his groove straight from the bell. And he did. “Although he didn’t
have devastating punching power, his quickness really surprised me,” said
Palomino. “I never really got hurt but he was so shifty, used angles and was in
such a defensive mode that it took away from my offensive mode.”
Duran deliberately stood with his back to the ropes in the second round. He
turned his man into his punches, rested his head beside Palomino’s ear to gain
leverage, scraped his skull along Palomino’s brows, shortened his blows to make
maximum use of the space and doubled up with hooks to the head and body – all
against the ropes. It was a superb display of in-fighting, and it was only the
beginning. One second Palomino had the man ripe for an uppercut, then he was
gone. In contrast Duran would lock his opponent’s left arm and follow with a
right uppercut, an old trick, or truco in Spanish, that worked for him thoughout
the fight.
Duran struck with such speed and power that at times Palomino bent over,
wincing in pain. He faked the right hand to set up other punches and had
Palomino flinching from these feints like a boy reflexively jumping back from
the strength of an older brother. Yet, with his right hand up by his face, he
remained both conscious and respectful of Palomino’s left hook. In other fights,
Duran would hold his guard low, showing contempt.
In the fourth round, the salsa continued. Duran landed a right uppercut, which
turned into a left hook, straight right combination, and jolted back Palomino’s
head. He survived another big right in the middle of the ring in the next round,
and in the sixth was set up beautifully when Duran again faked the right, causing
him to jerk back his head. When the punch didn’t come, Palomino straightened
up, only to find the right hand coming now. It laid him on his back with a thud.
Palomino quickly pushed himself up. He was stunned but not hurt, and took
the mandatory eight-count. While chasing Palomino around the ring, Duran
planted a right to the liver, but couldn’t stop the former champ. After the bell
sounded for the sixth to end the onslaught, a weary Palomino headed to his
corner. A broadcaster compared Duran to “Krakatoa about to explode,” but
Palomino shook off the knockdown and came back strong the next round.
Nobody hid in the final round. It wasn’t in either man’s nature. Latin fighters
fought in a culture where reputation meant everything. “It was a ten-round war,”
said Palomino. “I came back to my corner in the ninth round and they told me
that I had to go out and take it to him. So I went right after Duran in the tenth.”
As the final bell sounded, Palomino put his glove into Duran’s midsection as a
gesture of respect, but Duran was too busy raising his hands to notice. Then he
fell to his knees, and still not noticing Palomino’s extended glove, turned to the
crowd for the acclaim he deserved. The referee and two judges all scored 99-90
to Duran, meaning he had won nine rounds and shared one. It was an utterly
comprehensive victory over one of the finest welterweights in the world.
“I was a big Palomino fan and … he just made Palomino look like a novice,”
said boxing writer Steve Farhood. “Palomino was flinching when Duran would
fake a punch. I had never seen that before. Palomino was never in the fight and
maybe he won one round. I don’t want to call Palomino a great fighter, but he
was almost on that level.”
By the end, Duran had Palomino’s full respect. “He outboxed me every round
and outhustled me the entire fight,” said the Mexican. “It was the only fight that
I didn’t feel mentally or physically ready for. Duran and Benitez were the best
defensive fighters I faced. They were notches above anyone else. After that
fight, I told them that Duran would be champ of the world again, if he fights
Leonard like he did against me. I had respect for him before the bout but so
much more after.”
It had been a great fight, lacking the changes of fortune of the very best but
providing a masterclass in in-fighting, punching and conditioning. Boxing News
called it “a wonderful fight, a fight of a life-time.”
Celebrations were muted, however, when Duran was told the bad news about
a friend. He was told in a New York hotel lobby of the death of Chaflan, his
gypsy Svengali from the old days, killed by a car. One reporter remembered
seeing Chaflan at a store opening in Caledonia. “Candido Diaz was Chaflan, not
Superman,” remarked one paper. “Because of this he was unable to resist the
impact of the vehicle that hit him.”
Duran broke down and cried. “They wouldn’t tell me until after the Palomino
fight,” he said. “They said that Chaflan was killed by a car. I cried a lot. He
knew me since I was around seven or eight years old. Chaflan built a tree house
and we would all sleep up there until four a.m. and then go get a ticket for the
newspapers. He was never a mean person to children. With a dollar he would
take you to eat or to the movies. Later he was accused of being a pervert and that
he would corrupt children but I never saw that and I don’t believe it.”
Many newspapers now carried planted publicity about Duran challenging the
winner of the Wilfred Benitez-Ray Leonard WBC title bout. WBA champ Pipino
Cuevas, who many believed was the most dangerous welterweight around, was
also heavily touted as a Duran target and reportedly wanted a guarantee of half a
million dollars. Don King, who promoted the Palomino fight, sided with the
WBC while Bob Arum lined up with the WBA.
Palomino retired from the sport on his thirtieth birthday. He would make an
improbable comeback almost eighteen years later, at the age of forty-eight, and
won four bouts before losing for the last time in 1998. By then, his father had
succumbed to cancer, unleashing emotions he had kept bottled for years.
“Everybody was telling me that, back when I had the world title, my father was
so proud of me and that he was always telling everybody about me,” said
Palomino in a 1997 interview. “But he never said any of that to me.” Unlike the
open relationship Palomino had with his mother Maria, his father wasn’t one to
express his inner feelings.
Duran’s status as an honorary New Yorker was confirmed by his fabulous
performance. He often hung out in the city with another Panamanian icon,
Ruben Blades, the salsa king. “I knew Ruben Blades when he was nobody. I
stayed in the Hotel Mayflower in New York and he used to go there every day to
play soccer. After the game, he used to go back to my room and there he stayed
playing dominoes. After that we would go eat. He would always come looking
for me when he moved to New York and knew I had a fight coming up.” A salsa
fanatic, Duran was also friends with Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Hector Lavoe.
After training, Duran would often sit in Central Park, where he liked to watch
the people and cars go by. One day he was there when he saw his friend Flacco
Bala talking to a man with a child on the shoulders. Duran ran over and was
introduced to the man – Robert De Niro, the hottest male lead in Hollywood.
They shook hands.
“Robert invited me to go to his room. He lived in the same hotel where I was
staying. He said, ‘I want you to come to my room. I am going to hold a party so
that you meet my friends. You are my favorite.’ Twenty-five minutes later, the
telephone rang. It was Robert De Niro, but he talked in English, and I do not talk
English. So I called Bala and asked him to come with me. And we went there
and started talking. Robert De Niro loves boxing. Then came a little guy, one
who liked to make fun. We went on talking and then came a tall, thin woman. He
asked me if I wanted champagne or wine but when I trained, I never drank. I
would only drink after the fights. So I told him that and he said, ‘Sure, sure.’”
Duran invited De Niro and his film friends to play football the next day, and
then they went on to a meal at Victor’s Café. “Roberto De Niro wanted to pay
but we had drunk champagne, so I told him that was not OK. Victor was very
happy that De Niro and all the artists were there. And you know what? That little
guy who jumped and made fun was and is Roberto De Niro’s best friend, Joe
Pesci. All the artists that appear in the movie are the ones that were playing
football with us. The following day we all got together again and I learned
Roberto De Niro was filming a movie at that time.” The movie was Raging Bull,
the story of former boxer Jake LaMotta, which would become one of the most
critically acclaimed films of the century.
When he wasn’t hanging out in the Big Apple, Duran could go home and
choose one of his five cars or three maids. His private cook could put together
something to eat. All Duran had to do was call his chauffeur to pick him up at
his estimated $250,000 apartment complex in Paitilla and take him to a local
club. Duran was finally living the lifestyle that he had dreamt of – but you
couldn’t take Chorrillo out of the man.

ON 28 SEPTEMBER 1979, a spectacular fight bill began in Las Vegas. The

venue was Caesar’s Palace and the main event saw undefeated heavyweight
champion Larry Holmes against the awesome-punching Earnie Shavers. The
undercard featured not only Duran but also Sugar Ray Leonard and the brilliant
little Puerto Rican Wilfredo Gomez. One writer called it “a program of boxing
that may be more representative of great talent than any other in the modern era
of the game.”
Sugar Ray Leonard was a star for the armchair generation. “He’s made for
television,” said his trainer, Angelo Dundee. “He’s got personality, charisma,
good lucks. He projects himself right out of the screen.” For this reason he could
command up to $250,000 a time for even routine learning fights as he rose
through the ranks. The influential presenter Howard Cosell had championed
Leonard above all the others from the successful U.S. Olympic team of 1976 and
helped build him into a star and national television broadcast most of his bouts.
He couldn’t have looked more devastating as he unleashed a dazzling barrage of
punches to flatten seasoned campaigner Andy “The Hawk” Price in the first
round. It took several minutes for Price to recover enough to leave the ring.
Leonard then watched from ringside as Duran faced the lightly regarded, six-
foot-tall southpaw Zeferino “Speedy” Gonzalez, a former Golden Gloves
champion who had nineteen wins, two losses and a draw in twenty-two bouts.
Gonzalez, from San Jose, California, had worked with a hypnotherapist before
the fight to eradicate fear, memorizing “protective suggestions.” His boxing plan
was cautious and he would later rue not going toe-to-toe with the smaller man.
Duran appeared rusty and out of sorts, reaching and missing with right-hand
leads against an opponent five inches taller and not cutting off the ring. On
several occasions he even got nailed with a left hand. His body was smooth and
fleshy at 149½ pounds, not honed and hard as it had been against Palomino.
Occasionally he dropped his hands and mocked his opponent but if nothing else
Gonzalez was quick – “He moves faster than a beef stew in a boarding house,”
said one writer – and the crowd cheered when Duran was caught with a left hook
while arrogantly hitching up his shorts. In the eighth the fighters banged heads,
and Duran acknowledged it was an accident by touching gloves with his
opponent, but soon blood was running down his face. Gonzalez’s trainer
exhorted his fighter to take advantage of the cut, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t.
Duran won the unanimous decision by a mile but left the ring with a cut over the
left eye, to the sound of booing.
Ray Leonard had clearly made the greater impression. Things would have to
change.

ON NOVEMBER 30, 1979, a television audience of millions watched two

undefeated prodigies meet in a battle for the WBC welterweight crown and to
decide, in effect, who would be Duran’s next great challenge. The preparations
of unpredictable genius Wilfred Benitez had hardly been helped when his fiery
father, Gregorio, no longer his manager but still his trainer, gave an interview to
Ring En Espanol before the bout, saying, “He can’t win this fight … has not
listened to anything I have told him and meanwhile Leonard has fought a lot.
But Wilfred is a boy who just refuses to listen.” His mother, Clara, also chipped
in. “Look at how my son has turned out,” she bewailed. “All he thinks about
now are women. And this is no good during fights.”
Some say Benitez had put in only nine full days of preparation before he lost
his title to Sugar Ray Leonard when the referee stopped their fifteen-round bout
with just six seconds remaining at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. Leonard had been
ahead on all of the judges’ cards, his harder hitting giving him the edge in a tense
battle.
Two months later, twenty-four-year Josef Nsubuga, trained by the veteran
Eddie Futch, met the serious version of Duran in Las Vegas. A Ugandan fighting
out of Norway, Nsubuga was ranked ninth by the WBC and was considered a
dangerous left-hooker. He was announced as the “Ugandan Powerhouse” but
later admitted making a major error when he tried to brawl with Duran.
Nsubuga kept cool under pressure in the first round, jabbing and moving, and
at one point a frustrated Duran pushed him to the canvas. But by the third the
shorter, stockier Hands of Stone was taking charge and rocking back Nsubuga’s
head with hooks and uppercuts. The referee took a close look at the
inexperienced Ugandan, but he showed grit and composure to fight back in the
closing stages of the round.
In the next round Duran simply walked through his opponent’s fading
resistance, sometimes grunting as he slammed in shots. With seconds remaining
in the fourth round, Duran caught Nsubuga down with a short right hook, and as
the Ugandan sagged, Duran shouldered him over, causing him to fall heavily on
his back. Nsubuga managed to rise at “eight” and was saved by the bell. He
stumbled back to his corner, where the compassionate Eddie Futch pleaded with
the fighter’s Norwegian manager to retire his man. After consultation with
referee Richard Greene, Nsubuga retired on his stool. “I’m the real world
champ,” Duran told reporters afterwards in his Spanish-accented English. “I
want Leonard now, and I’ll knock him out.”
It was reported shortly afterwards that Bob Arum had offered Duran $1
million to challenge Ray Leonard that summer. Leonard was said to lean towards
Arum while Duran was in the camp of his promotional arch-rival Don King. One
magazine reported that an Arum acolyte made a secret mission to Carlos Eleta in
Panama City to woo Duran away from Don King to face the winner of Benitez-
Leonard. King was tipped off and dispatched his own emissary from JFK Airport
to make a counter offer. Leonard, never one to undersell himself, wanted $5
million. “That’s a bad joke,” remarked Don King. “You scare people with talk
like that.”
The mind games began. Leonard’s trainer Angelo Dundee made a point of
telling reporters that “three things trouble Duran – speed, a left hand and a
calculated fight. You need a well regimented fighter to lick him and that’s my
guy.” Ray Arcel, however, believed Duran’s experience would be the deciding
factor. Duran, well versed in street pyschology, was already winding himself up
for the encounter. When he knew that Leonard was watching him work out in the
gym one day, he skipped rope in a squatting position.
Nearly a month after the win over Nsubuga, Duran watched helplessly as his
record of ten straight knockout title defenses was broken by Puerto Rican
featherweight and bantamweight legend Wilfredo Gomez. On February 3, 1980,
Gomez knocked out Colombia’s Ruben Valdes. Gomez had been trained by
Plomo when he began his professional career in Panama.
Three weeks later, Duran scored his fifty-fifth inside-the-distance win when
he punished Wellington Wheatley of Ecuador with two early knockdowns before
dropping him for keeps with a right forty-four seconds into the sixth round.
“Wheatley countered quite well at times and seemed to jolt Duran a couple of
times in the first round with rights,” reported Boxing News, “but Duran took
charge in the second when a cracking right hand lead to the chin put Wheatley
down on the seat of his trunks against the ropes.” Wheatley got up at four and
survived the round but by the fifth he was wilting and took another count from a
right-hander to the back of the neck. Duran lowered the boom in the sixth,
nailing his foe with a right and then a cruel short left hook, forcing the referee to
step in without bothering to count.
“The monster’s loose and on his way to the welterweight title,” said NBC-TV
boxing adviser Dr Ferdie Pacheco, at ringside in Las Vegas.
 13

El Macho

A dictionary translation of the Spanish word macho captures the
essence of Latin American masculinity. Besides male and masculine,
the word means tough, strong, stupid, big, huge, splendid, terrific and
doubles as a slang term for a sledgehammer.
Duncan Green, Faces of Latin America

IT STARTED OUT as a leisurely stroll through the streets of Montreal. Ray

Leonard, his wife and childhood sweetheart Juanita, trainer Angelo Dundee and
his wife were taking a break from the pressure cooker atmosphere before a fight.
The weeks leading up to a big bout lie heavy with anxiety, sickness and tension
and this was a brief afternoon escape from the hype. But in the summer of 1980,
nobody could touch Ray Leonard. He was young, rich and approachable, and
had all the talent he could handle.
So when Leonard saw Roberto Duran coming towards him, he smiled that
world-seeping-through-his-white-teeth smile and waited for a friendly, or at least
civil, response. Instead Duran, who was once described as cursing better in
English than most Americans, unleashed a ferocious volley of abuse. He then
gave Leonard the finger. “Duran comes around and starts really giving it to Ray
and Juanita, talking about ‘I’m going to kill your husband’ and stuff like that,”
remembered Dundee. “That got to Ray. He couldn’t believe that Duran could be
so crude in front of his wife. He was a family man and father.” Leonard later told
the Los Angeles Times, “He taunted me. He cursed my mother, my children, my
wife. He said unbelievable things and I let them get to me.”
No punches were exchanged but Duran had left his mark. Leonard may have
been a supremely talented boxer, but his antagonist was a streetfighter who
walked around Panama with a 680-pound lion named Walla strapped to his arm
(a present from Rigoberto Paredes, the former head of the Panama racetrack).
Perhaps Leonard was already beginning to wonder whether this fight was a
mistake.
His first choice of opponent had been WBA champion Pipino Cuevas in a
unification match, but this would have left Don King facing “a severe cold in the
wallet,” according to Boxing News. King, an arch-manipulator, contacted WBC
president Jose Sulaiman, who in turn called the Panamanian Government. His
pitch was that Leonard was doing the dirty to a son of Panama and that the WBA
was conniving to allow Cuevas to fight Leonard. The Government then leaned
on the Panama-based WBA, which in turn put the squeeze on its own champion,
Cuevas. Cuevas was suddenly forced to pull out with an “injury” and Duran,
King’s fighter, was back in the picture.
Having originally prepared for the Mexican bomber, Leonard was already in
shape. Indeed some felt Cuevas would have been a more dangerous opponent. In
eight contests at 147 pounds, Duran had scored only four knockouts. “I think a
few boxers lost respect for me,” Duran told Sports Illustrated’s William Nack
before the Montreal showdown. “Some said I lost my ability to punch with
power. But let me tell you something: if a man is born with a good punch, a
change in weight makes no difference.”
The bout was finally signed on April 13, but not without immense backstage
horse-trading. Bob Arum and Don King, who could barely stand the sight of
each other, were forced to form a brief, unholy alliance to co-promote the fight,
sharing the dais for the first time. “It was the first time in history that Arum and
King worked together,” said Eleta. “I brought them to Panama so we could all
work this out.” Arum at the time had twenty fighters on his books, led by Marvin
Hagler, while King had thirteen fighters, with Duran and Larry Holmes at the
top. As if to endorse the encounter and its significance, the New York Boxing
Writers’ Association met in May and selected Sugar Ray Leonard as their 1979
Fighter of the Year, Leonard’s trainer Angelo Dundee as Manager of the Year,
and Duran and Muhammad Ali as their Fighters of the Decade.
By then, Leonard was beginning to get an idea of the man he would face. He
had done his best to respond with a half-hearted “I’ll kill you” when the fighters
met on April 23 at a press conference in the New York Waldorf Astoria, but the
threat sounded not only out of character but hollow. Minutes before, Duran had
held center stage at the podium. He had brought his personal jeweler along for
the ride and was kitted out like a ghetto daddy, with over $37,000 of bling on his
person – not including his expensive clothes. He looked and acted like he owned
the world. In one account of what followed, Duran “cuffed” Leonard after a
scuffle broke out while both men tried on a souvenir boxing glove. “He got into
my head,” said Leonard. “He pissed me off and challenged my head.”
Duran, brilliant in the pre-fight mind games, promised that his contempt for
Leonard was no gimmick. He didn’t hate the American idol so much as what he
stood for. “My father was so happy because that fight represented so much,” said
his son Chavo, who was only six at the time. “It showed all the fans, especially
the people in Panama, the people that know boxing, that he was not just one of
the crowd. My father had many fights but Leonard was very special because he
had won a gold medal at the Olympic Games and was the golden kid in the U.S.
at the time.”
Duran reviled the kid who grew up with a “golden spoon” in his mouth. He
saw Leonard as the product of a privileged childhood. He knew he lacked
Leonard’s telegenic charisma, but he suspected that Leonard lacked the
toughness that one can only earn through battle. He considered the American not
a man but a commodity, a glossy figure enhanced by the media. He wanted to
expose this counterfeit.
Duran might not have been the favorite, but the Canadians took him to their
hearts. To them, there was nothing fake about the man. His outbursts came from
his soul. Duran could mingle with the people without first making sure there was
a camera close by, while Leonard smiled the smile of a stranger who expected to
be the chosen one. While Duran wore a T-shirt that read “BonJour” to woo the
Montreal French, Leonard, who had won his gold medal in Montreal, couldn’t
understand the colder reception he received. “That took me for a loop,” said
Leonard. “I thought that I was the adopted son because of the Olympics and the
exposure. But man, when I got there, went into the ring and they were booing me
and embraced Duran, it threw me for a loop.”
Through the papers, Leonard expressed his concerns, claiming that Duran’s
tough guy act worked in the ring, but “he should leave it there.” It was obvious
that he didn’t know where Duran was coming from. He made the mistake of
treating Duran as a normal human being and expected he would act like one, but
this was not someone who was going to heed advice about acting in a civil
manner. When people spoke of hungry fighters, in Duran’s case it was literally
true.
Every time Leonard reacted to an insult, he was becoming a prop in the
Panamanian’s show. He had never been confronted by an opponent so tactless
and virile, but who still combined malevolence with a touch of charm. Duran
didn’t live by any guidelines. He acted without thought for the repercussions.
His boorishness shocked Leonard because this wildman could back up his
words. One fan encapsulated the phenomenon when he said, “Duran was just
simpler than Leonard.” Duran had made him lose his composure without
throwing a punch. This was no longer a multi-million-dollar sports event; it was
a behind-the-bike-racks fistfight.
Angelo Dundee understood what was happening to his fighter mentally but
couldn’t stop it. Mentally, he had lost Leonard. Dundee and Duran had known
each other since Roberto was a raw young terror at the Fifth Street Gym in
Miami. With his jet-black hair, baby smile and a right hand that would push your
mouthpiece back into your teeth, Duran terrorized sparring partners. “I’ve
known Roberto since he was a youngster and he was one of the sharpest guys
out there,” said Dundee. “He could con you just by giving a look. He used to
psych out a lot of guys before they got into the ring. Just like Ali, he was good at
getting the psychological edge. He was this macho guy, so charismatic, and
overshadowed all these guys by putting on an act for each opponent.” As for Ray
Arcel and Freddie Brown, men he had watched and admired for years, Dundee
came up with the classic line, “Those guys, they’re older than water.”
In the gym, Duran was often pitted against bigger men yet referred to anyone
willing to challenge him as a maricon, or homosexual. He was used to hitting
guys twenty pounds heavier. The ring was his space, where there was no room
for mercy or pity. Stepping through the ropes after a fight to the cold concrete,
his hatred subsided and even Leonard would remark at what a gentleman Duran
was when they squared up for a Sprite commercial with their sons.
At the Fifth Street Gym, Dundee was also privy to his weaknesses. By this
time it was no secret that Duran enjoyed his drink and his women, but when he
faced a serious challenge the bullshit subsided. Inside the Fifth Street Gym,
Duran was pitted against Dundee’s Cuban fighter Douglass Valliant. Valliant had
once challenged Carlos Ortiz for the lightweight title. He was a showman, the
one type of boxer that didn’t agree with Duran. Good fighters emphasizing
angle, speed and movement could frustrate him. “My guy gave Roberto fits in
the ring,” said Dundee. “He was a sticker-mover type guy, a good fighter who
was in the ring with some great champions, and Duran didn’t know what to do
with him.” Surely Leonard would box him the same way.
The fact Canadians supported Duran also baffled the Leonard camp. “Duran
captured the crowd, and they were all pulling for him,” said Dundee. “Never in
my wildest dreams did I think those people would be pulling for Duran. Ray was
a nice kid, good-looking guy, but in certain places they like certain fighters. I
thought we had an edge going in there but they were rooting and hustling for
Duran like they were doing for Ali in Zaire.” Ali had turned an entire country
against George Foreman in Zaire and Duran was building a cult following in
Canada.
While he liked to talk tough, others saw it as something the media overplayed.
For Eleta, the glitch in translation was a bit bothersome. Did Duran really want
to “kill” Leonard? “He didn’t mean anything by it,” said Eleta. “It was taken out
of context by the American fans. Every round, as we say in Spanish and it
doesn’t mean the same in translation, they tried to kill each other. They put
everything they had into that fight.” Leonard responded in kind because he did
not want to be seen to back down. “Duran was very antagonistic and had a bully
mentality,” said Leonard. “He challenged you and if you didn’t stand up, he
knew he had you.”
But Duran wasn’t listening. “Whatever Leonard had to say, I didn’t give a
damn,” he said.
Leonard and Duran needed each other. With every great sports figure comes
another individual able to extract the pockets of bravery on reserve for the
moments that test the will unlike any other. For Ali, it came in the form of a
walking tree trunk named Joe Frazier. There were thousands of other rivals like
Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano, Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta, or
Sandy Saddler and Willie Pep who forced each other to locate such reserves.
Boxing provides the ultimate stage for pre-event hype because the public can
hear every word. It is intense and in-your-face and the boxer can’t back down. In
other sports it is often performed on the field out of earshot. In boxing, the press
conferences allow the frustrations, whether real or contrived, to surface. When
Leonard had his masculinity challenged, he felt the need to respond. Ignoring it
would be akin to being labeled a punk. His problem was that he couldn’t release
the emotions; they followed him to the opening bell. Duran needed hate to brew
in his corner, while Leonard exuded calm awareness. Duran turned his
opponents into voodoo dolls before fights. Leonard could be ruthless and
arrogant but preferred calculation.
“I had seen Duran on a number of occasions, and I was in Las Vegas … and I
think it was the Esteban DeJesus fight,” remembers Leonard. “At the time I was
a professional fighter. I was sitting behind Jackie Gleason, who I loved because I
loved The Honeymooners. I told him that I wanted to fight [Duran]. Gleason
turned around and said, ‘Son, do yourself a favor and don’t even think about it
because he will kill you.’ I stopped watching The Honeymooners. He burst my
bubble man.”
Duran promised war. He had knocked down a horse with a single right hand.
How do you hurt a man so possessed? Sugar Ray thought he had an answer.
With his christian names taken from one of the world’s greatest entertainers, Ray
Charles, and his nickname from the greatest-ever boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson, he
was to many the savior of the sport. That didn’t always make him popular. “Ray
Charles Leonard was a prodigy, and no one in boxing really likes a prodigy,”
wrote one biographer. “For most old-timers, who were made to pay their dues by
even older-timers, approval for young fighters is bestowed reluctantly and in
inverse proportion to the amount of punishment they’ve taken. In this ultimate
school of hard knocks, all natural talent is suspect.”
Despite the belief in some quarters that he had had it easy, growing up in
Wilmington, North Carolina, wasn’t exactly the high life. According to Leonard,
everything the family had “we shared.” As one of seven children born to Cicero
and Getha, he moved to Washington, D.C., when he was four and his mother, a
nursing assistant, and father, who worked in a produce market, put in long hours.
“There was a feeling of inferiority from not having anything,” Leonard told the
New York Times in 1979. “There were never clothes to wear or money for things
as simple as school field trips. Even lunch money was a problem.”
When Leonard won the gold medal in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal with a
victory over Cuba’s Andres Aldama, he seemed destined for riches in every
aspect of his life. His publicity campaign heralded what was to come with boxer
Oscar De La Hoya and Michael Jordan in basketball and he displayed an even
temperament and good manners. In 1979, Leonard took a magnificent boxer in
Wilfred Benitez and stopped him with six seconds remaining in the fifteenth
round. The young fighter proved that he could bang with the world’s best.
Leonard was on the verge of superstardom. He learned from the Benitez bout
that it took more than just great physical attributes to be and beat the best. “It
required psychological warfare and mental stability,” he said. “It required more
heart than you can ever imagine … I mean when the going gets tough and your
lungs are burning, when your arms are tired and they feel like weights, you push
for that hidden reservoir of strength. That’s when I realized it was far more than
being physical or having raw talent.”
In 1980, at twenty-nine years old, Duran was taking on the biggest draw since
Ali. To Duran, every fight was a one-dollar brawl in Chorrillo. Fighting was
survival. Boxing was his only option, while Leonard could have been a success
in anything. The truth about Leonard’s childhood didn’t matter to Duran. He
despised Leonard and his image because in his mind, the American hadn’t
achieved anything. Many years later, on his couch at his home in Cangrejo,
Duran traveled back to the man who brought him to the brink of fame, then
failure. “Leonard was shitting his pants from the fear he had,” Duran said. “I
didn’t like Leonard because he was the pretty boy for the Americans and I didn’t
care less about him. I used to tell myself that I was going to beat the shit out of
that American so he will respect us Latin Americans.”
“Actually there was nothing that could prepare you for Duran,” said Leonard.
“Duran was a fight within itself. Duran was a crazed, talented, technical boxer.
He was a better boxer than people gave him credit for and a devastating puncher
… an extremely good defensive fighter who was very elusive. He was not a
stationary target.”
Leonard had been schooled in the business side of the sport from the day he
met his influential lawyer, Mike Trainer, a University of Maryland law school
graduate. Many boxing journalists and promoters would marvel at his ability to
make wallet-busting deals for his fighter. After Leonard’s post-Olympics college
scholarship at the University of Maryland, Trainer also found him a job at the
school’s Parks and Planning Department. He and twenty associates lent Leonard
$1,000 each to sponsor Sugar Ray Leonard Inc., with Leonard being its sole
stockholder. Having seen a laughable contract sent to Leonard by Don King,
Trainer made a counter offer. “It’s the dumbest document I ever saw in my entire
life,” said Trainer about King’s offer. “So I said to Ray, ‘If you’re really thinking
about doing it and if you really think you can box, why do you want to sell part
of yourself? Why don’t we just set it up like when I went into business? You go
to the bank and borrow some money then pay off your loan and everything is
fine.’”
Within two years of his debut, Leonard was selling both 7-Up and Dr. Pepper
and had a contract with ABC to televise his first six fights. With Trainer behind
him, he was more marketable than any fighter in memory. With brains, good
looks and great skills, the Trainer-Leonard partnership kicked off the creation of
a matinee idol that would exceed anyone’s expectations. However, along the way
many observers believed that Leonard overstretched his boundaries and began to
make champion’s demands before he had paid his dues. No one could deny his
ability, but the image still outshone his performances. “His appeal is that he’s not
a stereotyped boxer,” Trainer told Bert Sugar. “If you go down the street and ask
anybody what a boxer is, most would say, ‘He’s got a cauliflower ear, a nose all
over his face, is missing his front teeth and he can’t speak very well.’ In short,
not very nice people to be around.” Leonard, in contrast, appealed to “the guy up
on the thirtieth floor on Madison Avenue,” according to Trainer. “Forget he’s
black, forget he’s a boxer and remember he’s a personality, he’s intelligent and
he’s never going to embarrass anybody.”
Those words “forget he’s black” would not endear him to his own community
or to the blue-collar crowd that rooted for Duran. Not only did the fans forget he
was black, but the new image overwhelmed not only race but the boxer himself.
Those who thought Trainer was joking when he claimed his fighter would be a
better actor than fighter were mistaken. Leonard was an anomaly, a fighter who
thought before he spoke, cared about what people thought about him and
displayed a keen knowledge of how to play the media. Those qualities
simultaneously made him wealthy and distant.
Duran, on the other hand, had no marketing campaign, acted on impulse,
rarely thought before he spoke, but was uncommonly sensitive when it came to
his family and friends. While Leonard had a say in all of his future opponents,
Duran had no problems with who – or what – was placed in front of him. Eleta
took care of that; Duran just wanted to fight. And while many fighters padded
their records with third-rate opponents, Duran had sixty-nine fights to his name
and sixty-eight wins. The only man to beat him had been savaged twice in
return, making Eleta reiterate, “When Roberto trained like he knew he should, he
was unbeatable.”
Many figured the cornermen on each side would play a significant role in the
outcome. Here was a trio of trainers who had reached the pinnacle of their
profession. Because of his long association with Ali, Dundee was the best-
known cornerman in boxing. Steeped in craftiness and a fine spotter of talent,
Dundee could have been born next to a turnbuckle. In his most glorious
moments, he persuaded a near-blinded Ali, then Cassius Clay, to keep fighting
against Sonny Liston, and had “discovered” – some say exacerbated – a tear in
his fighter’s glove that gave Ali precious moments to recover after being
knocked down by Henry Cooper. In a fight with Marcos Geraldo, Leonard was
hit so hard – either by a headbutt or punch – that he claimed to have seen three
Geraldos. “Hit the one in the middle,” quipped Dundee. Leonard did, and won.
“That fight showed me how strong Ray really was,” said Dundee. “Ray knocked
out a middleweight in that fight.”
Dundee knew how to dissect a fighter. Having worked commentary for several
of Duran’s fights, he knew the Panamanian’s strengths and weaknesses. Looking
back years later, he confirmed he would have loved to have worked Duran’s
corner. “Roberto had so much ammunition,” he said. “I respected the hell out of
him. The guy was a complete fighter.” Yet he questioned Duran’s power at this
level, remarking that Leonard, “my guy,” was the real puncher in this fight.
While Eleta stressed Brown’s value as a babysitter and watchdog in the camp,
he realized early on that Duran needed that extra motivation that Plomo, a close
friend, couldn’t provide. “Arcel was like, how do you say it in English, cabana
boy,” said Duran. “He used to come a couple days before a fight. Plomo and
Brown were always with me.”
Plomo reiterated: “I was with Duran from the very beginning. Arcel would
just show up weeks before the fight.”
Still, as many in Duran’s camp would attest, it wasn’t always easy motivating
Duran. Against Leonard, he motivated himself.
“Gloves, gloves, gloves. You just get bored. Imagine going a month without a
rest. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday – damn, you don’t have the desire to throw punches anymore.
They never give me a day off. I’m taking everything with calmness – at my pace.
Everything is being saved for the day of the fight. If I do things with
ferociousness now, I won’t have any sparring partners,” Duran told Sports
Illustrated.
“What then? I do what my trainers tell me, but I also put in something of my
own. Understand? Sometimes the body wants to work and sometimes it doesn’t.
I have not yet started to throw hard. I should be in much better condition the day
of the fight – not now. On June 20th, I should be double what I am now –
double.”
Despite weight fluctuation and occasionally lax training habits, Duran wasn’t
delusional. Against Zeferino Gonzalez he admitted to looking terrible, and
reportedly he left the ring telling Leonard that next time he would see a different
fighter. “I would stop partying and only train for two or three weeks before a
fight,” said Duran. Leonard, in contrast, found solace amid the punchbags. “I
just loved the conditioning, just one of the guys that loved to be in the gym.”
In Palmer Park in spring 1980, Leonard began training at a hotel exhibition
hall and stayed at the Sheraton Lanham near his home. While some boxers liked
to set themselves away from family, Leonard trained near his loved ones. He
sparred with then middleweight contender and brother Roger as well as cousin
Odell. The daily training sessions began with five miles around the track every
morning. “I’d lose them every time when we got to the hills,” boasted Sugar. To
work on his balance, he took dance lessons with Juanita. Spectators paid $1 to
watch him train, while sparring partners were paid $150 for daily beatings. By
the time Leonard broke camp on June 6, 1980, he had sparred roughly 200
rounds.
Duran arrived in New York on April 13 to begin training at Grossinger’s.
People knew he was serious when he was nowhere to be found on the club
circuit. When his mind was on the job, his training sessions, including a
spectacular rope-jumping routine, could be eerily intense. “And all throughout
the workout, in the ring and on the bag and rope, he emitted strange shrill cries,”
wrote John Schulian. “They were not snorts and grunts many boxers make when
punching. They were oohs and aahs, wailed in a sharp, high-pitched staccato,
like cries of birds, and seemed to strike an emphasis, set a rhythm or express
exuberance.”
Still, the training regimen came with the usual minor crises. “I was running up
a hill with boots and when I stretched out I messed up my back,” said Duran.
“I’m still suffering from that pain today. Eleta sent a doctor from Panama
because he thought I was lying. I couldn’t even sit down. The doctor is
observing me and he would look at me with the corner of his eye, but my back
really hurt. When we go to Montreal, they take me to a clinic and it was the first
time they ever took the pain away with lasers. They take me into an operating
room and there’s a thing that looks like a barrel and they shoot this laser. The
pain is gone, but I ended up feeling very weak. When I started to train very hard,
Leonard and all his people were very afraid.”
Days before the fight, a routine medical indicated that Duran had an irregular
heartbeat and might not be allowed in the ring. The media went into a minor
frenzy of speculation. Duran, who thought the whole thing was a conspiracy, had
to undergo further electrocardiogram tests at Montreal’s Institute of Cardiology
before he was cleared to fight. “Everybody there liked me and I won the public
over when I trained really hard, and I went on the microphone and said, ‘Bonjour
madam, bonjour,’” said Duran. “They all fell in love with me, especially when I
started jumping rope. The Leonard team got scared and wanted to bring the fight
back to New York and made up a story about me having heart conditions. They
said that three of the chambers of my heart were bad and they said that they
pulled two tumors out of my head and that’s how sick I was.”
Despite the suspicion in Duran’s camp, they had to be cautious. “I sent my
own physician down there when I heard about the problem,” said Eleta. “There
was nothing wrong with Roberto. When the doctor looked at him they said he
was strong as a horse.” Ray Arcel, always good for a quote, quipped, “They
took him to the hospital to check out his heart. But everyone knows that Roberto
Duran hasn’t got a heart.”
“His weight fluctuates so much,” said Dundee in a New York Times interview
before the fight. “Who knows what he’s going to be like next year? He gets as
big as a house between fights.” The war of words had begun. Arcel understood
the ramifications of each insult and action but didn’t let it worry his guy. From
the first time he saw the Panamanian against Lloyd Marshall, Arcel was adamant
about not changing his style. It was a sign of his deep knowledge of boxers, of
what worked and what didn’t. Throughout the eight years they’d been side by
side, Duran had gone from a wild puncher to a patient stalker, but Arcel and
Brown had never sought to temper his naked aggression.
“In the past, Duran has developed a dislike for a guy and when that happened,
he really became intent on destroying him and always did,” Arcel told the New
York Times reporter on the day of the fight. “The one thing I fear and dread is if
the ref doesn’t let Duran fight inside. If that happens, Duran won’t be able to
fight his fight. But as long as Duran can fight his fight, he’s going to hit Leonard
and he’s going to drain him … the big question then will be Leonard’s stamina
and endurance after the sixth and seventh round. That’s when Duran gets his
second wind and he’s all over the other guy.” Duran’s camp bemoaned the
choice of Filipino referee Carlos Padilla, who had an undeserved reputation for
not allowing in-fighting.
The universal mantra was that Manos de Piedra could be undone with
movement, hand speed and psychology. “I am not going to be standing still and
letting Duran hit me with right hands,” Leonard told the Washington Post almost
a month before the fight. “I’m going to upset him with my tactics; he’s very
temperamental. I’m going to drive him crazy.”
In Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, known to locals as the “Big O,” the
combatants fought in a twenty-foot ring, which many felt would give Leonard a
decided advantage. The only thing missing that night was the presence of
General and Duran confidante Omar Torrijos. Due to a heart condition, Torrijos
was advised against attending the bout. They would speak by phone immediately
after the fight. Yet, Margarito Duran surfaced again, and told a local Spanish
radio station that his son would win a decision if he wasn’t knocked out in the
first five rounds.
Calculations prior to the fight – which was billed by the French Canadians as
Le Face-a-Face Historique – were mind-boggling. It would be shown on closed-
circuit in the U.S. in over 340 locations. ABC affiliates bought the TV rights for
$500,000 but couldn’t show the fight for twenty-nine days after the fight. Arum
and King sold the live gate for $3.5 million, and if they sold all 77,000 seats, the
Montreal organizers could take in $8.6 million. By June 17, three days away
from the fight there were 23,000 sold and they needed 41,000 buyers to break
even.
Duran would earn $1.65 million for the fight, Leonard nearly $8.5 million,
from a package that included parts of the closed-circuit revenues, upfront money
from the Olympic Installations Board and a lion’s share of the delayed home TV
broadcast rights, as well as sales from the foreign broadcast rights. By eclipsing
the $6.5 million that Ali earned for his 1976 bout with Ken Norton, Leonard was
the highest-paid boxer in history.

IN THE SECOND preliminary bout, lightweight Cleveland Denny took some

heavy punches from Canada’s Gaetan Hart and was carried from the ring, his
body ominously limp. Most of the crowd, however, was unconcerned or
oblivious. They had come for the main event only.
The 46,317 spectators gave Duran a rousing reception as he bounced into the
ring on the toes of his white boxing shoes. He sported lily-white trunks and long
red, white and blue striped athletic socks. They were quieter for Leonard’s
arrival, though his own followers tried to pump up the volume. “Leonard held
his arms aloft, bent at the elbows,” wrote Ralph Wiley in Serenity. “He was
unconvincing. His face betrayed doubts. He was fighting Roberto Duran, and for
the first time, he really didn’t know what might happen. Duran, on the other
hand, seemed all business, jangling his arms to the sound of blood-stirring,
amplified drumbeats.”
In truth, Leonard was overawed. “That fight was so big. It far exceeded the
Benitez fight,” he said. “I was in awe of the whole thing. I recall walking toward
the ring and looking up into the huge screen and I remember thinking that this
was bigger than life. I was like, wow, let’s enjoy this. But Duran was like, ‘I will
kill you.’”
As referee Carlos Padilla gave the instructions, the crafty Ray Arcel stood
with his back to Leonard and pleaded with Padilla not to “take the inside away”
from his fighter; in other words, not to break the clinches too soon. Leonard
shook out his shoulders, looking slight in his build next to Duran. Then it was
time.
From the first bell, Duran attacked, his belligerence matching his speed and
movement. He grabbed the momentum and set the pace. Leonard, for once, was
not in control. As Duran landed combinations and then smothered the champion,
it was obvious that he was honed to a peak and raring to go.
The first big moment came in round two. Duran grazed Leonard with a right,
then landed a left hook to the neck that wobbled him. Leonard was suddenly in a
place he had never been as a pro, and followed his instincts to clinch for dear
life. Pushed against the ropes, his crab-grip was broken by referee Padilla, and
the fight continued, to the roars of the crowd. Leonard was forced to backpedal
to escape further punishment.
“When I hit him with the left hook, he felt it,” said Duran. “I had to
demonstrate that I was smarter, faster, and that I could put up with a lot more
than him. He committed an error. He put too much Vaseline on his body, so that
my punches would slide off him. He would hug me and that’s the mistake he
committed because I could take my hands off him much faster. When he would
tie my hands, my hands would come out much easier to pull out and uppercut
him or hook him because all the Vaseline on his body would drip onto my
gloves.”
Having analyzed Duran mentally and physically for years, Angelo Dundee
knew what was happening. “Duran will throw punches, one, two, three, but then
he’ll put his head in your chest; one, two, three and he’ll try to lock you up with
his left hand. He likes to wave at you with his left hand. That hand-waving
motion throws some guys off their rhythm.” Dundee stared into Sugar’s eyes
before sending him out for the third round. His worst fears were coming true but
there was little he could say or do to help his fighter. Duran was fighting with an
animal intensity and it was all the American could do to stay with him. The first
minute of round three confirmed the worst as Duran blasted in body shots,
banged in a hard uppercut and continued to maul Leonard in close. “He had that
look on his face and it was so surreal,” said Leonard. “I was being transformed
from doing what I normally do. I had no control at that point.”
Midway through the fourth, Duran made the champion cover up again when
he landed a right cross over a feeble jab. Another left hook landed on Leonard’s
throat and a straight right jolted his head. He tried to use Duran’s own tricks
during clinches, hooking his arms, but Duran was too strong. To shouts of
“arriba, arriba, arriba” from his corner, Duran contemptuously spun Leonard
away as the round ended.
Leonard finally unloaded on Duran for the first time with thirty seconds left in
the fifth round. Duran was caught off balance as the hooks came wide and fast,
the pick of the shots being a peach of a left. “Oh, he hurt me to the body for sure
once or twice,” said Leonard. “But I hurt him too, whether he admits it or not.”
Leonard had not wilted and was now clawing his way back – but he was fighting
the wrong fight, slugging it out with Duran instead of jabbing, moving and using
his longer reach.
By the sixth round (some reports had the eighth), Juanita Leonard had fainted
onto her sister’s lap. She came to just as her husband was getting back into the
fight. Duran sneered and shook his head after taking a left but the punch had
hurt. He tried to keep the exchanges close to nullify Leonard’s leverage and
found an ally in Padilla who, conscious of the pre-fight criticism, was slow to
break them. At times it was like a wrestling match as Duran continued to work
over Leonard, capping a barrage at the end of the eight with a solid right that
sank his foe into the ropes.
Duran jammed his head into Leonard’s chin early in the ninth and followed it
by raking his head into his eyes. A concerned Leonard checked his forehead for
blood before Duran surged into him again, hooking off a jab. Leonard fought
back with trademark flurries but Duran pawed at him with that annoying jab,
waiting for the fourth one to deliver an overhand right that caught Sugar flush on
the chin. After nearly half an hour of combat, Leonard still hadn’t learned his
lesson and continued to stand directly in front of his assailant.
Yet Leonard fired back with a stunning overhand right thrown in a downward
motion midway in the tenth round, his best punch of the night. For the remainder
of the round, he speared Duran with body shots and for the first time had
recovered his cocksure nature. He even sent Duran back to his corner at the bell
with a lightning right cross.
Leonard fired out of the corner for the next round and landed yet another
overhand right. It was the cue for a toe-to-toe, blood and guts exchange. For
fully forty-five seconds they clawed, clinched, hooked, raked eyes and
bludgeoned each other at a pace that hadn’t slackened since the first round.
Leonard seemed to be landing the harder shots but Duran drove him into a
corner for more punishment as the round ended. He carried on where he had left
off after the interval, storming forward with the light of battle in his eyes.
As the fighters again returned to their corners between rounds, both had
bumps under their eyes, with Duran’s blackening slightly. Yet Leonard just
couldn’t snatch the momentum. A pattern had developed. Even when Leonard
pot-shotted Duran from distance in the thirteenth, he couldn’t stop the
Panamanian from bouncing off the ropes with a furious return rally. Leonard
returned fire and landed a flurry in the final ten seconds of the round, an eye-
catching tactic that would sneak him rounds throughout his career. Yet even
when Leonard won rounds, it felt like Duran’s show.
On his stool before the start of the fourteenth round, Duran saw Angelo
Dundee point over at him and whisper in Leonard’s ear. Duran responded with a
wave of a glove, urging Leonard to come forward. “Ray was fighting the wrong
fight,” said Dundee. “When he was coming back to the corner, I pleaded with
him to stick and move more. But Duran would get him into a corner and trap
him.”
After a relatively quiet fourteenth round, Padilla brought them together for the
most important three minutes of their boxing lives. Neither fighter could afford
to coast, yet Duran did not charge out as he had for most the fight. He now fired
punches not in combination but individually, as if he owned the fight, content to
make Leonard miss. He must have felt he had the decision in the bag.
As the final bell sounded, Leonard raised his arms, but instead of the
customary embrace Duran spurned him with a shove. “When he went to shake
my hand, I told him to ‘get the hell out of here, you shit. You know you’re shit.’ I
demonstrated to the American public that their idol wasn’t worth five cents,”
said Duran. Was it the best moment of his career? “Of course. He was the man.
He was the greatest thing that America had. He was an idol, a hero. To beat a
hero, I became a bigger hero.”
Duran whirled around the ring like a con released from solitary confinement,
then jumped high in the air. I did it. You, Ray Leonard, are mierda.
Before he headed back to wait for the final decision, Duran remembered
something one of his enemies had said to him. Wilfred Benitez had been
screaming obscentities at him the entire match. He broke free from Ray Arcel’s
arms, pointed at the watching Benitez and grabbed his crotch. His cornerman
picked him up and held him high in the air. Even with a welt purpling under his
left eye, Duran knew there was only one outcome. The half smile on Leonard’s
face suggested he knew too. The judges concurred.
Although the bout was originally scored a split decision in several newspaper
reports the next day, it was later reversed: Judge Harry Gibbs of England had it
145-144 for Duran, Angelo Poletti (Italy) scored it a draw at 147-all, and
Raymond Baldeyrou (France) had Duran 146-144. Poletti came under
considerable scrutiny after it was learned that he scored ten rounds even.
Leonard knew it was extremely close but he also knew “just by the ambience
of the evening” that the decision would not go his way. Duran had called out
Leonard in front of La Casa de Piedra, and had won. “Eleta gave me about a
million to fight Leonard but I just went and fought,” said Duran. “That’s all I
ever did. People even said that Leonard was made by the television. I made
myself by myself inside the ring. That’s why Leonard was afraid.”
Duran later unbuckled his WBC belt, a green plastic affair made by Adidas,
and handed it to gnarled old Freddie Brown. “Es tuya, te la has ganado.” “This is
yours. I won this for you.”
In Panama, a party began. In Guarare, a whole town rejoiced.
Throughout the bout, Clara Samaniego had closed her eyes, wished away the
brujos, clung to her faith like a child’s blanket and waited for the result. She sat
with a reporter from La Critica and her daughter in the home her son had bought
for her in the Los Andes neighborhood, clutching a mini-crucifix and a bible
called “El Magnifico.” Tears streamed down her face as she heard the verdict. “I
asked the Virgin del Carmen to help him because my son is good,” she said. “I
remember when Roberto brought me $1.50 so that we could eat. It was a tough
life. When I looked sad, Roberto would come to me and say, ‘Mama don’t you
worry. When I am big, you’re going to see that everything will change.’”
Leonard conceded to Panamanian journalist Juan Carlos Tapia the next
morning at breakfast, in the company of Dundee, Arum and Elias Cordoba of the
WBA that “Duran made me react like a man. Next time would be different.”
Tapia believed that while Leonard knew he could win, Duran knew he would
win. “After Leonard came back from the hospital, he told me that he lost the
fight because he wanted to be more of a man than Duran,” said Tapia.
Most other observers agreed. “Duran was a classic example of the importance
of thinking in boxing,” said boxing sage and acclaimed author Budd Schulberg.
“I covered the first Leonard fight and Leonard was a great fighter who was in
there fighting Duran’s fight, punching with him. He was doing everything
wrong.”
A photo in Sports Illustrated encompassed the mood of adulation, jubilation
and reward. Stuck in between Duran’s thumb, middle and index fingers, a wad of
thick bills stood straight up as a wave of followers surrounded him at the press
conference. Felicidad’s face was partially cut by the perforated edge of the
photo, but her eyes were nestled somewhere in her lover’s slicked back hair. The
couple had not yet married, but Duran had finally earned the respect of her
family. She supported her future husband and understood a wife’s role in the
process. Felicidad knew when to stay away before a fight and when to intervene
in Roberto’s business.
“She came to almost all of the fights,” said Plomo. “She would always come
by the end, when there was only one week left. She was a very nervous person.
She used to sit on the last row, for she did not like to watch the fight. Once she
realized he had won the fight, she would return. She was a very nervous person,
and preferred not to be present when he was fighting. She used to remain at the
gym until the moment they would announce the fight was about to start. Then
she would leave without watching the fight itself.”
No doubt money would be spent recklessly in the coming hours, but the
shirtless Duran was free, secure and wealthy. Leonard mourned in a grey and red
Franklin warm-up, still a doe-eyed kid with his wife resting her head on his
shoulder. Around him, his handlers talked prematurely about retirement.
“One Mother, One Tear, One Champion,” ran the headline in La Critica the
next day.
Sixteen days later, Cleveland Denny, who had never recovered from being
knocked unconscious on the undercard, died in hospital. He was twenty-four
years old.
 14

“No Peleo”

“Anyone told me Duran would quit, I’d spit in his eye.”

Ray Arcel, aged eighty-one

RAY LEONARD FIGURED it out while he was running on a beach in Hawaii.

Pounding over the strip of soft sand between lapping waves and palm trees, he
arranged his thoughts and came to terms with defeat.
Instead of heading home to heal after the Montreal war, Leonard had taken his
family on vacation to Hawaii for two weeks’ thinking time. He took inventory of
his life. So much had happened before, during and after the fight that he needed
to let it all soak in. Only then would he make the decisions that mattered most.
His family “was devastated,” he said. “My wife fainted. No one has ever seen
me get hit like that or lose, so it was very traumatic. If you go back and watch
the tapes you see people crying. My sister … they were all devastated.”
As his feet sank into the sand on his morning run, confusion, self-doubt and
anger turned to burning desire. Duran had beaten him, insulted his wife, derided
his masculinity, dashed his aura of invincibility and battered his ego. Yet
Leonard had also emerged stronger. By brawling with Duran, by going into the
pit with him, Leonard had become not just a boxer but a fighter. He had satiated
many who feared that he couldn’t take it. “They saw that I wasn’t just another
network or Wide World of Sports figurine,” he said. “I was legit, and I could
fight. I could give back as well as I could take it.”
Before the fight, Duran had asked a reporter, what is a kid born yesterday
going to teach me? But it was more about what Leonard had learned from
Duran. He had learned that he couldn’t allow another fighter to intimidate or
anger him before a fight, and that he couldn’t beat a streetfighter in a slugfest.
Hawaii allowed Leonard to face reality. He returned from his vacation set on
revenge – but on his own terms.
“When I was running on the beach in Hawaii everyone was telling me, ‘Man,
that fight was close. Man, if you fight him the other way you’ll beat him.’ I got
such support from fans that I told Mike [Trainer], ‘Let’s go back and fight him.
Now, right away.’”
On June 24, meanwhile, the new welterweight champion had landed in
Panama to an estimated 700,000 fans jostling for a glimpse of him. It was
declared Roberto Duran Day in Panama. “I want you to know this,” he told the
crowd, pointing to his championship belt. “This does not really belong to me, but
belongs to you, my people, my people who supported me and whom I love.” The
crowd, misunderstanding where he was pointing, burst into laughter. “The
Panamanian public always thinks the wrong thing. I grab the belt and say, this
that is hanging here is for you guys,” said Duran. “I’m talking about the belt, and
the Panamanians thought I was talking about a little further ‘down south.’ And
after a while it became a big joke.”
Fittingly, given how he would celebrate over the next few weeks, a new beer,
Manos De Piedra, was brewed in his honor. No more dropping horses in Guarare
to pay for liquor tabs, or shining lawyers’ shoes for pittance; now he had the
money to buy the bar and the horse. Young, handsome and draped in the Armani
that he and Chaflan used to admire in store windows, Duran had everything he
could have dreamed of. With months of hard training and abstinence behind him,
he embarked on an unending party, surrounded by a mass of sponging friends
and family.
Duran went back to New York to continue the party with his friends Abuela
Lopez and Chivo Sagur. “Duran took them both to New York together with his
own wife after he won in June,” said Plomo. “They remained there until
September, and they would go out a lot together. He confessed having spent
about $100,000 during that time in New York. He would pay for all the
expenses.”
Carlos Eleta, whose grip on his boxer had inevitably loosened as he became
older, wealthier and more independent, faced a crucial decision. An
extraordinarily lucrative offer was on the table for an immediate rematch with
Leonard. Should he take it? The rich landowner worried about his fighter’s
lifestyle. The way Duran was running off the rails it was not impossible that he
could lose his next fight even if they selected a patsy.
Ever since the day Eleta had caught Duran stealing coconuts in his backyard,
he had felt a bond with the young tearaway. They had made millions together
and their business relationship had turned into a familial closeness. But money
had also evened the playing field and gave Duran freedom – or license. It was
perhaps a sign of how Eleta’s control was slipping that he felt compelled to tie
up a rematch with Leonard quickly, before Duran self-destructed; for he already
suspected he could do little to stop him. “I made that rematch in three months
because he started drinking,” said Eleta. “I said if he will fight again, he would
lose to a second-rate fighter.”
To this day, people are critical of Eleta’s decision. “I was surprised that he
made the rematch that quickly,” said Luis DeCubas, who would manage Duran
towards the end of his career. “If you know you have a fighter who’s going to
celebrate for a while, then wait to make a rematch.” It was a decision that would
come to haunt both fighter and manager. Angelo Dundee, however, knew that
money was the most powerful incentive in boxing. “No, it wasn’t a surprise at
all,” he said. “What the heck, the fight was meant to be.” By August,
negotiations were underway, and the figures being suggested were mind-
boggling: Duran was expected to make around $10 million and Leonard $7
million as pay-per-view TV continued to cause massive inflation in fighters’
purses. For Leonard, the rematch was inevitable. “It’s all about bragging rights,”
he said. “To prove that you’re the best you fight the best. Even if you have to
fight him again to prove it wasn’t a fluke. I knew the history of Duran and that’s
why I asked for the rematch so soon because I knew he was in a celebratory
mode. I caught him in the middle of that. This all goes back to tactics.”
Judging by the mass of backslappers and party people surrounding him, Duran
had no intention of staying in shape, or of fighting again any time soon. “I got
back to Panama and I felt like the king of the world,” he said. “I start drinking
and get fat, I am with women up and down. I go to New York and it’s the same
thing there. I get up to two hundred and twenty-five pounds. Eleta should have
never taken that fight that soon. He should have given me time to prepare
myself. They said that they offered Eleta ten million dollars to accept the fight,
but the truth is that I don’t know how much they gave him.”
The rematch was officially signed by early September and scheduled for
November 25, 1980 in the vast New Orleans Superdome. Duran started training
late and had only about two months to lose what he claimed was seventy-eight
pounds, though other reports claimed it was more likely that he had to reduce
from 185 pounds rather than 225. Certainly he looked decidedly pudgy when he
sat at ringside for the pitiful Larry Holmes-Muhammad Ali title fight in Vegas
on October 2, a travesty which saw the most famous and charismatic sportsman
on the planet reduced to a stumbling punchbag. As soon as the beaten Ali’s
retirement was announced, the Panamanian leapt into the press bench shouting in
Spanish, “Now I’m the Greatest!” He was egged on by Latin commentators, who
reached their microphones towards him, but others were embarrassed by his
display and he was eventually asked, politely, to sit. Duran was reported as
“flabby, scaling at least middleweight” by Boxing News editor Harry Mullan. Yet
at that moment in boxing history, he was indeed the greatest.
His preparation, in Miami Beach, continued badly and from the moment he
and his posse eventually arrived in New Orleans, Eleta felt he could lose. “He
committed so many mistakes in training without anybody knowing,” said the
white-haired patrician years later. “I took him to New Orleans in plenty of time.
They say he drank beer and ate too much. There were all these manzanillos
hanging around. I told him to get all these people out of here but he said they
were his friends and he needed them around. Some of them were mixed up in
drugs. Some claimed Roberto was also, but I don’t think so.
“His friends were bringing him food late at night. Ray Arcel came to me and
said, ‘Carlos, something is wrong. I am training Roberto and he is not losing the
weight. He’s gaining weight.’ I find out that someone in Panama, they call him
Abuela, was taking food to his room, beer and this and that. He was telling
Duran that the handlers don’t know what they are doing. Fifteen days before the
fight he was twenty pounds over the weight. Arcel told me that I had to postpone
the fight but when I told my friend the promoter, he told me it was impossible
because he put a lot of money into that fight. I made him sign a contract where
he has to put all the money fifteen days before the fight in Panama. When Duran
entered the ring, that money came to us. I saved his purse in that fight.
“That’s why I made the rematch with Leonard in a couple months. Roberto
was out of control. I said if I don’t go and sign that fight he will go and lose with
nobody. I tried to put everybody out, but he said, ‘I need these people. They are
my people of Panama and I need those people to surround me.’ That was the
worst thing that he could do. When you have forty or fifty people surrounding
your fighter, to sleep with him, eat with him, talk to him and train, it’s
impossible. After Montreal, he wouldn’t listen to Brown, Arcel or myself, he
was on top of the world.”
Things were not all well in the Leonard camp either. His long-time trainer
Dave Jacobs quit after complaining that Leonard should have fought a tune-up
bout first. “That sort of fight takes its toll on your body,” Jacobs said, referring to
the grueling brawl in Montreal. “You need a tune-up to get the timing back. I
love Sugar Ray but I don’t think it’s healthy for him to be fighting Duran right
away.” An indifferent Leonard shrugged off the split.
The Canadian tax department also weighed in with a claim for $2 million
from Leonard’s purse for the first fight. The Olympic Installations Board, who
organized the fight, had claimed they had been given an exemption from federal
taxes, but the Government begged to differ. The Board reported a loss of
$900,000 on the promotion when everyone else involved made a massive profit.
Despite this, Angelo Dundee knew his man was focused as never before. “I was
very pleased with the way Ray prepared for that fight,” said Dundee. “I told him
not to let this guy psych him out. He was mad enough about the abuse Duran
gave to his wife and he used it as motivation.”
Duran did his best to play the part expected of him. “You’re going to see
blood in this fight,” he told a New York press conference attended by both
boxers three weeks before the event. “I don’t like to see clowns in the ring. I like
to see boxers. To beat me, you have to come into the ring and fight me. He goes
into the ring and tries to imitate Ali, but an imitator is a loser.” He then pushed
his face close to Leonard’s and said, “I’m going to knock you out. I don’t like
you.” Leonard kept his cool, praising Duran’s strength, toughness and
intelligence and predicting only that it would be a great fight. A few days later, at
another presser in New Orleans, he even joked, “He’s a lovable guy. I want my
son to be just like him.”
The Panamanian reporters who made the trip to New Orleans could read
Duran better than anybody. They also reported that Flacco Bala had been
dancing with young girls from Leonard’s camp. That only added to the intrigue.
“Two foreign girls (who had been with Flacco Bala) arrived at Duran’s suite the
morning before the confrontation,” wrote journalist Ricardo Borbua. “And it
made us think and suspect that many disturbing things had passed before the
fight because Duran either was not in optimal point of his physical conditioning
or he had been traveling New Orleans in a bad state and little preparation. To say
to the contrary would be dishonest.”
With three days to go, the New York Times reported that only about 15,000
tickets had been sold in the 80,000-seat stadium. King sold the fight package to
the Hyatt for $17.5 million and held the Latin American rights with Neil Gunn
from Facility Enterprises. Ringside seats ranged from $500 to $1,000 apiece,
while prices for the 345 closed-circuit theaters went from $35-$50. Not only had
the promotional activities got a late start but also the bout would fall on
Thanksgiving weekend, a very busy time to travel. Many fans decided the trip
was not worth the hassle. Also ABC had reserved the rights to show the fight
thirty days after the bout, leaving some to wait for the replay. While the first
Montreal fight amassed close to $30 million, the rematch remained a chilly sell.
Duran’s paternal grandmother, Clara, came to New Orleans and put a crucifix
around Duran’s neck for protection the day of the fight. He would need more
that that.
IT MAY BE the most notorious pre-fight meal in history. At 1 p.m. the day of
the fight, having made the weight, Duran gorged. The exact combination of
foods, and the amounts, would be debated for years to come. Newspapers
differed on the quantities but each agreed it included a warm and cold cycle of
steak and orange juice. Steak was one food that made boxers feel as strong as a
bull; they could piss nails after a protein-packed meal. Duran wolfed his as
though back in a Chorrillo cantina scavenging leftovers.
Angelo Dundee had been secretly delighted to see Duran gulp down a beef
broth as soon as he stepped off the scale at the weigh-in, a sure sign that he had
gone through hell to lose weight. According to various reports, Duran then
consumed two eggs, grits, peaches, toast, an orange, two T-bone steaks, peas,
French fries and fried chicken. He rounded off the meal with beef consommé,
hot tea, water, Kool-Aid and four large glasses of orange juice.
“I had a steak and a baked potato,” recounted Duran. “You know, boxer’s
food. I think the major problem was drinking the hot cup of tea, then the cold
glass of water, plus the shots I was given to lose the weight fast. I drank a real
hot cup of hot tea because I was very thirsty. But I committed an error because I
then drank a real cold glass of water. That’s when the pain felt even worse. And
then I started to eat too much because I was dying; I was starving. I felt very
weak, and my stomach was hurting me.” The mysterious weight-losing shots
were probably diuretics. “Everybody inside my dressing room, including Eleta,
all knew what was wrong. But my mindset … I thought the doctor was going to
give me a shot to make me strong, but he didn’t do anything.”
Plomo, Duran’s longtime trainer, could read all the angles. They had met
when Duran was a child and Plomo had watched intently as the fighter
gravitated from small-town hero to universal icon. “Duran was acting like a
bohemian,” he said. “He would sleep all day and party all night. Duran got up to
190 and had to get back down to 147. He ate three steaks and had five glasses of
orange juice. Before the fight he complained about stomach pains to me. His
stomach was stretching out.”
Leonard, for the record, ate two eggs and grits, two pieces of toast, peaches
and Kool-Aid for breakfast, then fried chicken, green peas, a glass of water and
Kool-Aid for his pre-fight meal. Before the bout, Duran saw him jogging around
the Superdome to warm up and thought he looked drawn. “I told myself that I
was going to kill him,” said Duran. But suddenly he felt even worse than
Leonard had looked. “I start shadowboxing in the dressing room and Plomo
comes in and I tell him that my liver was starting to hurt.” His quick-fix training
regime had taken its toll.
 In fact when Leonard entered the ring he looked anything but weak. Wearing
black trunks, shoes and socks for the first time in his professional career, he was
making a statement: Now I’m the badass. “Even before the fight started and the
referee was giving instructions, Duran was in La-La Land like I was the first
fight,” said Leonard. “During the referee’s instructions, in the first fight I’m
looking up at the screen and all around and Duran is looking at me like, ‘Man
I’m going to tear you up.’ In the second fight, I’m just calm and Duran is in a
whole other world. It was a different ballgame.”
“I got this feeling when Ray Charles came out to sing, it was right up Sugar
Ray’s alley,” said Duran publicist Bobby Goodman. “And I got an eerie, chilly
feeling because it was one of the most stirring pieces before a sporting event that
I’d ever heard. I just got goosebumps when Ray did it. It set the tone for the
evening.”

THE NIGHT HAD arrived. Ray Charles, after whom Leonard was named, chose
to sing not the National Anthem but a highly charged rendition of “America The
Beautiful.” He then hugged his namesake and whispered encouragement in his
ear. “If that rendition didn’t touch, didn’t move, didn’t cause a chill along your
spine,” said Howard Cosell, “I don’t suppose anything could.”
For a man who put faith in the brujos, the vibe that night in New Orleans had
to concern Duran. There wasn’t that animalistic anxiety present that had Duran
jumping out of his skin in Montreal; he was listless, appearing almost sedated
during the now-customary staredown.
As the two boxers moved together at the opening bell, Duran held out his
glove for a respectful tap. Leonard, all business, ignored him. It was a clear
reversal of their expected roles. Leonard danced like a young Ali as Duran held
the center of the ring. He flitted from side to side, refusing to let the Panamanian
crowd him. Inside he played to his own jazz tune as he juked and jived in and
out. Duran was baited and then nailed at the bell with a straight right to end the
first round.
It was still early as Leonard uncoiled a right hand that stunned Duran, and sent
him into a brief frenzy a minute into the second round. Duran charged and flailed
at his nemesis against the ropes and walked into another Leonard right hand.
Duran was landing also but the punches that stung Leonard in Montreal now
lacked bite. At the round’s end, Leonard sat in his corner admiring his work. For
the first time in seventeen rounds against Duran, he looked content.
If Duran’s mind seemed elsewhere, he wasn’t hurt. He even managed to
control the tempo and win the third with a late two-punch flurry to make up for a
left hook that jarred him. But the more Ray Arcel cajoled his fighter to “be the
boss,” the less he complied. Neither fighter was throwing much leather as the
challenger stuck to his safety-first plan of lateral movement and Duran seemed
content to stalk – or plod – rather than charge. Leonard found openings for his
uppercut to take the fourth, but in the fifth Duran continued to press, slipped
punches and pinned Leonard for the first time. Both men had their moments,
with Duran landing a clean left-right combination in a round that he won.
Leonard continued to move laterally at speed, and landed a left-right that
shook Duran in the sixth round. Looking frustrated, Duran could only stand in
the middle of the ring and follow, his jab now harmless.
The climax of Leonard’s strategy came in the seventh round. After continuing
to dance for the first minute or so, the Sugar Show began halfway through the
round. He teed off on a flailing Duran with a startlingly fast five-punch
combination while his back was to the ropes, and nearly repeated the same
machine-gun flurry seconds later. He then came down onto his heels and went
into an extraordinary exhibition. Leonard stuck his face out, baited Duran with
an ‘Ali shuffle’, shrugged his shoulders like a body-popper and made Duran
miss twelve punches in a row. As a display of public mockery it was both
embarrassing and wondrous to watch, but not everyone was enamored. Even
Howard Cosell, a big Sugar Ray booster, commented: “Leonard is showing his
confidence but he is doing it in the wrong way.”
With twenty-five seconds left in the round, Leonard stood in the middle of the
ring and playfully wound up his right hand. Duran went for him with a jab, but
Leonard then beat him to the punch with a snapping left. Spectators gasped. That
audacious punch would become a metaphor for the whole fight. At the bell,
Duran angrily and dismissively waved his glove at Leonard. Had he already
given up?
It was the most significant round in both men’s lives to that point.
Heading into the eighth, the judges had Leonard winning by gaps of only one
or two points. Judge James Brimmel of Wales had it 67-66, while Britain’s Mike
Jacobs and Belgium’s Jean Deswert scored it 68-66. The rounds were 4-2-1
twice and 4-3. It wasn’t unusual for there to be disparity between the media and
the officials, but Brimmel’s score seemed way off the mark to most reporters.
Leonard was fighting his fight, while Duran couldn’t seem to get untracked.
Leonard performed his masterclass on top of a bum canvas, complaining and
pointing from the first round on about a soft spot in the ring. Supporting bolts
underneath the canvas had snapped, causing it to drop a few inches. “Rather than
stop the fight at that point, I told all the guards from local colleges underneath to
hold the ring,” said Goodman. “It just seemed that night that everything went
wrong.”
For the first half of round eight, Leonard barely threw a punch as he moved
around the ring, sneaking the odd single shot past Duran’s guard. A spectator
entering the arena at that point would have been unable to tell who was winning
– neither was marked, neither was hurt and neither seemed dominant. But Duran
seemed to have lost interest completely.
Leonard continued to sneak in punches, a left and short right to Duran’s jaw.
Seconds before the stoppage a befuddled Duran speared Leonard into the ropes
with his head. With thirty seconds left Duran pawed at Leonard. Despite not
taking much punishment, Duran put up his right fist to signal enough. Leonard
saw Duran’s guard down and hit him with a two-punch combination to the body
that didn’t seem to affect Duran before referee Octavio Meyran stepped between
them. Duran turned his back on them both.
The bemused referee urged him to continue.
“Pelea, pelea.” Box, box.
Duran walked away and raised and waved his glove again, a sign of surrender.
He then looked back towards Leonard, who had moved away to the other side of
the ring, and gestured towards him as if simulating masturbation. Leonard,
unable to understand Spanish and suspecting a trick to lure him in, came over
with his fists up, ready to continue. With twenty-three seconds left in the round,
Meyran made a karate-chopping motion to urge the fighters to come together
and resume. Instead he received another shake of the right fist from Duran.
“No quiero pelear con el payaso,” said Duran. I do not want to fight with this
clown. According to Meyran, Duran also said in broken English, “I don’t box
anymore.”
“When I asked why,” the referee said later, “Duran said, ‘No más, no más.’”
Then Leonard heard his brother, Roger, yelling, “He quit on you Ray. He
quit.” Leonard ran and jumped on a ringpost and applauded himself. Roger
stormed into the ring and went to punch Duran in the face; the fighter put his
fists up and stepped back.
As Duran’s cornermen climbed onto the ring apron, Hands of Stone trudged
toward them. The venerable Arcel and Brown, men who had seen everything,
were as stunned as the thousands of Panamanians who had bet their paychecks
on Duran. “I almost fainted,” Arcel told Ring magazine. “I thought maybe he
broke his arm or something. I don’t have the vocabulary to explain it. All I know
is I’m quitting boxing. After sixty-three years, and now this? I’ve had enough. I
have never seen anything like this. A big fight like this, and all the money.”
Somewhere Duran’s mother, Clara Samaniego, lit a candle and prayed for her
son. No one was listening anymore.

OUTSIDE THE RING, confusion reigned. “We didn’t know what happened,”
said ringside reporter Bert Sugar. “The referee didn’t know what was happening.
It didn’t calibrate. They said he was quitting and someone next to me said,
‘Bullshit.’ I didn’t hear ‘no más’ but I saw him go like that [wave his glove].
Leonard hit him with a bodacious uppercut to the body and he didn’t blink. And
they’re going to tell me it’s stomach pains? He wasn’t even looking at Leonard.”
Steve Farhood was sitting a few seats away from Bert Sugar. “The New York
Times business bureau had a function for the fortieth anniversary of JFK’s death.
They had great guests who were all in Dallas the day of Kennedy’s death. One of
them was talking about how he never [before] saw a rumor literally move
through a room,” said Farhood. “And you don’t know what the rumor is, but you
can see it turning. It was the same in New Orleans, except we saw it actually
happen but we didn’t believe it happened. I remember a head turning to me and
saying something and me turning my head to the right to tell someone else. And
we were all looking for confirmation that we just saw what we saw.”
The simple, awful truth was that Duran had broken the unwritten contract he
made the day he stepped in the boxing ring: To punch till the end. There was no
need for translation, he had surrendered, demolishing the Latin notion of valor
that he had helped build. Speculation raged as everyone in the arena searched for
an explanation. Some were already starting to call Duran a coward, a fake, a
phony.
One person had a closer view than anyone else. “He was in total frustration,”
said Ray Leonard. “It was like going to work and you can’t get your car started.
Then there’s traffic and it’s like, what do I do now?”
As Duran sat with his handlers and answered questions about the stoppage, his
eyes drooped, but veteran TV broadcaster Howard Cosell let him down easy,
unwilling to apply the knockout punch. Duran immediately retired, “No peleo
más,” and told Cosell that he would never fight again. Even at that point, too
many pieces didn’t fit. Duran didn’t have any clue as to how the boxing world,
his people, the fans who snuck into training sessions to see him, would react.
Draped in superficial manzanillo flattery, the people who claimed to be his true
friends had already vanished. “I think when he quit, he didn’t realize the
repercussions it would have on the world, his legacy,” Leonard said.
Cosell, however, had already been instrumental in creating the central myth of
the fight, with two words that will dog Duran for the rest of his life. The words
had come out of Duran’s mouth as, “I will not fight with this clown anymore.”
While broadcasting the fight, Cosell picked up only on the words “no más” and
the phrase would live in sporting infamy. Referee Meyran also said he heard
those two fateful words.
Carlos Eleta, however, insists they were never spoken. “I was right there and
he never said no más,” said Eleta. “Leonard was dancing around and making fun
of him, mocking him. No, he just said he wasn’t going to fight with this clown
anymore. Leonard was circling in and trying to tire him because he knew Duran
wasn’t in good shape. Then Duran got mad and said, ‘He’s running, I’m not
fighting with this clown.’ I ran up to the ring and said, ‘You have to fight.’ It was
too late.”
Others ringsiders tried to reason with the seeming aberration.
“I was right there sitting with Eleta. Eleta kept a score of the fight on a yellow
piece of paper,” said Hall-of-Fame boxing historian Hank Kaplan. “We were
both completely shocked. He didn’t say anything to me. He just jumped up to the
ring. I couldn’t figure out why he turned his back. But I know he was in lousy
shape and he depended on voodoo. He hired witchdoctors and he would bring
chickens up to his room and slit their throats in the bathtub. You know that
santeria stuff. He hired some guys from Latin America to do voodoo. He didn’t
train and when he did it was just to amuse his followers. He was disrespectful to
Freddie Brown and only concerned with making his friends laugh. He thought he
was invincible.”
Payaso, or clown, was the Spanish word that Duran used to describe any
opponent who refused to mix it with him. Duran curses in a cool Spanish argot
that makes words like maricon and puta slither off his tongue: Maaa-rrr—eeee-
cahone. Even watching a replay of the fight twenty years later in his home, the
word buzzed off his lips. He would claim that Leonard didn’t want to fight and
he didn’t want to chase him. It was hardly a good enough reason to quit in one of
the biggest fights of all time, at least not on its own.
It was later reported that Duran had told Plomo in Spanish about stomach
pains around the fifth round, the suggestion being that the message wasn’t
passed on to Arcel. It was an unlikely story that Duran would refute. They had
never had much trouble with the language barrier in the corner. “I didn’t say
anything to my cornermen,” said Duran. “When I stopped the fight, Eleta jumps
up into the ring and says, ‘Cholo, what happened?’ I tell him that ‘my stomach
hurts, man. I got a pain right here, I feel really bad, I can’t continue.’ I told Eleta
to just give me the rematch and I’ll train better. I could have finished that round
and not come out to fight. But I didn’t want that, I wanted to end it right there. I
couldn’t move anymore. Every time I moved it was really difficult to breathe and
I felt really weak.”
It was apparently Freddie Brown who made up a story about stomach cramps.
“He said he had a stomach ache,” Brown told reporters. “I said, ‘So what, youse
get over it, get out and fight.’”
Said Leonard, “You couldn’t fathom any fighter quitting, but Duran? No, how
could you imagine that? That’s a sensationalized dream. Duran quitting, no
way.” Leonard had made the bravest of men walk away. Before their first fight,
he had promised to “upset Duran with my tactics; he’s very temperamental. I’m
going to drive him crazy.” In their second fight, he made good.
Did the controversial ending detract from Leonard’s superb performance?
“No, it didn’t,” said Angelo Dundee. “They say he quit, but Duran was being
knocked out by Leonard. He was this macho man. He couldn’t take being
kayoed. Ray was hitting him with tremendous shots to the body. You don’t take
those types of shots and survive. And I resent that people say that Duran was a
quitter. Ray changed and Roberto couldn’t cope with it. He was so much better
this time around. Ray wanted it so bad he could taste it.”
Not everyone, however, admired Leonard’s antics. Thomas Hearns, sitting
ringside, said how disappointed he was to see Leonard resort to taunting. And
the formidable Iran Barkley would later say, “One thing I have to say about
Duran is that when he went to fight, Leonard wouldn’t fight him. And Duran
always said Leonard was a faggot or puta in Spanish cause he wouldn’t fight.”
Eleta hadn’t had the time to invent any feeble excuses. “If I knew that would
happen,” he said, “I would have told Ray [Arcel] to say something was wrong
with his hand.” Still, he tried his best to divert the criticism. First, he put an end
to a party back at Duran’s hotel. On the eighteenth floor of the Hyatt Regency in
Room Number 1843, a gaggle of hangers-on were soon drinking and carousing
with Duran. Journalist Ricardo Borbua wrote that the people yelled, “In the good
times and the bad.” He saw Duran singing and playing the juiro.
“He was with his friends, all these colonels from Panama, drinking, dancing,”
recalled Minito Navarro, a radio presenter and friend of the boxer. “They had no
shame.” Stephanie Arcel, looking for her husband, walked in on Roberto and
Felicidad singing a duet. “You’d think he won the fight,” said a despondent
Freddie Brown. It was only when Eleta barged into the room to find Duran
drinking too that the party broke up.
“It hurt me more when I went back to the hotel and there was a fiesta,” said a
frustrated Eleta two decades later. “After that I sent everybody out. I took him to
the hospital.” In the car with Papa Eleta, Duran began to cry. He realized what he
had done.
Eleta still insists that the medical staff confirmed that Duran’s stomach cramps
were genuine and were the result of over-eating. Certainly Dr Orlando Nunez,
after seeing the fighter, reported that he suffered from acute abdominal pains and
would have fainted if he kept fighting. Nunez was Duran’s special physician, and
also claimed in a TV interview that Duran never took or was prescribed
diuretics. Two other physicians looked at him. The Louisiana Athletic
Commission had Dr A.J. Italiano test Duran for possible symptoms that would
have forced a stoppage. Italiano said the stomach pains could have come from
overeating during the afternoon hours before the fight. Dr Jack Ruli, who
checked out Duran from the Southern Baptist Hospital at 3 a.m. the morning of
the fight, said that he was “fine,” but did admit a possible inflammation of the
stomach.
Shep Pleasants was at the time the Vice-President for Development and Public
Affairs for the hospital. He said Duran entered with an entourage and was taken
to a $255-a-night suite on the fifth floor. “I didn’t know Duran was in the
hospital until I arrived the next day for my shift,” recalled Pleasants. “I was
deluged with calls from the media, friends, family. The phone was ringing off
the hook. I just told everyone that he was fine. The one call that I remember
vividly was from Duran’s father in Arizona. I told him his son was fine and I
thought to myself why Duran hadn’t called his father himself.
“When I walked in, he had his whole entourage surrounding him. He was
bright as a bullet. There was no distress hovering over the man. I said, ‘Buenos
dias, campeon,’ but nothing more. He was sitting on the bed and he wasn’t in
hospital garb. At that time the sucker was fine, but I … if he had had a gastric
problem, it could have been gone by the time I saw him. I think he went to the
hospital as a public relations move. And most everyone in the hospital and the
town figured that out. You can’t just quit a fight and head back to the hotel and
then decide to come to the hospital.”
It was widely circulated among Panama reporters that Duran had told his
closest confidantes at the Hyatt that there was no validity to the story about the
stomach ache. “There was nothing wrong with him and the proof of that, he goes
to celebrate with his friends in his hotel room,” said journalist Juan Carlos Tapia.
“Eleta arrives to go to hospital to justify that there would not be a more serious
problem. But Duran didn’t have anything wrong. There were no stomach
cramps. He was simply not prepared for that fight. Leonard was beating him bad
and Duran said that nobody will knock me out.”
Of all the things that Duran lost that evening, from pride to the respect of his
fans, he was able to keep his purse. As long as the opening bell rang and Duran
entered the ring, his money was safe. By getting the money paid in a letter of
credit, Eleta ensured that Duran would receive his share. It was that share that
the Louisiana Ordinance Commission felt they were owed due to the “dishonest
act.”
Don King publicist Bobby Goodman went back to a meeting with the
Louisiana Commission to clarify the terms of the agreement made before the
fight even started. “The commission wanted to hold up his purse. I had to run
back for a meeting with the commission and I told them that the purse was
already paid in a letter of credit,” said Goodman. “And the condition of the letter
of credit was that we had to show them a newspaper article that the fight had
happened. And it certainly happened. As soon as the bell rings, it was good. That
was the terms of the contract, not that he fought badly, poorly or quit or
whatever.”
Although the commission fined Duran a nominal amount of $7,500, Goodman
quickly cut a check and paid the fine. There were still some explanations to be
heard. “I made an appeal to the commission that Duran had stomach cramps and
how do you know what went on in the mind of this great champ to the point that
he just couldn’t continue,” Goodman said. “I had mentioned the ring snapped
and a lot of things were going on. And they accepted that.”
Goodman had been close to Duran in the build-up to the fight and had noticed
a change in him. “I didn’t get the sense that he was as intense for the training.
Knowing Roberto, the macho part of being Roberto Duran where he had
achieved such legendary status was part of his being. He was Duran and you
didn’t have to say anything else. He was very proud of that and became quite a
celebrity. Even up at the camp … I think he was so full of what everybody had
written about him. I don’t think he got a big head, but I just think he eased up.”

THE BOXING world struggled to comprehend the incomprehensible. Roberto

Duran, the man with hands of stone and a heart to match, who had never been
stopped, knocked out or even badly hurt, had apparently given up. Most could
not believe it; everyone had an opinion. “It would require a deal of convincing to
shake the conviction here that Duran had to be sick or injured,” wrote Red
Smith, America’s greatest sports columnist and winner of the Pulitzer Prize,
“because Roberto Duran was not, is not, and never could be a quitter.”
Forty-eight hours later, the man himself had changed his mind about retiring.
“After what happened I’ve done some thinking and I’ve spoken to my wife and
told her I’m going back to the ring. I had thought of retiring, but I’m not going to
retire because Sugar Ray Leonard is not a man to beat me,” he told a reporter.
But when asked about the promotion of a third bout between them, Don King
told reporters, “The next time I promote a Leonard-Duran fight, it will be on the
planet Pluto.”
Duran, a sensitive man, cared deeply about the way Panamanians thought
about him. Now a cloud hung over his proud little nation. “We drove all day and
all night from the hotel to Miami,” he recalled. “My wife and my kids and
Danny Castro, and two Dominican friends of mine: Fabio Matos, his girlfriend,
and a friend named Abuela Lopez and his wife. They all stayed with me. That
was it. Everybody else abandoned me. I told Eleta to give me the rematch, but he
said that Leonard doesn’t want to fight with me. I said, ‘Why not, we’re one-
and-one?’”
Duran offered to donate his purse in a third fight to charity, but later reneged.
“I read all the stuff in the papers about claiming to fight for charity and my
response to that is, ‘Give the last one back; that’s the one you didn’t earn. I’ll
pay for the next one if you go the distance,’” said Trainer in an interview with
The Ring in 1981. “But there’s a problem. Duran has to go out and prove to the
American public that he’s not going to quit again. And he has to go out and fight
somebody very significant to show them. Until he does that, another fight with
Leonard is unthinkable.”
Duran hid out in Miami as speculation raged. “Nobody knew exactly what
happened,” said boxing analyst Gil Clancy. “They were thinking all kinds of
things. Everybody was saying, ‘No más, no más.’ He was sick to his stomach,
and that’s what it was. He couldn’t help himself. He was going to go in his pants.
That was the truth. Leonard fought a good fight and Duran was not ready for
him. He gorged himself before the fight with food and malted milks and got hit
in the belly and he just fell apart.”
Plomo thought he had the answer to the no más riddle. “Duran has always
been an extraordinary boxer, a monster as you say. On many occasions he has
fought feeling not well, but no one knew about it. He would not tell. But this
time it was the stomach, and besides, this rival had not come to box; he had
come to behave like a buffoon. This conduct much angered Duran, who wanted
him to fight. This is why he told him he could be the winner. Leonard had not
really hit him, it was Duran who actually abandoned the fight.”
But many were unwilling to believe that a man who once threatened to knock
out God if he entered the ring had surrendered without even being hurt. Few
events in sports history have been more controversial. “I don’t think that was
him that night,” said veteran trainer Lou Duva. “When a guy has been fighting
all his life, he would fight a tiger. But when he gets in and does that, that wasn’t
him that night. Something was wrong. I don’t think it was so much Leonard but I
think he was beat before he got into the ring. Something was wrong.”
 Bobby Goodman: “The no más was more of him not being as prepared as he
was the first time. He was showing his macho and was mad because Leonard
didn’t want to fight. I didn’t accept that talk about stomach cramps, and I didn’t
know why he did it, but I knew his macho and the fact that this guy wouldn’t
meet him toe-to-toe was upsetting to him. You don’t want to fight, forget it.
Sticking his nose out and his tongue out, and Duran was like, ‘Fuck you, I’m not
fighting anymore.’ It was emotional. Maybe he was misguided but that was his
feeling. And I’ve never known him to not do what he felt.”
Bert Sugar: “He’s never fully explained it, but if I can be a ringside
psychiatrist practicing without a license, which we all do, it was the schoolyard
bully syndrome. If you run from him he’ll catch you; if you hit him he’ll beat
you. He said he wasn’t going to fuck around with clowns. The first fight Leonard
had the worst game plan since Goliath tried to come forward dead.”
Emanuel Steward: “He just got frustrated by Ray. Ray was so sharp that night
and he wouldn’t fight Duran like he wanted to. He was using all of these
annoying tactics. So Duran was like, ‘The hell with this. I’m leaving.’ With his
mindset it wasn’t like he was quitting; it was a macho thing. He was called a
coward but it wasn’t that way. He just wasn’t going to be bothered with all that
stuff. With Duran you were dealing with a high-strung emotional person and
what he did wasn’t a way of surrendering. This highly instantaneous personality
helped make him a great fighter. You can’t knock him for that.”
Ismael Laguna: “We have never talked about that no más fight. Duran had a
lot of pride and wouldn’t allow Sugar Ray Leonard to put him on the canvas.
He’d rather walk away than see himself get knocked out. He was different when
he got money,” added the former champ. “Once he became a millionaire, he felt
that he could do anything that he wanted. When Duran lost to Leonard I told him
to retire, but he told me no and that he could keep fighting. I explained to him
that it was better to retire young and healthy.”
Luis DeCubas: “There’s a lot of theories about no más that only Roberto can
answer. Some people pushed all the right buttons and Mike Trainer was one of
those guys. He knew that Duran was going to keep partying right after that fight
and had the sense to make the rematch right away. Leonard was back in the gym
right after that fight. Ray fought a good fight but Ray’s people won that fight.
Back then the weigh-in was the day of the fight and he ate a big steak and it gave
him stomach problems. That’s what happened.”
Juan Carlos Tapia: “There were no stomach aches, cramps or problems.
Simply Duran was not prepared and had to lose a lot of weight. Leonard was
beating him real bad and Duran said, ‘No one is going to knock me out.’ He
turned his back and he left. It was total frustration.”
 Journalist Hank Kaplan: “The morning after no más, I was eating breakfast at
the Meridien hotel with my wife and Willie Pastrano. Duran was two tables
away eating the biggest breakfast I have ever seen in my life. He had just gone to
see a doctor to run a test about his stomach. It was about 9:30 AM and he was
eating this huge breakfast with a plate half the size of the table. It didn’t speak
well of his upset stomach. The way he looked it was as if he was completely
oblivious to what he created. Maybe he was harboring the pain and stupidity of
the fight. But he was getting whacked in the mush that night and he probably just
said the hell with it. I don’t think it was much more than that.”
Others believed the overriding factor was Duran’s lack of condition. “In the
second fight, Duran was out of shape and that’s why he pulled the no más stuff,”
said former opponent Lou Bizzarro. “The boxing people couldn’t believe it. I
knew he was out of shape for him to quit like that. Even when he put his arm up,
Leonard hit him to the body but it didn’t faze him. Still, he knew he couldn’t
handle a pace like that. Duran would have destroyed Leonard if they fought at
lightweight. Leonard couldn’t shine Duran’s shoes. Leonard was a welterweight
who had a lot of things going for him, if you know what I mean. But people pay
money to see a good fight and you just can’t do stuff like that. If you get
knocked out they accept it but if you make a U-turn and walk out, to me that’s
not right. It’s something that a fighter should never do.”
J. Russell Peltz: “Whenever I think of a guy quitting, I think of Carmen
Basilio. Here was a guy who would walk through Hell. I saw him attack a
referee in the second Fullmer fight for stopping the fight. He was getting his ass
kicked. So when I see these guys quit, and I’m not knocking fighters because
they all have stones just to be a fighter, but relatively speaking that’s how I feel
about that stuff.”
Within the boxing fraternity, fighters and trainers alike searched for answers.
Only those who had faced such a situation in the ring could hope to understand
it. “I think a lot of fight people saw it as Duran just being frustrated,” said Carlos
Palomino. “He was a street guy and just acted without even considering the
repercussions. He was probably like, ‘Fuck it. No más.’ I could see it when he
took the robe off that he wasn’t the same fighter as the first fight. He didn’t look
cut like he had before.
“But that was Duran’s rep, he would blow up so quickly between fights. Even
as a lightweight I heard about how he would go back to Panama and get up to
180 pounds. He would just get into shape for the fights that he wanted. He even
went up to 200 pounds when he was fighting at 147. He didn’t have the energy
against Leonard. He couldn’t push up against the ropes like he did in previous
bouts. He couldn’t close on Ray.”
 Budd Schulberg: “Duran was a classic example of the importance of thinking
in boxing. I covered the first Leonard fight and Leonard was a great fighter who
was in there fighting Duran’s fight, punching with him. You realized in that fight
he was doing everything wrong. Then, in the second fight, he took Duran apart.
But he didn’t do it physically; he did it with his mind. He absolutely frustrated
Duran by being so evasive and driving him so crazy, but no punches were being
landed. Really nobody was hurt in that fight, but when Leonard stuck out his
tongue – which I couldn’t entirely admire him for – at maybe the greatest
lightweight that I’ve ever seen, poor Duran threw up his hands and said, ‘No
más.’
“Throughout the fight there was a growing frustration with Duran. He would
say, ‘C’mon, let’s fight.’ He came out of the streets of Panama, and all he knows
is the fight. And he is all of a sudden confronted by someone who says, ‘I’m not
really going to fight you, I’m going to destroy you by not fighting.’ It blew his
mind. I’ve always said that boxing is a chess match. The chessboard is the body
and the face of the opponent. I never saw that proved more than when Duran was
outchessed that night.”
One boxing magazine mooted several theories, including the Duran Was
Behind And Knew He Wasn’t Going To Beat Sugar Ray No Matter What
Theory, the Duran Didn’t Feel Like Fighting And Took The $8 Million And Ran
Theory, and the Duran Downed Enough Food The Day Of The Fight To Feed A
Family Of Four For A Week Theory. It concluded, however, that Duran’s
walkout was “strictly an instinctive act that he almost immediately regretted,” a
reaction to his own lack of fitness and Leonard’s taunting. It remains the most
plausible explanation.
Hundreds of times since, Duran has reiterated that his stomach wouldn’t let
him continue. “I would do it again if I had the pain,” he says in his scratchy
voice in his house in the Cangrejo district as his son, Fulo, climbs on him. “Let’s
put it this way, when I got up into the ring I couldn’t even move. I was fighting
to breathe and by the third round the pain was really sharp, and I thought to
myself that I had to go fifteen rounds of this.”
When Duran finally returned to Panama several weeks later, after his sojourn
in Miami, his reception was hostile. People called him a coward. They wrote
“Duran is a Traitor” on murals. It was reported in several publications that
people vandalized his mother’s home in Los Andes. While her son claimed, “I
don’t believe in witches, only in God,” Clara would blame the brujos for his
loss, and remembers how the crowds wailed, “Cholo, perdio,” and lamented
outside her home. “The saddest moment for me is when we saw Roberto give his
back to Leonard,” she said. “That was very, very sad. I knew that Roberto was
not well prepared.”
Despite the reaction of many of his countrymen, journalists supported him.
“All the country was against Duran,” said Juan Carlos Tapia. “They were very
angry. Duran took about three weeks before he came back to Panama. He was
ashamed. I made a program when Duran arrived of all the big victories of
Duran’s career. In the end I talked about the no más fight and I asked the public
to put everything in a balance, his successes and no más. The public understood
they had to support Duran in that moment. They forgot about it very quickly.
The positives he had done were much more than he had done in one fight.”
Duran refused to leave his house. Locked in like a caged animal, hiding from
the world, he slumped into a depression and railed bitterly at his critics.
“Hypocrites, all of them,” he said. “I came home and I wouldn’t leave. My wife
was telling me to go out and have fun with my friends. I just didn’t feel like
going out because people were going to start talking stuff and throwing cheap
shots at me. I didn’t feel like hearing that.
“What most affected me was that my people turned their backs on me. I was
always in the house. I wouldn’t even go outside. I would stay three weeks up to a
month right here and I wouldn’t go anywhere. I told Eleta to give me the
rematch. My birthday was coming up and my wife had a party for me. I got
drunk but I never left the house.”
Duran had a lot of time to enjoy the toys that his new life afforded. Already a
millionaire, the huge payday in New Orleans had given him money to burn.
Exempt from paying taxes in Panama, he already owned eleven cars, including a
pair of Pontiac Trans-Ams, a Lincoln Continental, a Fiat, a Mercedes from Eleta,
and a $25,000 van equipped with a stereo, TV and telephone. General Torrijos
gave him the van after he knocked out DeJesus in 1978.
According to Eleta, Duran’s share of the purses, after taxes, was $6 million,
and this had been put in an account in Panama. At least one-third of the money
was ring-fenced for Duran’s future. “When I came back to Panama, I put two
million dollars in the bank. He has ten per cent interest on that money. I knew
that he would spend all that money quickly so I made him sign with his wife a
document so that all the money goes to the bank and he couldn’t touch it for ten
years,” Eleta told this author years later in Panama.“What happened was,
[Colonel] Paredes went to the bank with Felicidad and the bank handed over the
millions of dollars. His wife bet thousands and thousands of dollars daily. His
friends took money away from him. I just lost control of him. With all those
people around all the time, I couldn’t control him anymore and that was it.”
Ruben Paredes was a high-ranking National Guard officer who came to power in
a coup in March 1982.
 Duran found some sympathizers. “I felt sorry for him,” said Budd Schulberg,
author of On The Waterfront and The Harder They Fall, who was in the press
row at the fight. “The whole culture of Latin fighters and Mexican fighters is to
come to fight. They don’t come to dodge and miss and duck, they just come to
fight. And so it was sort of a culture clash that night between a predator who
only knows one way to go, one gear, and Leonard who had discovered a whole
set of gears. Some cars have five gears and some cars have three, and Sugar Ray
had five that night.”
Schulberg’s soft spot for Duran is evident. One of the few writers who saw
both Benny Leonard and Duran fight live, Schulberg always put the fighter first.
“I felt sorry for him because I understood him and it simply underscored for me
one more time what a mental game boxing was. In spite of that night, I will
remember him as one of the greatest lightweights that ever lived. Duran never
had the power at welterweight that he did as a lightweight, and he never had that
power as a middleweight that he did as a welter.”
No más became a universal phrase. Do you want anything else with dinner?
No más. So you don’t want to stay at this job any longer? No más. Hey, it’s
funny, you don’t even have to know who or what a Roberto Duran is. “The no
más thing? It’s like being in love with a girl then being betrayed and devastated,
but you can’t get her out of your system,” said Las Vegas oddsmaker Herbie
Lambeck.
“I didn’t speak with Duran about no más,” said Leonard. “He has to deal with
that and live with that. I’m sure there’s not a day that goes by when he’s out in
public that someone doesn’t say, ‘No Más.’ It also became the butt of jokes for a
while. I didn’t sympathize directly. But looking back on it, naturally I wouldn’t
wish that on anyone, to make a decision in the ring that is going to make you the
butt of jokes throughout your life.”
Duran wouldn’t return to Panama for weeks after the fight. Judging by the
anger and even looting that followed the result, it was a wise decision. However,
before he left the parking lot that evening in New Orleans, Duran was waiting in
the passenger’s seat of his van. As Leonard walked through the lot he noticed a
Panamanian with a blank stare. After getting Duran’s attention, he gave him a
quick wave.
A reluctant wave where a middle finger used to be.
 15

King of the Bars

“Sometimes I look like a dragon, sometimes I’m radar.”
Wilfred Benitez

NO ONE TOOK the debacle harder than Ray Arcel and Freddie Brown. Arcel
would be asked about it for the rest of his life, but even the man who had seen
almost everything in boxing and in life was at a loss to explain it. “I almost had a
nervous breakdown,” he later told an interviewer. “Something happened, and we
don’t know why he did it. To this day I don’t know and the kid himself doesn’t
know. You know, we’re all human beings. Unless you’ve boxed, you don’t know
the physical and mental torture. I mean it’s torture. It’s like a guy waiting to be
electrocuted.”
According to the author Ronald K. Fried, in his book Cornermen, Freddie
Brown fell into a lasting depression. Randy Gordon, editor of The Ring, told
Fried he returned to New York on a plane with Brown. “Freddie cried like a baby
on my shoulder,” said Gordon. “Because he had seen them all. Jack Johnson and
Benny Leonard. And Harry Greb. And he was always saying Roberto Duran
could probably beat any one of them in his prime … And then he went out and
quit – something that Freddie Brown really could not understand any real fighter
doing, much less Roberto Duran.” The old cutman locked himself away at home,
refused to take calls, stopped even watching fights.
Brown and Arcel also fell out. There had been tension between the two for
some time over who did the most work in the camp. Arcel, an articulate and
considered interviewee, tended to draw press attention while Brown felt that he
was Duran’s true conditioner, dealing with the fighter’s tantrums and moods
until Arcel swanned in a week or so before a fight from his day job to “oversee”
things and run the corner. Brown also felt Arcel was wrong to tell reporters he
had no idea why Duran quit; to Brown, you covered for your fighter no matter
what. That was why he had put out the story about stomach cramps. “If they
knew in Panama he’d quit, they’d have murdered him when he got back,” Brown
told Dick Young of the New York Post in 1984. “So I made the alibi.”
Eleta went back to Panama, and berated his fighter through the press. Never
one to hold back, he pleaded with Duran to lose the hangers-on. Another of
Duran’s mentors, Omar Torrijos, also took no más badly. “After Roberto did
that, Torrijos never talked to him again,” claimed Eleta. Duran claimed that he
and Torrijos had resolved their differences concerning the bout. “The General
said that many Panamanians are hypocrites, and he knows the people better than
I do,” Duran told reporters in Panama. “The General had considered this case
like that of Judas. These people, that were with Duran before the fight, had
abandoned him after it.”
The country’s mood of gloom deepened when Torrijos died in a mysterious
airplane crash on 30 July 1981, on a flight to the town of Colecito. The tragedy
was related in the book Our Man in Panama by John Dinges. “It was said that
Torrijos had no sense of danger and forced his pilots to fly no matter what the
weather. That day, he chose to fly despite the storm front shrouding the
mountains around Colecito, and heedless of the relative inexperience of the pilot.
The plane struck the top of a hill while the pilot was maneuvering for a landing.
All aboard were killed.” It ended a twelve-year reign in which compassion for
the poor had made him the most revered figure in Panama since independence in
1903. The country had lost the head of the National Guard but also a calming
figure who acted as a rational mediator between other Latin American countries.
It affected Duran as deeply as the death of Chaflan.
It would also mark a decline in Panama’s fortunes. Inevitably a military power
struggle followed the President’s death. Many thought the crash had actually
been engineered by his understudy, Manuel Noriega. The country fell into a
political quagmire as various factions competed for supremacy. Colonel Ruben
Paredes, who had promoted himself to head of the National Guard, forced out
the incumbent President Aristides Royo and set his sights on the 1984
presidential elections. However, Noriega, who took over as National Guard
leader in 1983, had other plans. He undermined his colleague, and after a period
of factional strife emerged as the most powerful figure in the country. With the
violent Noriega at the helm, Panama was soon tagged internationally as a drug-
trafficking, corruption-filled country that was both politically and financially
unstable.
Duran, meanwhile, wallowed in self-pity. Moves were made to match him
with undefeated junior welterweight sensation Aaron Pryor, and Pryor told a
New York Times reporter in late February 1981 that he had signed a contract for
$750,000 to face Duran in New York, but the fight was pushed aside for the
heavyweight contest between Gerry Cooney and Ken Norton. A ferocious
prospect who few wanted to face, Pryor offered to spot Duran ten pounds in
weight. “Duran needs me,” Pryor said. “I think he’s got to prove to a lot of
people that he’s not a quitter and what better way to do it than fight an
undefeated world champion.”
Finally, nine months after holing up in his palatial home, Duran ended his
exile and took a fight against a much easier opponent, his former sparring
partner Mike “Nino” Gonzalez. The bout was staged by Don King in the
promoter’s hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Duran’s public workouts in
Cleveland’s Union Terminal drew large crowds and surprisingly they cheered his
every move. His optimism began to return.
“The Comeback,” as King inevitably billed it, took place on 9 August 1981.
Gonzalez, from Bayonne, New Jersey, was for some reason dubbed the “Storm
Cutter” and came in with a 24-1 record. He had traveled with some other Jersey
fighters to work with Duran before he faced Leonard in Montreal and felt
confident enough to stand and trade punches. Duran’s body looked soft, not taut,
and he fought like a man who had been locked in his home for months, coming
in at 155 pounds. He won clearly on the scorecards but Gonzalez showed
bravery, especially in a grueling ninth round, and cut Duran’s eye. “I haven’t
fought in nine months,” Duran said afterwards. “I felt strong with the weight, but
I got a little tired near the end. That was because of the layoff. I couldn’t make
my body do certain things.”
People expected more. On September 26, Duran took on European light-
middleweight champion Luigi Minchillo, who had won thirty-five of his thirty-
six bouts. They fought in Vegas in bright sunlight and near-ninety-degree
temperatures before a crowd of about 2,000. Duran suffered a cut over his right
eye in the third round but it was staunched by veteran cutman Bill Prezant,
renowned for his patchwork with heavyweight Chuck “the Bleeder” Wepner.
Minchillo bored in and tried to pressure Duran but the Panamanian bossed the
fight from the start, slamming in the harder punches, especially to the body, and
rocking the moustachioed Italian several times. Minchillo finished the bout with
his left eye almost shut, his right eye swollen and blood coming from his nose.
Duran, who weighed in on the light-middleweight limit of eleven stone, said
afterwards he felt strong and was punching harder then ever.
IN 1982, WILFRED Benitez was The Radar. He could slip punches with his
senses and made opponents feel lonely in the ring, jutting out his chin then
retracting it before a glove could touch skin, standing within punching range yet
avoiding shots by fractions. On March 6, 1976, he made the great Antonio
Cervantes miss for fifteen rounds to win the WBA junior welterweight crown
and confirm his precocious genius. At just seventeen, he was the youngest boxer
ever to win a world title.
“People went crazy in Puerto Rico when Benitez became champion,” said
Jose Torres. “I was there and that fight was spectacular. Punch and move, punch
and move, body and head, he never got tired. What he had was impossible to
learn, nobody could teach you that. He was so perfect. He was so young to
understand that; he just did it instinctively. He didn’t say, ‘I was smart, that’s
why I win.’ He was not aware. He just knows that he punches when he has to
punch.”
Benitez was the youngest of eight children born in the Bronx, New York City,
where his father and mother, Gregorio and Clara, had moved in the early Forties
to work. When Wilfred was seven they moved back to St George, seven miles
from San Juan. Two of his brothers, Gregory and Frankie, became boxers and
young Wilfred followed. He was easily the best and his rare talent saw him
included in the Puerto Rican team for the Central American and Caribbean
Games at the age of just fourteen. Pitted against men, he had the misfortune to
draw Olympic champion Orlando Martinez of Cuba, one of the best amateurs in
the world. Astonishingly, he lost only by split decision. After more than 100
amateur contests, with just six losses, he turned pro at fifteen, with his father
doctoring his application form to disguise his real age.
Benitez made his debut in 1973 and took down Hall of Famer Cervantes three
years later. Nobody was supposed to be so good, so soon. Cervantes had seemed
unbeatable; indeed Duran’s manager had apparently avoided him. “Back in 1974
when Duran was lightweight champion there was a good opportunity for him to
fight Antonio Cervantes,” said former manager Luis Spada. “It would have been
a very, very good fight in Latin America. But Carlos Eleta thought that it was a
dangerous fight because Cervantes, who was a great fighter, was bigger. I am
sure, though, that Roberto would have had no trouble beating him.”
Benitez, who beat Carlos Palomino to win his second title, liked to call
himself “the Dragon,” but the Radar tag was far more apt. Matchmaker Teddy
Brenner called him “at one time the best fighter in the world.” Yet the young
prodigy with the veteran mind was still a child outside the ring. He womanized,
skipped training, partied hard and generally gave his authoritarian father fits.
Before he was stopped with six seconds left in the fifteenth round against
Leonard in 1979, he lost his way to the gym. The lack of discipline forced his
father to take a stand. “Even if they gave me $200,000 to work in his corner, I
would not,” the elder Benitez told a Ring journalist. “I refuse to be in his corner
… I am not a hypocrite. There is no fighter who can be inactive for seven or
eight months and then compete in a fight such as this one and hope to be sharp.
It is not important that he is starting to train well now. He has not listened to
anything I have told him. But Wilfred is a boy who just refuses to listen.”
It was common knowledge in the fight game that Benitez trained a little over a
week for Leonard. Yet his brilliance was undeniable. “Benitez is a ghost,”
Leonard said. “He anticipates your moves and almost makes himself invisible. I
never met a better defensive fighter.”
Benitez jumped up to light-middleweight. He was too good to remain
contender for long, and in May 1981 challenged Britain’s Maurice Hope for the
WBC title. Hope was a decent champion, but Benitez was in a different class and
cold-cocked him with a blistering right hook in round twelve, knocking out two
of his teeth. “He can put his teeth under his pillow,” remarked Benitez later.
“Duran is dead. He is afraid of me. He knows me. When somebody talks about
me to Duran, Roberto tells them don’t talk to me about Benitez, I am afraid of
him.”
Benitez had been winding up Duran for several years. The Puerto Rican often
sat ringside at his contests and shouted abuse, something to which Duran would
respond with crude gesture and threats of his own. Their animosity spilled over
at the post-fight Duran-Leonard press conference in Montreal. “I just told
Roberto, give me a chance, give me a chance,” Benitez said. “He said, ‘Get out,
I’ll kill you.’ I said to him, ‘Let’s do it right now, right here.’”
With Duran now campaigning at light-middle too, and both men promoted by
Don King, a bout between two Latin kings was a cinch, especially given Duran’s
oft-declared antipathy to all things Puerto Rican. Contracts were signed for a
title contest to take place at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, on 30 January 1982. In
the pre-fight interviews, Benitez showed more of a willingness to speak in
English, while Duran used Luis Henriquez and other translators as his
mouthpieces. Duran understood most of what was being said in English but did
not feel confident enough to speak it; he was never going to sit still long enough
to perfect a foreign language. Benitez’s co-manager Jimmy Jacobs – who bought
his contract for $75,000 from Gregorio – admitted that his boxer also
unintentionally alienated the American audience by not conversing in English
“but when he tries to express himself in English, so many thoughts are
misunderstood and misrepresented. But it’s a calculated risk to communicate in
English when he’s infinitely more superior in another language.” The refusal of
Duran to learn English meant he was unable to market himself effectively to the
U.S. public and probably cost him millions in endorsements.
To make certain that his fighter arrived in prime fighting condition, Eleta sent
him to training camp on the penal island of Coiba, off the coast of Panama. A
kind of open Alcatraz, Coiba housed Panama’s worst criminals, on a
godforsaken island surrounded by strong currents and shark-infested waters.
Duran was permitted only to fish, eat, train and rest. “Wow,” Duran told Sports
Illustrated. “I was a prisoner among prisoners. To make a telephone call you had
to climb a mountain. You called by shortwave radio. There were many murderers
there; not many thieves, mostly pure murderers. I was scared. The prisoners
walked around with machetes because they used them for work in the
mountains. Whenever I went into the streets, I had a guard with me. At three
a.m. roosters would be crowing. I couldn’t get any sleep. I was pulling my hair
out. That was a disgrace. It was a big mistake, a bad decision to go there.”
Eleta wanted Duran’s trip to be so dull and lonely that all he had to think
about was destroying the young Puerto Rican who had often badmouthed him. It
was also the only way to ensure that the hangers-on would stay away and Duran
would stay faithful to his training regimen. No women, no beer, just steak, water
and sweat. Eleta wouldn’t let Duran and new trainer Panama Lewis off the island
until he got down from 167 pounds to 156. The strategy seemed to work as
Duran had no trouble getting to the 154-pound limit by fight time. Even Ray
Arcel, drafted in by Eleta as an “adviser” for the bout, claimed, “He’s in the best
shape, physically and mentally, that I’ve seen him since he knocked out DeJesus
four years ago.” Arcel also complimented Benitez, whom he said knew
everything there was to know about the ring.
Before traveling to Vegas, Duran visited the grave of Torrijos, pledging to
bring back the WBC junior middleweight for the late dictator. But Benitez, who
was set to make nearly $1.5 million to Duran’s $750,000, was the 9–5 favorite,
The Puerto Rican favorite. Duran was now thirty, seven years older than Benitez.
Benitez was coming in at 43-1-1, with 26 knockouts, while Duran was 74-2,
with losses to Leonard and DeJesus. Benitez stepped off the scale at 152¼
pounds to Duran’s 152½. Despite how hard Duran had trained, he couldn’t
change the reality that the bigger Benitez was coming down in weight and that
he would be punching up at the five-foot-ten Puerto Rican. How would Duran
handle the counterpuncher when he sat on the ropes and waited? Would he come
at him or cut off the ring? Would Benitez be able to take a punch from Hands of
Stone?
There were hints on the eve of the showdown that Benitez had matured. His
father talked before the bout about his son’s focus and even praised his training
methods. Benitez admitted that he couldn’t return to his country without the belt.
“It’s not so much the title that is motivating Wilfred,” said Jim Jacobs. “He
knows about Duran as a legend, and now Wilfred wants the glory and the
recognition as the greatest Latin fighter.”
Although Gregorio and Jacobs (co-manager with Bill Cayton) knew the
tendencies of the unpredictable Benitez, they didn’t allow room for speculation
during the tense minutes before the young prodigy entered the ring. “Nobody
talks tactics to Wilfred during the weeks he is training for the fight,” said Jacobs
to the Washington Post. “He is his own man; he has his own mind. But around
fight time, he does listen to his father. Wilfred has been fighting since he was
eight years old, and all those years when he went back to his corner, his father
was always there. Let’s just say that he trusts his father on fight night.”
Before the fight began, traditional rivalry spilled over. At a New York press
conference, Duran took a swing at Benitez and was clipped by a right hand in
return. Duran also taunted Gregorio Benitez, under the false impression that he
would be capable of backing up his words later in the ring. It was Papa Benitez
who noted that his son had never taken a fight so seriously. “If I lose this one I
will not be able to come back home to my country,” Wilfred told himself. “I
have to win this one.”
In January 1982, the judges watched intently as, nearly two minutes into the
bout, Duran’s head was jolted backwards by a right-hand lead in an otherwise
even first round. Soon the truth emerged: Duran was a very good 154-pounder,
while Benitez was a more natural, magnificent one. Some fighters go into a fight
with the belief that they had done everything right in training, from ringwork to
conditioning. This was no flabby Duran; he was 152 pounds weeks before the
fight, and truly believed he was prepared for fifteen rounds. But this was vintage
Benitez, and as the referee Richard Green stepped between the combatants at the
conclusion of each round, the ugly truth emerged. For each punch Duran landed,
his opponent stuck two or three back in his face.
Realizing that he had to push Benitez against the ropes and bully him, Duran
took the initiative in the third round and plunged toward the Puerto Rican with
the intensity of a boy who had just seen his own blood in a streetfight. However,
Duran’s strategy of throwing punches hoping that a lucky one would land left
him vulnerable. Every time Duran rushed the ropes, he ran into fists, and as the
round closed out he took a huge straight right that completely threw off his
equilibrium.
Balance was an art perfected by Benitez, ring magician. Benitez used his
supreme reflexes and balance to land a gorgeous triple-hook to the body and
head in the fourth round. His performance was as riveting as Leonard’s in New
Orleans, and this time Duran was being punished more. It was in this round that
Duran connected on his first worthwhile punch of the evening, a sorry stat which
was more revealing than all of the punches Benitez had landed to that point. The
excuse that Duran had overtrained had already hit the airwaves.
If there was one punch in Benitez’s arsenal that found the range as the fight
progressed, it was his right uppercut. He showcased it in the seventh round.
While playing his risky hide-and-seek game along the ropes, Benitez landed the
ferocious uppercut directly on Duran’s left eye. Blood seeped from the eye
immediately.
Duran’s handlers managed to keep the bleeding under control, but Duran was
now being punished every time he stepped in range. Benitez landed big one-
punch shots in the ninth and tenth rounds as Duran showed his usual aggression
with little thought behind his actions. Instead of trying to enter and fight on the
inside with the jab, he walked directly into the gunfire. At times, it appeared he
was worn out as he shook his arms out on several occasions. Tired and unable to
throw punches in rapid succession, Duran continued to plead with his arms.
Before the fourteenth round began, Arcel for the last time implored his fighter,
“You can still win this fight.” Benitez proceeded to bang Duran to the body as if
he had heard the comment. Duran was pushed around by the bigger fighter,
which was a rarity, and spent too much time against the ropes. Every time Duran
looked to quicken the pace, Benitez would stop him with smart jabs and superior
defense.
As both fighters came out at the start of the fifteenth round, there was little
doubt that Benitez had taken this one personally. And with less than a minute
remaining Benitez went to the ropes and motioned Duran to come to him one
more time as if to remind him, this is my night. It was his way of closing off his
virtuoso performance. It was Benitez’s bolo punch, his Ali shuffle, and not only
did he taunt Duran, but he called for Duran and then punished him. Few fighters
would have exuded such bravado. Duran resisted one last time and brushed
Benitez off as the final bell sounded.
There would be no late-night quarrels over a pitcher of beer as to who was the
better fighter that night in Vegas; Benitez won by a mile. Even staunch Duran
fans had to acknowledge defeat. Ringside scribes struggled to find a round, let
alone rounds for Duran. Scoring on the ten-point must system, Lou Tabbat had it
145-141, Dave Moretti, 144-141, and Hal Miller scored it 143-142 with a
straight face.
“It was great to watch Benitez fight,” said boxing personality Bert Sugar. “He
could duck so much that all you could get was an ear. Later he lost his timing
and they hit him and he got brain damage. But he was brilliant. I remember
sitting at ringside of that fight in Vegas and I was heard audibly and it was
quoted in the papers by the Brits. I gave Duran the fifth round and he asked me
why and I said, ‘I have to give him something.’” Jose Torres thought that
Benitez had not even had to extend himself to win, and saw “qualities Wilfred
displayed in this match that only a conscious quest for perfection could produce
… His control was absolute.” Steve Farhood of KO magazine wrote that when
Benitez was motivated he was “the sweetest, slickest, smartest, most natural, the
best boxer in the ‘sweet science.’” It was this Benitez who Duran faced in Las
Vegas. Yet, it was also his last hurrah, as he, a current shell of himself, currently
lives with his mother in Carolina, suffering dearly from the aftereffects of the
brutal sport.
Quizzed again about retirement, Duran said he would do what his manager
told him to do. Eleta responded, “The time has come. I think I will retire him.” If
he wanted to do things his way it would be without Eleta calling the shots. In
fact, a chasm began to open between the two men, especially when Duran
learned through the media that Eleta intended to renounce his managerial
services.
Eight months later, Duran would be back in the ring and Eleta would be back
to his horses. “I liked the horses better because they didn’t talk back,” said the
manager.

DURAN AGAIN ballooned, to almost thirteen stone, but he resumed his career,
intending to box on at light-middleweight. “The American press is always saying
I’m fat,” he said, “but I see Tony Ayala fight and he looks fat but no one says
anything.” Ayala was a stocky but rip-roaring junior middleweight who was
tearing through the division. Unfortunately he found himself in and out of
trouble with the law. “Just keep me out of jail long enough to knock out Duran,”
he said.
Duran found himself in the middle of a power struggle between the two most
important promoters in boxing. Don King and Bob Arum hated each other with a
passion. King had held exclusive rights to Duran during his prime years, though
he and Arum had grudgingly buried their differences to co-promote Duran in the
past. With Eleta now seemingly uninterested in his charge, Duran agreed to box
for Arum in a title challenge to WBA light-middleweight champion Davey
Moore. King, however, declared Duran was already bound by a three-bout
agreement leading to a prime-time TV mega-bout with the unbeaten Ayala that
November. With a view to building up the Ayala bout, King found Duran what
he assumed would be a relatively easy tune-up against England’s Kirkland
Laing. Arum hit back, claiming that Duran was only under contract with King
for the Laing fight. He declared that the row was merely a pretext by King to
grab a piece of his Duran-Moore title promotion in November. “Duran Just a
Pawn in the Arum-King Chess Match,” declared the Miami Herald.
King won out. Duran admitted that he had made a hasty decision, sheepishly
apologized to King, returned a $25,000 payment from Arum and planned to meet
Ayala after he beat Laing – which all parties assumed was a foregone conclusion.
On September 4, however, a 155-pound Duran, now trained by Bill Prezant and
handled by Luis Henriquez, traveled to the Cobo Arena in Detroit and subjected
himself to utter humiliation, fighting and acting like a journeyman. The
Jamaican-born Laing meant nothing in America but was known in the UK as an
unpredictable maverick who could outbox most welterweights when his mind
was on the job. He started hesitantly but grew in confidence as he found Duran
easy to hit, and jolted the former champion several times. In contrast, Duran’s
punches carried little kick. The beer-bloated Panamanian lost a split, ten-round
decision, two judges voting for Laing and one for Duran. “You a very smart
sonofabitch,” he told Laing afterwards in his broken English. It was the fourth
loss of his career and the first to a fighter regarded as less than top-notch. Ring
magazine’s 1982 Upset of the Year left Duran in career limbo.
“Eleta turned his back on me and that hurt me. After that fight with Benitez,
he wasn’t interested in me at all,” said Duran. “They all thought I was burned
out. Eleta leaves me with Don King and King gets this fight for me.” Duran had
trained for Laing in Easton, Pennsylvania, the hometown of heavyweight
champion Larry Holmes. “Holmes takes me to his bar, and I used to go every
night there and I never trained. I tried but I couldn’t make the weight and some
deadbeat beats me. I go to the hotel with Plomo and I start laughing. ‘This
deadbeat beats me,’ I say. Plomo tells me that my career is finished and what I
needed to do was quit screwing around and get back on track.
“I didn’t take care of myself. I was so fool-crazy with women that Eleta called
me into his office and said, ‘Cholo, Cholo, come here.’ And I’d go and Eleta
would ask if I wanted a fight with whoever and say, ‘Do you want to take it or
not?’ I’d ask how long before the fight. ‘Three weeks,’ he would say and I told
him to give it to me. Give me ten thousand dollars ahead and I would take the
fight. I would take the money and I would go drink with a bunch of whores. I
would feel like the King of the Bars.”
Despite the language barrier, Holmes and Duran were friends. “I knew
Roberto Duran before he started to train in Easton,” said Holmes. “I trained at
Bobby Gleason’s Gym in New York. Roberto Duran was all they talked about.
My trainer Ernie Butler took me to meet him and we’ve always been friends.
“When he was at my place in Easton, I told him, ‘You got to get ready for a
fight.’ But he said, ‘I ready. I ready. I fight. I beat him. I knock him out.’ He was
drinking 150-proof out of my bar and I was hollering at him. He didn’t want to
hear that. He did what he wanted. I cannot tell a multi-millionaire that is
champion of the world what to do.
“I got into an argument with some of his crew … because all they wanted was
the money. There’s more to boxing than, ‘Give me the money.’ It’s about the
guy’s health and well-being and make sure he’s not doing the wrong things. It’s
so easy to get caught up into that. I know. What can you say? I wasn’t with him
all day and all night long. He had a following, women from all over. They’d
come to Easton where he was training. There was like 16,000 people in the city.
When Duran came, there was like 40,000. Nobody had control over Duran.”
Duran had used up his boxing lifelines. Don King, never a man to stick with a
loser, berated him in the locker room after the fight for not trying and for having
too many people around him. Not only had Duran embarrassed himself, he had
also ruined the possibility of a lucrative bout with Tony Ayala. The scolding
prompted Duran to tell a Miami Herald reporter, “I won’t fight any more for
Don King. Never again. Even if he begs me.”
Abandoned by Arcel and Brown, deserted by Eleta and now shunned by King,
Duran cut a forlorn figure as he trekked to Bob Arum’s New York office in
search of a payday. If Arum rejected him, it really would be over. He would
retire with a whimper, his genius forever overshadowed by the ignominy of his
decline. “He wasn’t worth a plugged quarter,” said Arum.
The Harvard-educated lawyer was distinctly unimpressed but someone whose
judgment he respected spoke up for Duran. Teddy Brenner, for years the
matchmaker at Madison Square Garden, had booked Duran for his first ever US
bout. In 1980, Brenner had joined Top Rank, Inc. Now he told Arum, “There’s
nothing wrong with this guy, physically. He’s never taken a beating. Whether or
not he wants to fight again is a question mark.” Brenner later told The Ring,
“King chased him. Duran was waiting for one kind word. He came to us, we sat
him down. We gave him a chance. If we hadn’t, it might have been the end for
him.” Arum admitted, “I don’t know about boxing, but I’ve got a man who
knows as much about fighters as anybody, and Teddy said there was nothing
wrong with Duran that being in good physical and mental condition wouldn’t
solve. Teddy said that if you get him mentally right, he’d probably beat anybody
around.”
To see what he had left, Arum and Brenner found Duran a match with another
former British champion, Jimmy Batten, who had moved Stateside to further his
career. The bout was negotiated on Duran’s behalf, not by Carlos Eleta, but by
his former matchmaker Luis Spada, an old and loyal friend. It marked the final
rift between one of the great partnerships in boxing.
In the bad times after Montreal, when crowds threw stones at Duran’s house
and ripped down his mural on Avenida Balboa, Luis Spada had gone to see him
and said, “Anytime you need me, even to carry the spit bucket in your corner,
you could call me.” Duran had not forgotten. Quiet and reserved, yet respected
for his boxing acumen, Spada would be content to stay in the background.
He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and caught the boxing bug and fed
an early boxing fix when he visited boxing gyms while stationed in New York as
a member of the Argentine Navy during his twenties. In the early Seventies, he
built a reputation in boxing in Los Angeles. In 1971, he was invited to dinner
with “some boxing people” from Panama. They turned out to be Carlos Eleta
and his lawyer, Jorge Ruben Rosas. Eleta talked about his desire for a world
champ and Spada said he could get a title fight with Nicolino “The
Untouchable” Locche for Eleta’s fighter Peppermint Frazer. “He was very
enthusiastic,” recalled Spada. “He told me to make the fight with Locche
through his manager Tito Lectoure. Eleta invited me to Panama and we dicussed
the terms of the fight. I went to Argentina, and closed the deal with Lectoure for
March 1972.”
Frazer won, and Eleta talked Spada into working as his matchmaker and
boxing advisor while making Panama his permanent home. He became a fixture
in Duran’s entourage and went with him around the world. Spada broke off with
Eleta in 1975, and started his own promotional company in Panama City. He
developd his own stable of world champions, including Panamanians Rigoberto
Riasco and Hilario Zapata and Nicaraguan Eddie Gazo.
In September 1982, in the depths of his doldrums, Duran called Spada and
asked him to handle him for the Batten fight. “I tell Spada, ‘I don’t want you to
carry my bucket for me; I want you to be my manager,’” recalled Duran. “After
that, Spada goes back to Eleta and tells him that I asked him to be my manager.
He asks Eleta if he still has some formal contract with him. Spada tells Eleta,
‘I’m going to help Duran.’ Eleta says, ‘Keep him, keep him.’ I’m in the gym; the
Rock is back.”
Spada recalled the episode: “I always had a good appreciation for Roberto. He
called me one day and asked me to be his manager and I said that I would be
over at five p.m. the next day because I needed to talk to Mr Eleta first to be sure
that Duran didn’t have any commitments with Eleta. I didn’t want to take a
fighter from anybody. Before I got him, Duran was losing to guys like Laing in
Michigan. Laing used to be a sparring partner for Duran. Eleta said that he no
longer worked with Duran. He wished me luck and that afternoon I went to
Duran’s house.”
Spada asked for only one-tenth of Duran’s purse money rather than the normal
one-third. “So I tell Eleta I go my way, you go your way,” Duran recalled. “Then
I start training again. I still feel good. Spada comes into play. I fired Eleta. I tell
those guys, now I’m going to become champion again. I started to prepare
myself.”
Any improvement in form, however, was not immediately apparent. The
Batten fight was on the same bill as the Alexis Arguello–Aaron Pryor headliner
at the Orange Bowl, Miami, on November 12. Duran had specifically requested
that his bout be the final one of the evening, in the so-called “walk-off” slot
when most people were on their way home, so that few people would be around
to see him. Considering his showing, it might have been better if he’d waited till
the arena had cleared. Arguello-Pryor was a classic, Duran-Batten a stinker. “At
157 pounds, Duran waddled his way toward a fearful Batten and scored with one
harmless punch at a time,” according to reporter Steve Farhood. “Even though
the Pryor-Arguello press conference was over by the sixth round, few writers
had returned to their seats to witness the once-great Duran. With strangers in his
corner and loose skin hanging obscenely over his muscles, this was a different
fighter, a finished fighter.” The crowd booed as the scores were tallied and Duran
took the unanimous decision and $25,000.
In what really was his last chance, Top Rank plunged Duran into a Latin
showdown with the fearsome Pipino Cuevas.

IF EVER A fighter wasn’t going to back up against Duran, it was the man they
called “The Assassin.” Pipino Cuevas was the embodiment of encender, a
Spanish word meaning to strike a match or to incinerate. In Mexican boxing, it
denoted an explosive combination of power, charisma and volatility. “He makes
Rocky Marciano look like a sissy,” said Ernie Fuentes, a San Diego promoter.
His dark, brooding eyes and impassive face added to an aura of imminent
danger. “Most fighters don’t even have a face like this,” wrote New York Times
reporter Dave Anderson about Cuevas.
He was born Isidro Pipino Cuevas Gonzalez, one of five boys and six girls to
a small-time butcher in Hidalgo, Mexico. Young Pipino was a loner and often
picked fights in school. His despairing father, Geraldo, took him to a boxing gym
at thirteen and he became hooked. Trained by Lupe Sanchez, Cuevas would turn
pro at fourteen after just nineteen amateur bouts. He was stopped in two rounds
in his debut, and lost another four of his first twelve bouts, but when he hit
people they stayed hit, and his wins almost always came inside the distance.
Cuevas punched his way up the rankings and won the WBA welterweight title at
just eighteen when he knocked down champion Angel Espada three times in the
second round the summer of 1976.
“That night in Mexico where I won the title was a beautiful thing,” said
Cuevas. “It was a dream come true for me. I had three fights with Espada. The
second fight was the toughest of my career. I had three jaw fractures, two
fractured ribs and three or four cuts on my face.”
As champion, Cuevas came into his own. He flattened or stopped ten out of
eleven challengers and was talked about as potentially one of the division’s all-
time greats. Pipino had learned the puncher’s secret of punching not at the target
but through it and he didn’t just beat his challengers, he beat them up. Shoji
Tsujimoto was still unconscious twenty seconds after being counted out. Billy
Backus suffered an orbital fracture of the eye socket and had headaches and
double vision weeks after their fight. Harold Weston’s jaw was dislocated. Angel
Espada’s jaw was broken. Even a fighter who outpointed him, Andy Price,
remarked with awe, “Cuevas could knock down walls with his punching.”
“Pipino has always been different,” said Chargin. “He has never been real
flamboyant. He was always that you-win-some-and-lose-some type of guy.
When I see him he is still that same down-to-earth type of guy.”
Cuevas became a huge hit among the Mexicans of the West Coast of the USA.
They loved him for his fuerza and crowds filled the Olympic Auditorium to
glimpse his vaunted left hook. “He drew such tremendous gates,” remembered
promoter Don Chargin. “He was so hot. Nobody was drawing like that during
that time. There was a huge population of Mexicans in Los Angeles, and he was
such an idol with Mexicans. That left hook was it. When he would hit guys with
that he would really stretch them.”
The welterweight division was not for the meek and the test of a fighter’s
greatness was how he fared against the other greats then storming the division.
Cuevas was lined up for what would have been easily the biggest purse of his
career, a so-called superfight with Ray Leonard, but backstage machinations saw
him edged out in favor of the better-connected Duran. Instead, he faced the fast-
rising Tommy Hearns. Styles make fights, and for all his frightening power, the
short-armed Cuevas was made for the rangy Detroit Hit Man, especially in the
challenger’s hometown. In September 1980, Hearns burst Cuevas’s bubble when
he took him out in sensational fashion in two rounds at the Joe Louis Arena. The
Mexican assassin seemed psyched out by his laser-eyed opponent and Hearns
would later say that the punch he hit Cuevas with was the hardest he’d ever
thrown.
By the time he met Duran in 1983, Cuevas was also coming off a decision loss
to Roger Stafford in Ring magazine’s Upset of the Year. Like Stone Hands, he
was desperate to resurrect a flagging career. Though he was still only twenty-
five, this would be his last shot. His skills had diminished, but his punch
remained and no one was betting that it would go the distance. “Cuevas would
fight Duran the same way he fights everybody else,” his adviser Rafael Mendoza
told The Ring when the match-up was still speculative. “He’d make Duran back
up. And if Duran didn’t back up, Cuevas would run him over. Duran could never
beat Cuevas. Not on his best night, he couldn’t.”
In fact there were rumors on both sides that neither fighter wanted to get in the
ring and that Cuevas wanted too much money. Also, there were rumblings that
Cuevas only wanted to fight in Mexico City, with a guaranteed title shot for the
winner. Cuevas responded with a telegram that was published in Ring magazine.

I have never ducked a challenge from Duran. Will sign any time to fight
him. Will even fly to New York. To sign right in the offices of RING
Magazine. Don’t care when or where we fight. The money is not that
important. Let’s just fight.
Signed, Pipino Cuevas

Having worked in Duran’s corner for ten years, Ray Arcel had such
reservations about his former fighter getting in the ring with Pipino Cuevas that
he wrote a letter that was published in the New York Times on 15 January 1983.

Dear Roberto,
Life is like a book. There is a beginning, there is a middle, and there has to
be an end to the story. And so must a career come to an end. I hope that you
will see fit to end your career.
Ray Arcel

After consulting with Duran about Cuevas, Luis Spada closed the deal with
Bob Arum for January 29, 1983, in the Sports Arena in Los Angeles. Duran had
fought in LA twice before on cards promoted by Don Chargin and had his own
following there. He promised discipline in his training regimen. “After the loss
to Leonard, I was starting to drink, fooling around, going to nightclubs, and was
in very bad shape,” Duran told a reporter in 1983. “Then one day I say, ‘I have to
do something if I am going to continue boxing.’ I start to change when I fought
Pipino Cuevas.”
 Duran’s wife, Felicidad, saw his enthusiasm return when they told him he was
going to fight Cuevas. “From that point on, I began to see the same Roberto as
before – happy, joyful, the one that liked to joke around. I recovered him. He
was back. He was the same Roberto I once knew.”
“I told him that if he wants to come back, he’d have to work very hard
because I didn’t want to waste my time and his time,” said Luis Spada. “He
promised to work hard, not to worry that he would do whatever I say. And when
Roberto was training, he would work very, very hard. Of course when he was on
vacation, he liked to eat a lot. But coming to train, he was very dedicated with
me.”
Tension was tangible at the Sports Arena as the two black-haired, heavy-
handed hitters faced off for a punch-out that would see one of them face career
oblivion. Duran, who was actually the heavier man at 152 and looked stocky but
strong, circled to his left, away from Cuevas’s left hook, and jabbed, then landed
the first telling blow with a right to the jaw. Utilizing his six-inch reach
advantage, the rail-thin Cuevas, 149, went after Duran and landed three of his
signature wide shots to the body, and later rammed home a shot to Duran’s chin.
The Mexican looked sharp and accurate. Just to secure his territory, Cuevas sent
a left hook Duran’s way after the bell sounded.
Then came a key adjustment. “One thing that happened before that fight was
very important,” said Luis Spada. “Duran was the only boxer to ever tell me,
‘Viejo, if you see that I am doing something wrong, please let me know and I
will change it.’ In the first round with Cuevas, Roberto was ahead, but was in
front of Cuevas, who was a good puncher. I told him that he needed to box. If
not, maybe Cuevas will hit him with one of those big punches. He said, ‘Okay,
Viejo.’ In the second round, Roberto started boxing.”
Duran came out for round two with fierce intensity and stuck a pole-like jab in
the face of the Mexican. This wasn’t the lethargic and tense Duran of the first
round, he was sharp, menacing and focused, looking to break down Cuevas.
Duran went toe-to-toe with the Mexican, looking for the left hook to the body.
Both gave and took big shots, but Duran was quicker, and working harder.
In the third round, the upright Cuevas began to let the big bombs go. He
wasn’t the most accurate of hitters – Carlos Palomino once said Cuevas missed
opponents even when they stood still – but he nailed Duran with three uppercuts
on the inside. A left hook from Cuevas further stirred the Mexican contingent as
it landed flush on Duran’s chin. But Duran, unfazed, fired back with two clean
hooks and mocked his opponent, pointing to his chin. Duran set up Cuevas with
a right to his neck, and then a left hook that momentarily jerked Cuevas’s head
and body completely around. Although Cuevas answered back with his
uppercuts, Duran’s punches were clearly draining him. Cuevas kept punching; it
was all he knew. There was no strategy; he threw bombs in desperation. If Duran
decided to move his head in front of one of them, so be it. Pipino landed a left
hook that would have felled lesser men; Duran just stood there swinging. Duran
was quickly back in his corner at the end of the round, anxious to get back out
there to end the fight.
Duran was now hot in pursuit. He circled to his left at the outset of the fourth
round, jabbing and moving as Spada had asked. A straight right from Duran sent
Cuevas down for the first time and brought a standing eight-count from referee
James Jen Kin. A moment later, Duran lodged Cuevas against the ropes for
another fusillade. Cuevas backpedaled out of danger, but couldn’t shake his
pursuer. A right jolted back his head.
Latin pride was at stake and as stoic and brave as Cuevas was, in his prime he
couldn’t have prevented the incoming onslaught in the fourth round. He barely
moved as Duran nailed him with a right hand in the middle of the ring, and then
began to backup as if survival was the only thing on his mind. He had nowhere
to go. An exhausted Pipino sat on the ropes, threw desperate rebuttals, and then
suffered a right cross that had him looking directly at the canvas; a follow-up left
hook had him reeling. Duran connected with another right forcing Cuevas to
grasp Duran for safety, but was quickly rebuffed with three uppercuts. He would
not surrender. A disjointed and weary Cuevas flew against the ropes like a
pinball and squatted as the referee jumped in to start the eight-count. Cuevas
looked to his corner for help; he was the portrait of a beaten fighter.
Both of Cuevas’s eyes were blackened, and his mouth was wide open in
anticipation as he prepared for the inevitable ending. He could no longer turn to
his power for backup. With over a minute remaining, Duran cornered Cuevas
and landed almost a dozen uppercuts and hooks that bounced the Mexican into
the ringpost. Cuevas hung on and refused to let go of Duran until Kin broke
them apart. It was his only respite, as Duran moved him against the ropes for
another ambush. He banged a right hook to the body and then to the head.
Another uppercut had Cuevas wobbling to the other side of the ring. No longer
was he throwing punches. A straight right jolted the head of Cuevas, forcing
many in the crowd to wonder, how much more can he take?
It was a sad sight as Cuevas couldn’t defend himself anymore. Duran wailed
away with five punches, the left hook to the ribs did the most damage as Cuevas
slumped to his knees and grasped the ropes. He had risen by nine, and signaled
with his glove for manager Lupe Sanchez to stay put, but it was too late. As
Cuevas began to walk toward Duran to continue, Sanchez had already thrown in
the towel. The fight was stopped at 2:24 of the round; the twenty-five-year-old
had aged ten years in as many minutes.
Having never mastered the classic bob-and-weave, Cuevas tended to move
toward punches, not away from them. He would lose six more bouts to inferior
opposition before leaving the game in 1989. “I am a good friend of the Duran
family and I think of him as a brother,” said Cuevas. “I remember the punch
Duran hit me with. It was a bad fight for me.”
Duran looked ahead. As for the letter from Arcel, he had responded with his
fists in a manner his words couldn’t express:

Dear Ray
I appreciate your concern, but I’m not done just yet. I have only begun.
Regards, Cholo.
 16

Return of the King

It was a slow, deliberate pounding. And Davey Moore, because of his
youth and because of his heart, took a lot more punishment than he
should have. It was a massacre. You had a sense watching it, that this
was it for Davey Moore, and sure enough it was.
Steve Farhood

IN THREE YEARS, Roberto Duran had traveled the gamut from hero to
hopeless, beloved to despised. The crushing of Pipino Cuevas had restored at
least some of his lustre. Duran had made a promise at Torrijos’s graveside to
bring home one more world championship in his honor. Whether his next move
would fulfill that vow or send Duran closer to his retirement speech was up to an
undefeated junior middleweight from New York’s toughest neighborhood.
It could have been billed as the Vet vs. the Rookie. Davey Moore was a young
stud from the Bronx, a WBC junior middleweight champion of limited
experience but great potential. Muscles sprouted on his frame; his was the kind
of body that despised fat. He had challenged unbeaten world champion Tadashi
Mihara with a number ten ranking and only eight pro fights to his name but had
won in six rounds and many fight insiders had him on the trail to greatness.
Moore had watched the Cuevas fight on TV from an Atlantic City hotel where
he’d been celebrating victory of his own over challenger Gary Guiden. He had
been impressed but not overawed.
The fight was scheduled for Duran’s thirty-second birthday, June 16, 1983,
and was originally supposed to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, but
promoter Bob Arum moved it to Madison Square Garden when undercard
fighter Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini was injured. “We decided to train in Buenos
Aires because we had a direct flight to Johannesburg,” said Luis Spada. “On the
same show, Mancini was going to fight, but he got a broken hand. I got a call
and Arum had to change the spot of the fight. Then I heard it was Madison
Square Garden. Roberto was happy because that’s where he wanted to fight. He
said, ‘Okay, let’s stop in Panama first.’ It was natural for Roberto because he
always wanted to see his family and his children. But I knew better and told him
that we would go straight to the training camp in New Jersey.”
Something early on told Duran that this wasn’t going to be as difficult as
everyone thought. “Many people felt I had nothing left to give,” said Duran.
“People always think in what they see but people don’t think in what I have in
here [his heart]. When I saw Davey Moore fight, I said, ‘This isn’t shit. I’m
going to make him eat that shit.’”
Duran set up training camp at Great Gorge in McAfee, New Jersey, and then
moved to Gleason’s Gym. A couple days before the bout, Duran found his
opponent preparing for morning roadwork in New York and leapt at the chance
to intimidate him. “One day I’m finishing running at the park and Moore was
about to start running,” said Duran. “I keep staring at him. He tried to impress
me with his body. I laugh in his face. I tell Plomo after this guy passed by that
I’m going to beat the shit out of him. He looks back and I look back at him and
laugh at him. I tell Plomo I’m going to rip him apart.”
With the weigh-in at 11 a.m. on the day of the fight, Spada checked Duran’s
weight at 8 a.m and he was easily under the 154-pound limit. However, Moore
wasn’t in the same shape. “The day of the weigh-in this guy couldn’t make
weight,” said Duran. “I told everyone, you go send out for my dinner and what
not, but I’m not moving until he makes weight. I stood there and he’s watching
me eat in front of him.”
Spada recalled the scene: “The people of Davey Moore made a big mistake
because they believed that Duran was too old and Moore was a good, young
champion. Moore came in overweight at 156 pounds and Roberto made 152.
After making weight Roberto went to eat, he loves that. Moore had two hours to
make weight. I stayed with them until they made the weight.”
The weigh-in also gave the first inkling of the extraordinary support Duran
would call on that night. “It was the most amazing thing in the world,” said
boxing editor Bert Sugar. “I’m at the weigh-in and they have flags. If you placed
a call to Panama that night, no one would have answered: They were all in NY.”
Even Carlos Eleta would show up. “We went in the dressing room,” said Duran.
“A godfather of mine comes in and tells me he has a message from Eleta. ‘What
does he want?’ I ask. ‘He wants to come to the fight and be in your corner.’ I tell
him that I don’t want him to come to the fight or be in my corner or anything.”
It seemed like an odd time for Eleta to try to get back into Duran’s life. “My
godfather Tito Iglesias said, ‘We respect him but we don’t want him here.’ Spada
started crying and I ask him what’s wrong,” said Duran. “I tell him I don’t want
Eleta here and a bunch of things. I get my godfather and I tell him that I don’t
even want to see Eleta here in a can of paint. Tell him to look through the TV
and I’m going to be champ. And when I go back to Panama, I tell him not even
to say hello to me. I told him that that night I would become a champion again.
And I did.” Eleta disputes that such a conversation ever occurred.
No matter how physically gifted and perfectly sculpted, Davey Moore was a
youth compared to Duran. The Arum-promoted fighter turned twenty-four just a
week before the bout. He had started boxing not long after leaving high school
and as an amateur won four Golden Gloves titles and compiled a record of 96-6-
4. He had won the world title in only his ninth bout and had defended it three
times.
Although Clara Samaniego believed in the power of sorcerers and witches and
would blame them for cursing her son when he lost, Duran claimed to be a
Catholic who put his faith in the saints Virgin del Carmen and Saint Lazarus.
However, he also believed in a Babalu aye, a santeria (the Afro-Cuban faith
with roots in the Yoruba region of Nigeria) god of health and healing who
concerns himself with the poor. Identified with St Lazarus, Babalu is also the
wrath of the earth and will punish those that disrespect it. Duran would call upon
these mystical sources for strength against Moore.
The brash young fighter referred to Duran as over the hill, and predicted a
first-round knockout the day before the fight. Duran told a Boston Globe reporter
that he was beginning a “new stage” in the career.
The numbers from the fight proved astounding. Moore-Duran fight brought
the biggest crowd – 20,061, of which 19,000 were paid admissions – since Ali-
Frazier II in 1974. Duran was on a $100,000 purse, with the possibility of
$500,000 in incentives, while Moore was guaranteed $300,000.
More than 20,000 packed the Garden that June evening. Coming in to the
fight, Duran was a 2-1 underdog. Boxing experts such as Michael Katz, Shelly
Finkel and Jim Jacobs all sided with Moore. In fact, very few thought Duran
would win. Although Moore was a Bronx native, the momentum shifted as the
majority of the fans flocked to see their own Latin legend. “This is my town, my
city, I’m the all-American, and everybody was for Duran,” Moore would
complain later. “Everybody was Panamanian.” Not quite everyone, however.
Before Duran stole the spotlight, another icon stole his thunder. “All of a sudden
Muhammad Ali walks into the building and you hear nineteen thousand people
start chanting his name,” said Steve Farhood. “And remember he’s only three
years removed from boxing.”
 During referee Ernesto Magana’s pre-fight instructions, Moore took the notion
of staredown literally as he tucked his head in his powerful chest and thought
about the coming battle. With Moore’s chin on chest and Duran swiveling his
head like a speed bag, Magana addressed both fighters as a son would his
children. Duran looked over at Moore’s bowed head with a glare. Moore was a
kid who could be great, but Cholo had been there already.
The first minute saw barely a punch landed as the combatants circled the ring.
The key moment came just before the bell. Duran threw a jab and seemed to
thumb Moore in the right eye at the same time. Moore lifted his glove to the eye
and pawed at it, a giveaway that he was hurt. The move was more than a
distraction, but was emblematic of the ensuing violence, as Moore was in with
an opponent for whom rules meant little.
The injured eye was already closing when Moore came out for the second. For
the next two rounds Duran, the veteran, embarked on a controlled but brutal
assault, his hooks pounding the champion’s ribs, his jabs finding that damaged
eye. Moore fired back, but at ringside Ray Leonard noted that Duran was “going
with” the punches, rolling his head to mitigate their impact.
Duran poured it on, insulting Moore in the clinches, slipping his counters,
jerking his head back with uppercuts, splitting his bottom lip. Moore had never
been privy to such savagery, and had no idea how to cope. He started at Moore’s
chest, then led to his head, confusing the younger man. “Is he hurting you?”
Moore’s worried trainer asked between rounds. “Are you all right?” Moore
didn’t need to answer: the shock and pain was written on his bruised face. In
round five, the challenger landed two crunching rights, then was warned for a
low blow. He showed no mercy, never did. By round six, Moore’s eye was
closed so tightly that his corner no longer worked on it. With Moore blind in one
eye, Duran was now picking his shots, while the champion tried to work inside
where his lack of vision was less of a hindrance.
In the seventh round, it became massacre. Moore was still throwing punches
but Duran’s short left hooks found his jaw with sickening repetition. After one
short flurry from Moore, Duran gave him a classic shit-eating grin. Puss and
sweat flew off Moore’s right eye. Ringsiders cringed or hid their eyes behind
fingers. Moore’s girlfriend and mother passed out. Journalist and Athletic
Commission boxing representative Jose Torres, who had seen men die in the
ring, was on his feet screaming, “Stop the fight, stop the fight.”
The massacre hit its hideous peak as Duran finally threw a straight right off a
hook and Moore was blown off his feet and hurled to the canvas near the ropes.
Nobody would have objected to stopping the fight as a brave Moore pushed
himself up on his feet. There was little left in the fighter, but heroically he rose to
his feet at the count of eight and was saved by the bell. Duran was so pumped
that he sat down on Moore’s stool before Plomo rushed in and grabbed him. As
he crossed Moore’s path, he cocked his right glove menacingly. Despite his
destructive path and Moore’s unyielding spirit, Duran had never bludgeoned an
opponent so convincingly. Every emotion from confusion to sorrow to complete
exasperation formed on Moore’s face.
Bumps contoured Moore’s face, yet for some reason the normally competent
Magana let the slaughter continue. He seemed to be the only person in the
Garden happy for the bout to go on. “Davey Moore was terribly beaten,”
remembered Bert Sugar. “The generic ringside writers thought that Duran had
stuck a thumb in his eye, myself not included, because his eye had ballooned. He
was getting the shit kicked out of him. That was Duran at his greatest because he
was through, or at least that was the thinking.”
The referee visited Moore’s corner but still the bout continued. Round eight
was torture. Moore tried to hold on, but was trapped in his corner and terribly
beaten, Duran’s thumping right landing again and again. A white towel fluttered
into the ring, thrown by Moore’s corner, but Magana didn’t see it, and ignored
screams from ringside for it to be stopped. Only when Duran’s handlers rushed
between the ropes did Magana finally spot the towel and halt the round at 2:02.
Leon Washington, Moore’s trainer, would later claim in an interview that,
“The only reason [Davey] wasn’t defending himself was that he couldn’t see.”
Washington’s logic was based on the absurdity that he had no problem allowing
a blind fighter back into the ring with a butcher. “Watching that fight, we knew
we were watching the end of Davey Moore,” said Steve Farhood. “Duran was
Duran and took this guy apart,” added Gil Clancy. “He did a complete job on
him.”
Jumping up so that his body would hang over the top rope, Duran searched the
crowd through tears of joy. More than twenty thousand fans lifted the Garden
roof with a chant of “Doo-ran, Doo-ran” as the fighter, with tears rolling down
his bearded cheeks, stepped through the ropes onto the ring apron and extended
his arms, chanting with them, “the satanic eyes suddenly so human and weak.”
Someone held him around the waist to stop him falling into the press section as
the fans in the $100 ringside seats strained to touch him. In the cheaper seats, his
fans waved banners declaring, “Feliz Cumpleanos, Manos de Piedra” – “Happy
Birthday, Hands of Stone” and began to sing “Happy Birthday.” Soon the song
was taken up by the whole stadium. “It was an amazing moment,” said Farhood.
“It was like you were watching a rebirth.” Even Sugar Ray Leonard, looking on
from ringside as a CBS commentator, climbed into the ring and held Duran’s
arm aloft. The new champion thanked him, then added in English, “Say hello to
your wife and your son.” Old enmities were blown away in the tide of emotion.
In eight rounds of action, Duran almost knocked the life out of Davey Moore.
He also became the seventh fighter in history to win titles in three weight
classes, joining the elite fraternity of Bob Fitzsimmons, Tony Canzoneri, Henry
Armstrong, Barney Ross, Alexis Arguello and Wilfred Benitez. He cracked open
a bottle of Moet and Chandon champagne in his hotel room to celebrate.
Duran had fulfilled the promise he made in the fall of 1982 to win a title in
Torrijos’s honor. “I can’t find words to express how I failed in the past,” said
Duran after the fight. “There are no excuses. Once I thought I was a man; now I
am a man and I know it. In truth, I have such enthusiasm, like it was the first
time I came to New York.”
“When everybody was thinking I am finished, I am world champion again,”
said Duran the next day, after partying into the early hours. “After last night, I
forget what happened in the past. I think only in the present and the future. I was
born again last night.”

THOSE PEOPLE WHO had lined up to disparage Duran after Leonard II now
crowded the same streets to share in his return to glory. Duran eventually
returned to Panama after making a pit stop in Miami. As Duran exited the plane
that was sent to him by President Richard de la Espriella, he cut a glorious figure
in his white designer suit and hat. Thousands braved the rain to honor their hero;
schoolchildren threw flowers; men tipped their glasses; and Duran was presented
a key to the city. The rapturous victory parade traveled along the 10-mile route
from the airport to the executive mansion.
To Duran, they were all hypocrites as he would remember the familiar faces
that he hadn’t seen in years. “When Duran was fighting and the fight was on TV,
his fight had the greatest rating, everybody’s watching all over Panama,” said
Spada. “When we came back from Moore fight, they send Duran in Miami in the
President’s own plane. They brought us here to Paitilla, there was thousands of
fans waiting for him. We went to the president’s house and Duran is one man
who has made more Panamanians happy than anybody else. We will have other
champions, but not like Roberto.”
There was a reunion of sorts in Panama. There had been lingering rumors that
Eleta had stolen money from Duran. “Time passes on and I go to eat at a
restaurant where I was going to have a press conference. What a coincidence,
when the conference is over, politics begins,” said Duran. “One of the waiters
tells me that Eleta is in the other room. In my mind, this bastard is in here. I go
to where he is and I say, ‘How are you Eleta? Champion of the world, did you
see this?’ He’s with a friend and you could see the tears in his eyes. His friend
tells me that he needs me for political reasons. I don’t care about politics or
Carlos Eleta. I’m the new champion and you doubted me. And I left.”
Eleta refuted the charge on many occasions. “All those people say what they
want and Duran would believe them,” he said. “I never took anything from him.
He was a man so worried about what the people around him said and thought of
him.”
Although the common belief in Panama is that Eleta did skim from Duran’s
purses, there were those who sided with Eleta.
“When I found out that Eleta took fifty grand from me, I made a big
commotion about it,” Duran said. “Before I make the story any longer, he paid
my money back piece by piece. He wanted me to sign a piece of paper that said I
didn’t owe him anything else and everything was settled. It wasn’t Eleta himself,
he sent a lawyer to sign the thing. My father-in-law tells the lawyer, ‘No, Duran
can’t sign that paper because we don’t know if Eleta still owes him any more
money.’ At some point he screws me out of my money but I can’t elaborate on a
lot of the specifics.”
“I’ve heard all of the stories,” said LA-based promoter Don Chargin. “At the
time I met Roberto he was young, and they change. They’re willing to do
anything. I remember how close he and Eleta were. So I was really surprised at
the break-up.”
Chargin saw firsthand how money destroyed many relationships. Having been
close to several fighters throughout his career, he also had been privy to the
combustibility of dealing with high-strung, spontaneous personalities like Duran.
Often, with Don King as its pioneer, the sport dictated that promoters receive a
bad rap and boxers always are the victims.
“After Leonard, [Duran] was the boss,” recalled Chargin. “It was pretty hard
back then. Nobody could tell him what to do. I think he hurt himself. You always
have to be careful because fighters blame people … they say, ‘It was my
manager.’ The real good managers look out for the fighter’s welfare all the
time.”
After the win over Moore, Eleta was a stranger to Duran, who must have felt a
twinge of sadness watching another male figure check out of his life. First his
real father left, then Chaflan and father figure Jose Manuel Gomez died, now the
man who Duran once called Papa had turned on him. Or that’s how Duran
perceived it. Consolation came from the adulation of his supporters. “An
outpouring of acceptance and appreciation of Duran was never at a higher
pitch,” said Sugar. “He wasn’t supposed to beat Davey Moore and yet all of a
sudden 19,000 people were chasing the pigeons out of the Garden to see him;
they didn’t come to see Davey Moore.”
Meanwhile the inquest continued over referee Magana’s belated stoppage of
the bout. Watching Moore drown at the Garden, it had been obvious that boxing
was the one sport where a bad night could pluck years off a fighter’s shelf life.
Moore’s armor was peeled off piece by piece. In nearly twenty-four boxing
minutes, Davey Moore was stripped of the exuberant, cocksure nature. Those
who witnessed the bout tried to make sense of it all.
“And then when they threw the towel, he stops the fight,” said Juan Carlos
Tapia. “It was one of the most cowardly moments ever by a referee. He could
have done a great loss to Davey Moore.” Writer Jack Newfield referred to
Magana as a “voyeur of masochism” and noted that it was like “death entering
the arena.”
“I watched it with dread,” said author Budd Schulberg. “There are nights like
that that make you feel guilty about boxing. I think the commissions are very
culpable. I don’t know if they check enough on the previous condition of a
boxer. Thank God it doesn’t happen too often. It made me sick. It was one of
those terrible nights that makes you nervous about boxing. It was a sensitive
group around ringside and the more sensitive were increasingly apprehensive
because there was a sense that the poor kid had no armor against Duran. And oh,
he was relentless that night. You had an awful sense that something terrible was
going to happen. I didn’t know if he was going to die but I knew it was the end
of him.” Sports Illustrated writer William Nack summed up the referee’s
performance when he declared, “Leave it to the WBA to hire a turkey to run a
cockfight.”
In March 1984, Moore told a New York Times writer the true implication of
what happened to him the night he ran into Roberto Duran: “Oh man, that fight
broke my heart.”
 17

Redemption

“Roberto’s story is like a religious story. The glory, the fall and the
redemption.”
Luis Spada

THE SCENT OF millions followed Marvelous Marvin Hagler up into the ring
moments after Roberto Duran had mugged Davey Moore in Madison Square
Garden. The shaven-skulled middleweight king reached out and held up the hand
of the new three-time champ as photographers boxed each other out for position.
A contest between the two of them, which would once have seemed absurd, was
now a serious proposition.
A month later, it was announced that the two champions would meet for
Hagler’s middleweight crown in Las Vegas (initially it was announced for the
Dunes casino-hotel outdoor arena but it would eventually take place at Caesar’s
Palace). A crowd of 1,500 mostly Duran fans, turned up just for the press
conference at the Felt Forum in New York. “It will be the biggest closed circuit
fight in history,” declared Bob Arum. “I believe this is the greatest fight in our
lifetime.” He suggested the boxers could earn as much as $10 million each from
all possible revenue sources, though they were believed to have been guaranteed
$5 million. Speaking through his interpreter, Duran said he would train even
harder than for the Moore bout and Hagler would “go down for sure.”
The menacing middleweight champion was unmoved. “Two things are on my
mind,” he glowered. “Destruct and destroy.” The pro-Duran crowd booed but
few among them could help feeling uneasy. Hagler was the toughest proposition
Duran had ever faced. “There’s a monster that comes out of me in the ring,” he
once said. “I think it goes back to the days when I had nothing. They’re all trying
to take something from me that I’ve worked long and hard for, years for.” He
wasn’t about to let “them.”
Hagler grew up in New Jersey and moved to Brockton, Massachusetts,
hometown of the legendary Rocky Marciano, when he was sixteen years old.
Before turning pro in May 1973, he won the National A.A.U championship at
165 pounds. He was guided by the Petronellis: Guerino Petronelli had boxed (as
Goodie Peters) and his brother and sidekick Tony developed fighters in a small
Brockton gym. When Marvin wasn’t training, he worked at the Petronelli
Construction site.
A southpaw who could adroitly switch to conventional style, Hagler paid his
professional dues. He won his first seventeen, fourteen inside the distance, with
a victory over Olympic gold medalist Sugar Ray Seales establishing him as a
potential contender. The Petronellis showed tough love for their young prospect,
refusing to take the easy route of set-up fighters as early opponents. A steady
diet of feared Philadelphia middleweights, then toughest around, didn’t shrink
Hagler’s star: wars with the likes of Bobby “Boogaloo” Watts, Willie “The
Worm” Monroe, Eugene “Cyclone” Hart and “Bad” Bennie Briscoe only
enhanced his reputation. He would avenge his only two losses by stopping Watts
and Monroe.
Hagler, who soon took to calling himself “Marvelous Marvin,” won the WBC
and WBA middleweight belts from Alan Minter in September 1980 on a riotous
night in London. He took out IBF champ Wilfred Scypion three years later to
reign undisputed. No challenger came close to beating him in seven defenses.
Indeed, with no worthy challenger to truly test him, against whom to confirm his
greatness, people began to question Hagler’s greatness and criticize his style
because he was so much better than anyone else. Yet, if he didn’t confirm that
greatness on every occasion with brutality and precision, the people would
slowly yank him from the pedestal. Perhaps he was getting bored. Since those
early setbacks to Watts and Monroe, draws to Sugar Ray Seales and Vito
Antuofermo were the only other blemishes on his record. While Duran ranked
with the best lightweights ever, Hagler was one of the greatest middleweights to
grace the sport. He could outbox the best boxers, outpunch the hardest punchers,
trained obsessively and had a chin of iron. He treated his body like a temple
while Duran rarely scoffed at the extra buffet trip. Would it even be a fair fight?
Yet in the ring after his defeat of Davey Moore, it must have become evident
to Duran that Hagler was not much bigger than he was. Though he had a five-
inch longer reach and was three years younger, he stood only five feet nine.
Conversely, while there was nothing about Roberto Duran that should have
concerned Hagler, something did. It might have been the history of violence and
comebacks, or the effrontery of the man, Duran’s air of unpredictability and
danger. It might have been the mystique, the eyes, whatever, but Duran did
something to Hagler that nobody thought he could do in or out of the ring.
People wondered what a stubby 160-pounder who started the profession at 118-
pounds was going to do to a powerful middleweight whose resume consisted of
lopsided victories in a division devoid of top-flight contenders.
While Duran was loud, bodacious in his movements, tactless in his
mannerisms, Hagler was the silent stalker, content to shuffle, move, jab, all the
while taking a piece of his opponent with each round. His style was tactical,
exact. No one left a Hagler fight dazzled by his footwork or even his one-punch
power, but they marveled at his toughness, technique and generalship. Hagler
fought to win, not to impress, and that didn’t always appease fight fans. Former
Duran trainers Brown and Arcel knew his capabilities, and either out of a respect
for Roberto’s ring genius or a belief that Hagler was overrated, both trainers
gave the Panamanian an edge.
Duran was his first truly great opponent. People would remember this, he
thought, the day he took down the legend and shoved him so far into retirement
that they would only let him back for a Hall of Fame induction. To increase the
incentive, Duran was going for records this time around. If he defeated Hagler,
he would be the first boxer to win four titles in different weight classes.
Duran’s entourage, with a few new faces including training physician Dr
Robert Paladino, arrived in Palm Springs, California, on November 1. While
training for the bout, Duran found himself in the sights of a famous Hollywood
sex symbol, who came to his training session and would sit ringside on fight
night. The pneumatic blonde actress snapped photo after photo of Duran but
apparently the actress wanted more than pictures. “She was there with a camera
but she definitely wanted to fuck him,” said former manager Mike Acri. “When I
told Roberto, he looked at her and said, ‘She too skinny.’ I was thinking, look at
this girl, too skinny? But those Latins love big asses. Roberto loved big asses,
and black girls.”
Duran was solid with Felicidad but he could have easily ended up with
someone else. “In Las Vegas, he met a very pretty Cuban woman who loved him
very much,” recalled his mother Clara. “She was called Silvia Garcia. She
worked in a hotel. I do not know what happened to Duran, why he did not return
to her later. She was a very good woman. She used to send me pretty presents
from the States. They lived together for some time, but then they separated.
After that, Roberto met Felicidad.” Mireya added: “He has a daughter called
Dalia, and had also one with a Cuban woman.”
A story made waves in local papers that Duran and Hagler had a less than
cordial introduction days before the fight. Both camps met by chance on the
Dunes Hotel golf course and Hagler apparently put up his arms and made a point
not to look Duran’s way as they crossed paths. To Duran’s followers, the gesture
was a clear sign that Hagler was intimidated. Hagler seemed to hold a respect for
Duran that belied his usual contempt for his opponents. “I think Duran’s already
starting to get to Hagler psychologically,’’ said Angelo Dundee a week before
the fight. “He knows how to psych guys out before the fight.’’
Having himself nixed a mega-fight with Hagler, Ray Leonard weighed in on
the subject: “I expect Duran to fight Hagler the same way I would have fought
Hagler, the same way I fought Duran in our second fight,” he told a reporter.
“Box him, go to the body. Not toe-to-toe, but test him at times. If he makes a
mistake, jump on him, stand there and punch, then get out. You can’t be one-
dimensional against Hagler, your mind must be a sophisticated computer. Just
react. You can’t stop and think or he’ll be all over you.’’
The thirty-two-year-old Duran may have been the WBA junior middleweight
champion but Hagler, twenty-nine, had cleaned out the competition in his
divison. Hagler was fighting the first of his two-fight contract with Top Rank
Inc. The fight was held in a sold-out crowd of 15,200 in the outside arena at
Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and shown in close to 400 closed-circuit locations
in fifty countries. Ring magazine polled twenty-five boxing insiders and not one
predicted a Duran victory.
During the official press conference, Duran offered to fight Hagler “right now,
why wait?” To which Hagler responded, “I thought the man couldn’t speak
English.” Though both seemed confident, Duran looked in charge. One reporter
covering the pre-fight hype noted that Hagler had become a guest at Roberto’s
fight.
“I think beating Davey Moore proved to people and proved to me that I still
have all my skills,’’ Duran told a reporter. “I still have my power and my speed
and most of all, my experience. I think the key to beating Hagler is to get inside
and I’m smart enough to know how to do it. With someone with his height and
reach, you have to get to his body. He’ll try to work his jab but he can’t keep me
off. I’ll get inside and once I do, I’ll prove to Marvin Hagler that I can punch
with the middleweights. Hagler hasn’t been tested in years. Nobody’s hit him.
I’m going to hit him. We’ll find out if he can take a real punch.’’
Marvin countered, “He likes to brawl and maul but I don’t intend letting him
get close to me. I can box, I’ve proved that to people, and I’m going to box
Roberto Duran. I’m going to pop away at him and keep him off balance. I’ll be
sticking him with the jab and when I see the opportunity, I’m going to nail him
with combinations. I really want to bust him up. The more his people talk and
the more they call me names, the more I get up, the more damage I want to do.
The thing about Roberto Duran is that he’s not afraid to get hit and that will be
his downfall. I plan on busting him up so bad he won’t be able to go back to his
division and defend his title. I want to retire Roberto Duran.’’
The 3-1 betting line in Hagler’s favor before the fight moved to 7-2 on fight
night, November 10, 1983. The champion had won fifty-seven and drawn two of
his sixty-one bouts, with forty-eight stoppages. A stellar line-up of former
champs were introduced before the bout: Jake LaMotta, Kid Gavilan, Gene
Fullmer, Carmen Basilio, Joey Maxim. The judges chosen by the WBA
committee and Elias Cordoba were Guy Jutras of Canada, Ove Oveson of
Denmark, and Yasuku Yoshida of Japan. The crowd dripped in wealth. Fifteen-
dollar Duran T-shirts easily outsold Hagler shirts. Buglers blared the entry of the
boxers, Duran to the Rocky theme tune, Hagler to “Stars And Stripes Forever.”
The preliminaries were drawn out, with the boxers waiting in the ring for over
twenty minutes in cool evening air, but Duran seemed to savor the atmosphere,
bouncing around the ring and smiling. The combatants jawed at each other
during pre-fight introductions, but seconds later they quickly touched gloves, a
rarity for Hagler.
The chess match commenced at the opening bell. Even the casual fight fan
could have predicted that the taller Hagler would use his reach advantage to
good effect. Duran came in prepared, without the roll of body fat that
occasionally surrounded his midsection. Hagler, one of the hardest trainers in the
game, had his usual rocklike look.
Coming off thirty-two straight victories, Hagler landed the first significant
punch when he sneaked an uppercut under Duran’s guard in the second round.
Hagler landed it when he needed to. Often, Hagler set it up by placing his left
glove on top of Duran’s head, and then sticking the right uppercut into the base
of Duran’s beard. At the end of the initial stanza, Duran landed a straight right
on Hagler’s temple, creating a response from the crowd as if it were performing
the wave.
The bell ended the second round, and both fighters stopped throwing punches.
In an unnatural move, Hagler curled up both gloves against his head to protect
himself as the fighters separated. Instead of turning around and heading back to
the corner or even throwing a punch after the bell to send a message, Hagler was
more concerned with keeping his guard up. It became a theme of the evening.
Duran stepped around a huge Hagler left to start the third round, and delivered
a compact left hook to the champ’s midsection. It didn’t hurt Hagler, but
reminded the southpaw that he had everything to lose in the fight. Since Hagler
wasn’t pressing, Duran was able to conserve his energy, and that was never a
good sign for any of his opponents. Both fighters would tease the crowd with a
brief middle-of-the-ring duel toward the end of the third, but then Hagler
responded to his inner clock.
In the fifth, Duran injured his right hand, which began to swell between the
first and second knuckles down to his wrist. Yet he never once gave away his
injury, not even grimacing as he continued to land full-blooded rights to Hagler’s
shaven skull. Gutsing it out, he dismissed the pain to open up in the final fifteen
seconds of the fifth. First, he nailed Hagler with a straight right as the southpaw
was throwing a jab. Then in one beautiful sequence, Duran closed the gap and
landed a right to the body and left hook to the head.
Perhaps because booing had started around the arena, Hagler came alive in the
sixth. He shot his jab into Duran’s face, switched from southpaw to orthodox and
back again – he could box equally as well in either stance – and landed a hard
left hook. After a Duran right harmlessly bounced off his shaven skull, Hagler
shot an effective right cross. Moving now with purpose, Hagler sunk in three left
hooks to the body, pushed Duran against the ropes, reverted to southpaw, moved
to the middle of the ring, turned conventional again and then banged Duran with
a right cross that stunned him for the first time. It was the best punch of the fight.
After motioning Duran to the ropes and feeling the wheeze of his breaths on his
shoulders in a clinch, Hagler landed a final right uppercut before the bell
sounded. No longer was this Hagler covering up as he spun to the corner. Hagler
placed his bald head in Duran’s chest, landed a clean right hook, followed by a
left hook to close out the seventh round. Duran ended the round in classic
gunslinger pose but his courage hadn’t been enough to win him the round.
Those close to the middleweight champ knew he had to go after Duran and he
finally complied. Staring at Hagler with exhaustion pasted on his face in the
ninth, Duran, mouth agape, took three straight jabs. Duran had started fast but
was tiring. At his age, it was impossible to keep up the pace. He continually
shook his arms as if pleading with them to comply. No discernible response
came as Hagler reverted back to his technical dismantling rather than follow-up
the previous battering.
Commentator Al Bernstein noted in the eleventh that “something might be
going on in Hagler’s mind” as he questioned the hesitant nature of the champion.
Hagler moved inside in the twelfth, where he’d been dominant despite his long
reach, and bullied Duran. With his hands down by his side, Duran put on his first
real scowl of the night in attempt to mock Hagler. It was bravado from a man
who managed to provide brief sparks but little more. Moments later they were
finally in the trenches again and squaring off as Hagler motioned Duran forward
after nailing him with a right hand. Duran landed a straight right followed by a
nice uppercut as Hagler motioned to his face for more. A cut, which was
swelling, appeared underneath Hagler’s left eye from absorbing straight right
hands. Dipping into his broad repertoire, Hagler displayed a straight left, right
jab and another of his pinpoint right uppercuts to best Duran in the thirteenth. As
the round closed, Hagler wagged his tongue at Duran, a sign that even the
serious stalker could have a little fun.
Yet sensationally the official scores had Duran ahead. Going into the
fourteenth round, judge Jutras had it 124-all, Yoshida scored it 127-126 for
Duran, and Oveson also had it by a point, 125-124, for Duran. He had to win
only one of the remaining two rounds to pull off one of the greatest upsets in
history.
Hagler showed his mettle. After landing six consecutive shots to start the
fourteenth, he then obliged the WBA judges with short, pulverizing right hooks
to Duran’s hanging head, and continued to press in a workmanlike manner. By
outpunching Duran in the final stanzas, Hagler would leave the judges no choice.
It was clear at that point why Duran only occasionally took the risks that defined
him in previous bouts. As timid as Hagler was in certain spots, he was just too
big and strong.
Duran came out for the final round pounding his chest and sticking out his
chin. Nevertheless, Hagler now had a slight lead: one point, one point, and two
points on the three scorecards. He padded the lead with an assortment of
punches, which included three uppercuts along the ropes, a straight left, and a
short right hook, laughing inside as Duran couldn’t come close to turning any of
his punches. The fight ended with Hagler bundling Duran against the ropes. As
the bell sounded, Duran squatted and glared menacingly at Hagler, as he had
after his first fight with Leonard. He spat glorious defiance to the end, while
Hagler brooded, blood seeping from a cut around his swollen left eye.
As the men waited in the ring, Duran walked over to Hagler, put his fist in the
air and berated him. Hagler, who picked up a purse between $8 and $9 million,
answered with his hands toward the sky as the scores were read in his favor:
Jutras, 144-142, Yoshida, 146-145, and Oveson, 144-143. Had Duran stolen just
one of the last two rounds, he would have won. It would have been a bad call,
for all the courage and skill of his performance. Many believed Duran’s aura
swayed the judges to make the fight much closer than it was. “I give Duran a lot
of credit but you got to give me credit, too,” Hagler said afterwards. “Come on
man, you gotta give it to me. That man’s a legend.”
Judge Yoshida had six rounds even, prompting Bert Sugar to quip, “The Jap
thinks this guy ‘Even’ is now champion of the world.” British writer Hugh
McIlvaney suggested he “might have scored Pearl Harbour a draw.” There was a
huge disparity between the judges’ scorecards and the overall feeling of the
sportswriters: Jerry Lisker, New York Post, 11-4; Dick Young, New York Post,
10-4-1; Pete Axthelm, Newsweek, 9-5-1; Phil Pepe, New York Daily News, 11-3-
1; Stan Hochman, Philadelphia Daily News, 8-5-2; John Schulian, Chicago Sun-
Times, 8-5-2; Joe Gergen, Newsday, 10-4-1; Bob Verdi, Chicago Tribune, 9-4-2;
Will Grimsley, Associated Press, 8-7, all for Hagler. The morning headlines
ranged from “Hagler is still champ, but invincible no more,” to “Mere Survival
Isn’t a Revival for Duran,” to “Hagler Survives Duran.”
Radio analyst Gil Clancy managed to grab the loser afterwards. “I was the
only guy he would talk to after the fight. He said, ‘Popi, muy cansado.’ He said
he was very tired. I had him ahead going into the thirteenth round and then
Hagler came back to win the last couple rounds.”
The consensus seemed to be that Hagler deserved to win but Duran was a
moral victor. “Hagler was intimidated by Duran,” said trainer Emanuel Steward.
“I don’t know why, but he just was. Duran got to him.” Had he stolen one of the
last two rounds, the challenger would have become the first man in history to
rule four divisions. “Duran Steals All The Glory” was the headline in the British
trade magazine Boxing News. “The stigma of the ‘no más’ fiasco in New Orleans
in the Ray Leonard rematch is erased forever, and his place with the ring’s
immortals is assured,” wrote its editor, Harry Mullan. “Hagler’s post-fight
comment, that ‘If I’d had one more round I could have knocked him out, but all I
wanted to do was to win, and I did’ provided a precise illustration of the
difference between these two modern greats. Hagler, the bleak professional, had
been to work: but Duran, wonderful, unconquerable, fiery Duran, had been to
war.”
A lot of spectators felt Hagler let Duran off the hook by thinking and not
acting. He was too methodical in his approach. Against Duran, he rarely made a
move without calculating the repercussions. “If Marvin had put more pressure on
early,” admitted Pat Petronelli, “it wouldn’t have gone fifteen.” Adding insult to
the criticisms of his performance, the WBC withdrew its recognition of Hagler
as champion because the bout had been fought over fifteen rounds rather than
the new WBC maximum of twelve. It was a typically churlish action on the part
of one of the governing bodies, who often seemed less concerned with
governance than with making money from sanctioning fees and exercising their
dubious authority.
“A lot of people think his best fight was with Leonard, and I was there in
Montreal. But that is a personal opinion. I thought that was his best fight, right
there,” said Luis Spada of the Hagler fight. “After the thirteenth round, he was
one point ahead. You need to take into consideration that Roberto had the body
of a lightweight. To fight with middleweights that was something else. Duran
was outboxing him even though Hagler was taller and had a longer reach. He
learned over the years with Ray Arcel and Freddie Brown to be a complete
boxer. In that fight he was like a helicopter. You watch that fight and sometimes
he was over-boxing, but he was punching to the body then moving to the side
beautifully.”
Hagler tried to justify his risk-free strategy after the bout. “I fought him at
half-distance,” he told a boxing writer. “I was waiting for him to unload so I
could score on him. Whichever hand he unloaded with I was ready to counter. I
was beating him without mixing it up too much. You don’t barrel in on a guy
like Duran.” A commentator reiterated what many believed to be true: Hagler
won the fight, but Duran won the night. “I was a little tight. It wasn’t the
atmosphere. It was inside. It was between Roberto and myself,” said Hagler.
Still, the Marvelous One would have a chance to win back the fans against
Thomas Hearns.
“Everyone was saying he was a destroyer,” Duran said. “But when he hit me it
didn’t do a thing to me. But I was scared to throw my right hand.” He was still
ebullient at a press conference the morning after. Facially unmarked and sporting
a yachting cap, he rubbed together the fingers on his swollen right hand and
joked, “No good punching, plenty good counting money.” Hearing of a Hagler
complaint that he had been thumbed, Duran burst out laughing.
“He win, I lose, he complaining,” he quipped.
 18

Tommy Gun

“A lot of people came to me and said to watch him because he was a

legend, but I already knew this, and he could do anything he truly
wanted to do in that ring. But I felt like my skills and my abilities were
greater. More than me watching him, he had to watch me.”
Thomas Hearns on Duran

IT WAS, IN hindsight, a mistake. To fight the world’s best middleweight, take a

seven-month layoff, then step straight into a war with the world’s best light-
middleweight without so much as a tune-up bordered on madness. But money
has a way of barging aside all other considerations in boxing. In the latest in a
series of massive bouts, Duran agreed to fight Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns on
June 15, 1984, in the arena outside a Caesar’s Palace parking lot in Las Vegas.
Hearns’s WBC junior middleweight title belt, which he had won from Wilfred
Benitez in December 1982, would be on the line.
Duran should have defended his own 154-pound WBA title against number
one contender Mike “Body Snatcher” McCallum, but abdicated his belt for the
money bout with Hearns rather than face the mandatory challenger. The skilled
McCallum showed up at the Duran-Hearns press conference to protest the
decision to push him aside but no one was listening. “Originally Duran was
going to fight a rematch with Hagler because he fought him so tough the first
time around,” said Emanuel Steward, who managed both McCallum and Hearns.
“The WBA told me that Duran was not going to fight McCallum. It was either
Duran fight Mike for $500,000 or Hagler for $5 million. Due to Rule Nineteen
or something like that, something about the betterment of boxing, it would be
Hagler and Duran again. I told Mike that we couldn’t stop the WBA. I said, ‘I
tell you what, Mike. Duran can fight Tommy and you could fight the winner for
the title.’”
Although McCallum agreed to Steward’s proposition and was put on the
undercard of the Hearns-Duran fight, he was angry. “Mike was supposed to fight
on the undercard for $250,000, which was the most he’d made to that point,”
said Steward. “I wasn’t going to take a penny of that, I told him. Then Mike said
that he wasn’t going through with the fight because he was supposed to fight
Duran instead of Tommy. So he fell off the card.”
Duran had lapsed back into his old routine and was more interested in making
music than training. Some reports had him coming down from as much as 196
pounds. “He was not in the best shape,” said Luis Spada. “The time before that
fight, he was involved in his music orchestra. When we signed the contract in the
Dominican Republic to fight Hearns, he went to play in the orchestra. Roberto
wanted me to stay with him and the orchestra. I said, ‘No, I’m not here for the
music. I am going back to Panama.’ After that he was taking too much time with
the orchestra. When he needed to train, there was no time left for training.”
Duran struggled to focus on the bout at hand. His ultimate aim was a return bout
with Leonard but it didn’t pay to underrate the Hit Man.
Tommy Hearns was an elongated stalker of frightening power. His hooks
landed like whiplashes and his straight right was one of the hardest in boxing.
Hearns also felt Duran was made for him: too small, too old, no longer
dangerous. From the fashion in which Duran picked off punches, probed with his
left to land the right, pulled his head back, searched for the left hook to the body
and even to his defensive tactics, Hearns knew how to respond. Steward taught
Hearns to shoot jabs to Duran’s chest to bring down his guard and the pair
analyzed every attribute about the man. While Duran had grown into his role as
more erudite than powerful in the ring, Hearns had to prove to himself that the
right hand he injured against Wilfred Benitez was back to form. During training
sessions, Hearns sparred with Olympic hopeful Mark Breland, Milton McCrory
and Duane Thomas. Breland was so quick that Duran would appear in slow
motion by comparison. There were days in training that Hearns wouldn’t even
win a round and it became an inside joke at camp.
“Duran wasn’t a spent fighter at that time,” said Steward. “He was coming off
a great fight with Marvin. I always liked to work with speed and it was Tommy’s
speed that was too much for Roberto. When we prepared for Duran we didn’t
have any short guys for Tommy to work with. But we worked on many little
tricks for Duran. It was all about speed and Tommy would say, ‘Duran won’t be
as quick as these guys I’m training with.’”
In contrast, little went right for the Duran camp. “When we left Panama we
went to Nassau in the Bahamas,” said Plomo. “He had been drinking and was
throwing up, which lowers his defenses. We spent two months there but he was
not able to train there even once. He was sick all the time. After two months
there that Duran had not been able to train even one full day, he was not in good
condition to fight against Tommy Hearns. If Duran ran, then he would not be
able to do anything else, and if he trained, then he could not run. When we
arrived in Las Vegas, Duran had still six pounds to lose. He had to run in the
morning and then go to a sauna before getting on the scale. After this Duran
thanked God because he had arrived to the required weight. He said he did not
know what would happen during the fight but he could not cancel it, for he
would have to face a claim in such a case and that would be too expensive.”
Duran admitted to this author that he trained only two weeks in the Bahamas and
one in Hollywood for the bout.
Two days before the bout, Duran told a New York Times reporter, “More than
anything else, I wanted a rematch with Leonard. He was the best I ever fought,
and I wanted to show him that I could beat him when I was at my best.” It
suggested his mind was not on the job in hand, even though his opponent was
every bit as formidable as Leonard. Hearns’s goal, meanwhile, was an assault on
Marvin Hagler’s middleweight crown.
Before the bout, a story made the rounds that Hearns burned Duran mentally
without trying. If true, it marked the first time that Duran was intimidated before
a bout. Duran was a past master at pre-fight intimidation. With some it worked,
with others it didn’t. Thus, Duran expressed his fears and insecurities through
intimidation. When it didn’t work, he lost an edge. For years he had been
typecast as a maniacal fighter with little control. Now, Hearns had switched the
roles. At one point before the bout, Hearns pulled Duran’s hat down over his
eyes, a sure-fire mistake in any setting.
“That happened, sure,” said Hearns’s trainer Emanuel Steward. “Roberto just
ran away when Tommy pulled his hat down. I don’t know what it was, but
Tommy always intimidated Roberto. Even when Tommy was like twenty years
old and he was at a fight with Roberto in Las Vegas. I’ll never forget because
Roberto was talking to someone and Tommy went up and tapped him on the
shoulder. Roberto quickly backed away when he saw Tommy. It was like he saw
a ghost or an evil spirit. That was Duran’s role; he was the intimidator. But
Tommy always possessed something, like a spiritual thing over Roberto. Roberto
was always passive around him whether it was at the press conference or on the
street. It was very unlike Roberto.”
To Hearns, whose memory is sketchy, the hat incident seemed harmless. “It
could have been true,” said Hearns. “Me and Roberto were playing around and I
pulled his hat down. I thought it was just build-up for the fight. I didn’t look at it
like it could have been something to make a man change his heart. Just playing
around.” Hearns would later add, “It was always a must for me to take control
before a fight. You never let a man dictate what that you’re supposed to be
doing. I must be in charge and if I’m not then there’s something wrong.”
Juan Carlos Tapia concurred, “I would go running with him every morning.
He was not in shape. He was intimidated by Hearns and I could tell he was not
ready for that fight.” Carlos Eleta recalled, “I saw him training by the TV before
the Hearns fight. I said, ‘My God he is going to fight him like that. He cannot
even fight with me.’ He didn’t train at all.”
Others leapt to Duran’s defense. “That fight should have never been made,”
said ex-manager Luis DeCubas. “Duran took it for the money, and he didn’t train
like he should have. Duran told me personally that making weight for that fight
was one of the hardest experiences of his life, but intimidated, never! That guy
don’t get intimidated by nobody.”
Whether Duran had fallen under Hearns’s spell or not, all indications showed
that he had begun to mellow. Plomo Quinones recalled other problems. “There
was an American man who used to say he was a friend of ours but he was
actually Hearns’s spy. We only found this out after the fight, when we realized
he was happy with the results and celebrating with the people surrounding
Hearns. Duran is such a good person that he thought this was a real friend.”
Both men suffered to an extent from the Leonard Syndrome. Hearns had their
1981 fight to win, but got tagged and stopped in round fourteen. “I hurt myself
against Leonard three years ago,” said Hearns. “I’ve been proving myself ever
since, but the Leonard fight is in the past. It should be kept there. I resent it when
people keep putting it up to me.”
The promoters of the fight were Shelteron, headed by Shelly Saltman, and
Gold Circle, run by Bill Kozerski and Walter Alvarez, who would deal with a
worrying financial ebb and flow before the fighters met in the ring. Days before
the event, the boxers still weren’t sure if or when it would happen. “Even up to
the day before, it was a question of financing, the promotions, the whole thing
was built out of a house of cards,” said Bert Sugar, who broadcast the bout.
Emanuel Steward made sure a letter of credit was in the bank weeks before the
scheduled date or he was taking his fighter back to Detroit. “I was packed and
ready to go home,” he said. “Tommy would never fight unless we had a letter of
credit a week and sometimes two before the fight. But the promoters hadn’t
given us the money. So Henry Wald, the President of Caesar’s, came to me and
promised me that Caesar’s would stand by a guarantee. Wald stopped me from
packing and I went on with the fight. I had even reduced Tommy’s, whose WBC
title was the only one on the line, purse so that Duran was making more money
than he was.”
Duran might have benefited from a postponement. He was reportedly making
$1.6 million to Hearns’ $1.8, significantly more than if he had fought McCallum,
but the move was tantamount to boxing suicide. People criticized Hearns’s chin
but nobody, legend or not, was going to best him in a shootout – not at 154
pounds. “Hearns could intimidate but he could also hit,” said Bert Sugar.
They called it “Malice in the Palace” and 14,824 people waited for the
entrants. Duran came in at 154 pounds, bang on the limit, with Hearns nearly a
pound lighter yet looking twice as big. While Duran had five losses in eighty-
two bouts, Hearns’s only blemish in thirty-nine bouts was the Leonard loss.
More important than the records, Duran was giving up five inches in height and
eleven in reach. “No one has ever really tried to hurt Duran,” said Steward
before the bout, “but Tommy will.”
The theme to Rocky II blared from the speakers as Duran, who had officially
relinquished his WBA light-middleweight title shortly before, followed a cadre
of handlers into the ring. Spada, in a tight-fitting blue jumpsuit with DURAN
stitched on the back, nudged the ropes so that Duran could climb through. He
looked sharp, replete in a jet-black robe and a thick beard that perfectly fit his
face. Hearns, in a red robe with gold trim, seemed almost to gleam as he moved
slowly behind a mass of soldiers resembling Roman gladiators. Twisting his
arms and then shaking them out to the end of his fists, he breathed intensity.
Reaching the ring, he disrobed to show a wiry but sculpted body. Hearns had
been sparring in the Kronk Gym with some of the quickest and most talented
boxers in the world. He bounced around the ring and shot blur-fast jabs. The Hit
Man had never looked in better shape.
In contrast, a strangely subdued Duran sat on his stool before the
introductions. The Panamanian didn’t stick his fist in Hearns’ face like he had
done to DeJesus seconds before their battles, nor did he swagger past, throwing a
glare or a punch in the direction of the opposing corner. Instead he sat in his
corner with shallow eyes. “I wasn’t with Duran in that fight,” said former
manager Luis DeCubas, “but I remember hearing about how he used to go into
the shower after workouts and just lay down on the shower floor for hours
because he was so weak. When he got into the ring, he was just sitting there.”
Such a small detail might have been missed in an ordinary fighter, but it was
easy to look into Duran’s eyes and notice emptiness. Even if Duran wasn’t
scared of Hearns, the popular opinion was that he had not prepared sufficiently
to be in that ring that evening. “There were only a few fighters in the history of
boxing who could not be intimidated at all. And Duran was one of them,” said
Jose Torres. “If it’s true that he didn’t train properly at times, then of course he
hurt himself. He was such a mental fighter that he had to be aware if he was in
condition or not. Even if you are not in condition but you are aware that you
didn’t train properly, it affects you. If he didn’t train, then he knew he didn’t
train and that’s the thing about smart fighters. They use their heads for
everything, even unconsciously.”
Under a darkening night sky in the temporary outdoor arena, Duran tentatively
circled to his left, seeking an opening. To land a shot, he had first to reach
Hearns, but the American’s jaw looked like he’d need a ladder to hit it. A jab
bounced harmlessly off Hearns’s washboard stomach. The Hit Man looked
supremely confident, flicking out his left to set up the missile in his right glove.
Duran appeared concerned about getting hit. Pushed against the ropes with a
strong right hand, he flailed back.
In the middle of a combination that sent him falling through the ropes, it
appeared that Duran was bravely calling for more punishment. A clipping
Hearns uppercut opened a cut over his left eye. It was the least of his concerns.
There was confusion, which brought a temporary halt to the action, and Duran
put his hands up matador style and turned his head as if to ask Padilla for an
explanation. A split second later, another uppercut sent him reeling around the
ring. “Hearns moved in, purposeful and unhurried, feinted with a left jab to the
body and quick as a flash brought over a right to the chin that put Duran down
heavily,” reported Boxing News. “Duran propped himself up on his left elbow,
got to his knees and made it to his feet at the count of five. But he looked
unsteady.” Despite this, he waved Hearns in with his glove, ready to take what
was coming, in desperate trouble but the King of Macho once more.
Hearns blitzed him against the ropes with both hands, then dropped him again
with a short left hook with a few seconds left in the round. Padilla gave him a
standing eight-count and Duran, visibly shaken, headed toward the wrong corner
between rounds, something he often did. As if chasing a drunken buddy walking
into traffic, Plomo sprinted over to redirect him, a dripping sponge in his hand
ready to rinse Duran’s blood-smeared face.
At the start of the second Duran appeared to have recovered and the two
fighters touched gloves respectfully before resuming. Hearns, sharp and focused,
quickly exerted pressure. Duran did land some punches, but not hard enough to
even dent the Detroit slugger. Hearns ripped away, tagging Duran flush on the
chin with terrible rights. The challenger was in deep trouble and fought back on
instinct in a final show of defiance. Then came the end. “Hearns missed with a
big right but Duran was backing up again and in disarray,” said Boxing News.
“Hearns shot out a quick double jab to the body, more feints than serious
punches, and then struck with a pulverizing right hand to the chin that ended the
fight.”
The punch landed with such force that Duran was out before he hit the
ground, face-first. Referee Padilla stepped in and declared a technical knockout
at 1:07 of the second round. There was no need to count. “After that last
knockdown it was like he was dead, gone,” said Emanuel Steward. “It wasn’t
just a right hand he hit him with but what we call a ‘running’ right hand. He was
sliding in fast when he hit him with it. Tommy was looking at his chest and
Duran never saw the punch.”
In the middle of the ring, Hearns – who was aware that a Hagler fight was all
but guaranteed – said he knew that Duran was hurt in the first round. “It’s the Hit
Man coming back again,” said Hearns, who fulfilled a second round prediction
he made in the papers before the fight. Then he hugged Duran and picked him up
like he was a little kid.
As Plomo and Spada rushed Duran out of the ring as if fleeing a bad dream, a
crimson stain marked the spot where Duran had landed. If the exit in New
Orleans left a bad taste, the head-first collapse that Duran took was more
uncomfortable to watch on many levels. In New Orleans there was confusion
and it took time for people to understand what had occurred. At first nobody,
including Leonard, had an idea that Duran had surrendered. And although the
boxing community might never come to terms with Duran’s shocking exit, it
wasn’t painful to watch. Hearns left him flat out, his face on the canvas in a
fusion of blood, slobber and sweat. “The final curtain falls on a legend,”
lamented Boxing News.
No one had ever knocked out Duran, a man whose solid chin was even harder
than his fists. Anyone with an interest in him – friend, opponent, family member,
associate – would have difficulty dealing with it. “Thomas Hearns really beat
him up. It was a sad day for Panamanian boxing,” said Ismael Laguna. “Hearns
had all the advantages against Duran, more reach, he could hit hard and was
taller. The way he caught Duran with that one-two punch and the way Duran fell
without even putting his hands on the floor, the way he hit the floor head-first, I
would not forget that moment. Duran would trust his punching power too much,
especially his right hand. My wife was a very big fan of Roberto and I had to
take her to the hospital after the fight. She almost fainted. She was so mad about
what happened that she thought Duran was dead.”
Money, a lot of it, had softened his edge, his belly. Even the anger that so
defined his ring presence seemed to have disappeared, and with it his threat. “I
do know that he didn’t train properly,” said Bert Sugar. “Yes he got the shit
kicked out of him brutally with overhand rights right on the jaw but I got the
impression from not training and not knowing it was going to happen, he just
wasn’t prepared. These were guys who could intimidate and not back it up.
Hearns could hit. When Duran went down in the second round, nose bounced on
the canvas, it was like a plane landing.”
“That was one of the harder punches that I threw,” Hearns said years later.
“But also one I hit Pipino Cuevas with. I think that punch was harder than the
one I hit Roberto with…but I had to be superb that night. If I didn’t go in and
knock Roberto out like I did, I probably wouldn’t have won the fight because
Duran was a legend in the boxing world. It had to be decisive.” Reflecting on the
fight, Hearns had forgotten little from that Vegas evening. “I was training real
hard, so hard because I knew I was fighting a legend. A man that had done a
whole lot for boxing, that at an early age he was already a champion. But I had
in my heart and my mind that I could win, that I wanted to be successful, and
that I was going to do all it took for me to be successful. I was expecting a very
tough fight and that’s what I trained for. When I saw the opportunity to change
that that was a big release of all my heart, of my mind and my soul. I knew my
ability, but I wanted to impress the people who came to watch the fight and
[thought] that I was going to lose.”
Steward was not one of those individuals. Ever since he started working with
Hearns, he knew there was something extraordinary about this prizefighter.
Although he had come up short against Leonard in 1981, Hearns faced a fighter
in Duran, who would stand right in front of him, and no longer had the head
movement or reflexes of his fabulous Seventies incarnation.
“I wasn’t surprised how quick he got to him because when Tommy was right,
and he was a great boxer, he could beat any top fighter in the world,” said
Steward. “When two great fighters get in the ring, you never see one great
fighter destroy another one. Marvin or Ray couldn’t do that but Tommy could.
When he was right he could go in and make a world-class fighter look like
nothing. If you didn’t know who Roberto was you’d think he was a slow kid
from Panama.”
As Duran was led out from the outdoor arena, onlookers wondered if they just
saw the last of him. “If Benitez proved that Duran could no longer cut off the
ring on a slick boxer, and Hagler showed that the Panamanian could never beat a
middleweight,” wrote KO magazine’s Jeff Ryan, “then Hearns stripped Duran of
his ability to take a punch and his pride, the only two qualities that he still
retained.” (Nov 1986) There was nowhere left for him to go.
Duran announced he was retiring and flew home to Panama, where he was
promptly honored by the appearance of his head on a postage stamp – and was
thrown in a jail cell. According to a story he told author Peter Heller, Duran was
seized when he reached Panama City, for reasons not explained. “Then I got
rebellious and aggressive and I started to argue with the guards,” he said. “They
wanted to hit me. They called the colonel, Colonel Paredes, and the captain said
we have Duran here and no one can hold him, he says he’ll hit anyone who tries
and we’ll have to kill him … They just grabbed me and detained me. I don’t
know why. So Paredes said, ‘Just let him go.’” The reasons for his arrest are still
unclear, even to Duran, but it may have been an angry reaction by the military
authorities to his poor showing.
Hearns and Duran retained a special fondness for each other. “I love the man
and I have nothing but respect for him still,” said Hearns. Both fighters later got
to spend time together in Panama. “We were in Panama for a WBO Convention
and as soon as Duran sees Tommy he starts screaming, ‘Tommy Hearns, Tommy
Hearns,’ and hugs him,” said Manny Steward. “He grabs Tommy and takes him
all over town. They were like little kids.”
The boxing reporters, once again, wrote Duran’s career obituaries but this
time it really did seem all over. “It was a sad way for Duran to go,” said Boxing
News, “but at least he fell to a superb champion, and not a man from the lower
orders. That would have been tragic. We’ll remember Duran as the snorting,
scowling, grinning fighter who destroyed the best lightweights of a generation
and then moved up in his later years to become a triple champion.” His
seventeen-year, eighty-three fight career, with just a handful of losses, had been
one of the greatest ever. He had equaled the record for lightweight title defenses,
won world championships at three weights and was the only man to beat Ray
Leonard. Now the rollercoaster ride was finally over.
Old Stone Hands was finished.
 19

“I’m Duran”

“It was like watching Rembrandt paint a picture.”
Irving Rudd, publicist

FOR OVER A year and a half, Duran loafed and enjoyed his millionaire status.
He ballooned to over 200 pounds. He played music. He drank. But the poverty
of his past continued to haunt him. “When I was penniless, Christmas and New
Year’s Eve were the saddest days not only for me but for my mother and family
because while others celebrated we had to go to bed early because there was not
even enough to buy gumballs,” he told author Peter Heller in an interview in the
mid-Eighties. “Now every time it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m home drinking and
celebrating with friends I’m happy but only on the outside. On the inside I’m sad
thinking of my mother and thinking of those times when I was penniless.”
Indeed, by May 1985 rumors were spreading that Duran was much closer to
broke than rich. There was speculative talk of an enforced comeback. Trying to
fend off the stories that her gambling and her husband’s spending on cars,
motorcycles and even a plane had forced them to sell some of their assests,
Felicidad Duran spoke to a Radio Mia reporter that summer. “We have sold what
we wanted to because we have the right to do as we want and it is private. We
are in a good financial situation that assures our children’s future.” Felicidad
admitted that her husband had returned to the gym to try to retain his boxing
passion but said there was no guarantee of an immediate comeback.
It was no huge surprise, then, when in January 1986 Bob Arum of Top Rank
announced that Roberto Duran would be returning to action. Arum even played
for reporters a tape of Duran insisting that he could beat both Hagler and Hearns.
No one was laughing; it wasn’t even funny any more.
On 31 January 1986, he took on Colombian novice Manuel Zambrano in the
Nuevo Panama Gymnasium. Duran trained at the Rodrigo Colon Sanchez Gym
in San Miguelito for the bout. Twelve thousand fans gave their national hero a
roaring ovation and despite weighing his heaviest ever at 165lbs – having shed
an alleged fifty-five pounds – he didn’t disappoint. A left hook put Zambrano
down for the full count at the end of round two, with his jaw broken in three
places. Zambrano would never win another bout. Three months later in Panama,
Duran moved on to the unknown Jorge Suero from the Dominican Republic. It
was another mismatch, with the 162-pound Duran knocking out Suero at 1:45 of
the second round. These “fights” rated little blips even in the boxing papers, but
observers noted Duran was looking sleeker.
On June 23, 1986, the thirty-five-year-old Duran stepped into the ring in Las
Vegas to face Marvin Hagler’s half-brother Robbie Sims, a tough middleweight
with a solid record. Sims was a live one, ten years younger and ranked fourth by
the WBA. He had several fine victories to his credit, most notably a sixth-round
KO of a young prospect named Iran Barkley. It had been two and a half years
since Duran engaged Hagler and now Sims wanted to finish what his brother
couldn’t.
“Robbie Sims says he’s the policeman who will stop anyone trying to get to
Hagler,’’ Duran told a UPI reporter. “Well, I’m the general who is going to put
him in jail. He’ll have to call his brother to get him out.” He continued, “I should
have never gone ahead with the Hearns fight. I just never got myself into shape.
I got a late start in training and then I had some problems along the way. It
turned out that I had to lose too much weight in too short a period of time. I felt
totally drained when I went into the ring. I had nothing left to hold Hearns off. I
was a defenseless fighter. This time, I won’t be so stupid. I’ll be training the
right way now. I know what’s at stake this time. Robbie Sims had better be
ready. I’m coming to fight.’’
In the scorching desert heat in the open air at Caesar’s Palace, Sims came out
throwing bombs, but near the end of the first round Duran stunned him with a
left hook and sent him back to his corner with blood trickling down his left
cheek. He had learned that it still didn’t pay to take Duran for granted. For the
next few rounds, Sims racked up points and even opened a cut inside Duran’s
mouth, and by the fourth the veteran was gasping for air.
But in the sixth, Duran took charge. He held the centre of the ring, jabbed
sharply, then made Sims hold on after a left hook and a big right. A sizeable egg
formed under Sims’s left eye and by the seventh, Duran was in full cry, banging
in punches and bloodying Sims’s nose as the crowd chanted his name. One
ringside reporter called it “the best round he had fought in nearly three years.”.
With a few rounds remaining, both men had swelling around their eyes and
Duran was spitting blood from a cut inside his mouth. If Duran hustled the
eighth from Sims, he was nearly as fatigued in the ninth. Despite battling in the
tenth, Duran couldn’t maintain the pace, and in the end youth and strength
prevailed, though only just. At the end of a grueling ten-rounder, the split-
decision went to the rugged, unspectacular Sims. If a point had not been taken
from Duran for low blows in the eighth round, he would have managed a draw.
Duran earned $100,000 for his work. Judge Art Lurie scored it 96-94 for Duran,
while Bill Graham, 97-92, and Jerry Roth, 96-94, favored Sims, who finished
looking like the loser, with his left eye almost closed and his mouth bleeding.
“Duran sure has a lot left,” Sims told a reporter after the bout. “I made a
mistake by letting down in the middle rounds. I knew that Duran was always
dangerous and he shook me up a couple times. I got a little weary and paid for it.
But I knew I was the clear-cut winner and this was just one hell of a fight.”
The loss was a setback but Duran had been in the fight all the way. “If this
was Roberto’s Duran’s last stand,” said Boxing News, “at least he went out the
way we all hoped he would, spitting defiance to the end.” KO magazine called it
“Roberto Duran’s Last Night In The Spotlight.” As usual, however, Duran had
not been reading the script. “If the people, if the press want me to come back, I
come back,” he said. “If you want to see Duran fight, he will fight.”
He was out of miracles, or so it seemed. The nostalgic reunion with Luis
Spada had run its course, and now Duran concentrated on his salsa, following in
the steps of his brother Armando, who had formed the popular group Arena
Blanco. The boxer began to tour with his own band, yet he still didn’t feel his
fight career was over. That December he met a cab driver and part-time herbalist
named Carlos Hibbard at a music gig in New York. Hibbard, a Panamanian Jew
living in Brooklyn, had no boxing education, placed his faith in the mezuzah he
hung around his neck, and drove a cab without a license. Duran, who was always
attracted to mystics and quacks, was amused at his chutzpah and intrigued by his
ideas on diet and weight loss. Somehow a man with no steady job and whose
motto was “you can’t be a loser if you got the mezuzah” gained his ear, and
months later, Hibbard joined the Duran team as a nutrition guru. By 1989, he
was reportedly earning one-quarter of Duran’s purses, by which time speculation
was also widespread that Duran had exhausted most of his money and even had
dipped into his children’s trust funds.
Now under the management of Miami-based Cuban Luis DeCubas, he would
fight five times over the next two years. “I got Duran after the Robbie Sims loss.
I was living in Miami at the time,” said DeCubas. “I got him the fight with
Victor Claudio. I was working as his manager, and pretty much doing,
everything like finding sparring partners, getting opponents, and locating a place
for camp. When I saw him at the airport in Miami, he was 227 pounds. He
looked me in the eyes and told me he would become champion again, and I
believed him. I was a young guy and here was Roberto Duran telling me he was
going to be champion. Of course I believed him.”
Moving away from his Vegas stomping grounds, the Duran camp headed to
the East Coast to Miami and the Atlantic City casino stage. On 16 May 1987, he
earned a unanimous decision over Victor Claudio, a former Olympic boxer from
Puerto Rico, in front of 3,500 fans at the Convention Center, Miami. Duran
ripped open a cut over Claudio’s eye in the third, and knocked him down in the
ninth round with a left hook, but couldn’t put him away. His hand troubles also
flared again, and he headed straight to Mount Sinai Hospital for X-rays after the
fight.
He returned to Miami that September to take on Paraguay’s Juan Carlos
Gimenez, and trained with Carlos Hibbard at Caron’s Gym in Miami. Known as
“El Toro,” Gimenez was 27-3-2 and was the WBC’s number eight middleweight
contender. It was his first bout outside of Latin America. Duran appeared to be in
trouble in the first round after Gimenez crashed in a right hand over the top, and
the bearded veteran had to call on all his experience to survive the follow-up
barrage of hooks. But he then took over the fight and boxed beautifully, using his
underrated jab and occasional thudding rights to finish a clear points winner after
ten rounds. “The ex-champ’s often under-appreciated defensive skills were very
much in evidence,” wrote Graham Houston in Boxing News. “He feinted, slipped
punches, made Gimenez miss by pulling his head back and then countered.
Duran used his left jab like a master boxer, sometimes just flicking to keep
Gimenez occupied, then suddenly following with a jarring right-hander in a
classic one-two sequence.”
In January 1988, Duran was hit by a claim for $4.3 million from the American
Internal Revenue Service. The IRS said he had understated his taxable income
from 1977 to 1984 by $3.8 million, with an additional $618,000 in penalties. His
Miami lawyer claimed the assessment was “greatly incorrect.”
Still on the comeback trail and hoping for a final big payday with Ray
Leonard, in February a pudgy Duran – “like a little beer barrel” according to US
trainer Gil Clancy – outpointed Ricky Stackhouse at 162 pounds in the Atlantic
City Convention Center. He showed flashes of his greatness. In round two, he
sidestepped a jab and dislodged Stackhouse’s mouthpiece with a straight right. In
round six, he sent Stackhouse to the canvas. In round eight, he dropped him
again with a beautiful combination. He was getting back to where he wanted to
be, though he claimed he’d had to lose two stone in a month to make the weight.
DeCubas had partnered with Jeff Levine and Mike Acri, a booking agent from
Erie, Pennsylvania. Levine paid Duran a $30,000 retainer for promotional rights,
and set up the Stackhouse bout. “What was amazing was the fan appeal,” said
manager Mike Acri. “When he went back to the dressing room after the
Stackhouse fight and walked back out and there were hundreds of people … it
was like he was Mick Jagger, just hundreds of people chasing him. These people
left the stands and started to run after him. He was the king of macho and was as
big as Ali for the Latinos. We used to tell him, ‘You’re fucking Roberto Duran!’
And he would be like, ‘You’re right.’ And we would motivate him.”
At the Tropicana Resort in Atlantic City on March 14, Duran stopped Paul
Thorne at the end of six rounds with a badly cut lip, though he suffered a cut eye
himself from a clash of heads. Duran knocked Thorne down in the second and
split his lip nearly to his nose. “The punches began to rain down,” Thorne, a
recording artist, later remembered in a song. “He hit me with a dozen hard
uppercuts and my corner threw in the towel. I asked him why he had to knock
me out, and he summed it up real well. He said, “I’d rather be a hammer than a
nail.’”
“Now the champions will want to give me a fight because they are sure it is
easy to beat me,” Duran told KO magazine. He had long since learned to play
the media. “Making conversations with him are studies in frustration,” wrote’s
KO’s Jeff Ryan. “Just as soon as Duran learns that he is speaking to a reporter, he
utilizes the only defensive skills that Father Time hasn’t yet stolen from him. Up
goes the guard. Out goes any touch with reality.” Yet Ryan and other writers had
written off Duran so many times, he had a right to be annoyed at them. “Who is
anyone to say I can’t?” said Duran angrily. “If I want to fight, and I get hurt,
that’s my problem, not yours. Everybody keeps saying I was, I was. I still am!
How can I hurt my image? The name I built up cannot be torn down. I’m
Duran.”
It was not only the writers who were deeply skeptical of his latest comeback,
however. Even the most knowledgeable fight observers felt Duran was finished,
washed up. His heart made promises his knuckles couldn’t keep. “Deep down, I
think he’s still fighting because he’s broke,” said Ray Arcel, who by then was
eighty-seven. “And if he’s broke, I know how he got that way. He always
misused his money. He has a heart that is bigger than he is. He once told me that
Panama is a very poor contry and that he felt he had to take care of everyone
there because he was the only one with money.”
Duran beat the unheralded Jeff Lanas on a split decision in Chicago on 1
October 1988. Far from looking good, he seemed to be behind by the middle of
the fight and only an aggressive finish secured the win. Once again he had
struggled to make weight and had to go running the day before the fight in a bid
to shed a final six pounds. In the last round, he had stuck out his chin to taunt
Lanas but was too slow to pull it away and was caught by several blows. It was a
humiliation that augured badly for his challenge against the powerful, aggressive
Barkley. “Roberto’s an old man,” declared one headline. Still, his camp believed
this fight was the impetus for his showdown with the Blade.
The Lanas bout almost hadn’t come off, as Duran ran into a problem outside
the ring. He had a daughter, Dalia, to Silvia Garcia, who lived in Miami.
“Roberto was sitting on the couch with his arm around his pregnant ‘wife’ and in
walks, guess who, Felicidad,” said Acri. “All hell broke loose. Felicidad went
nuts. I almost had to postpone the fight because of it.”
As much as Duran loved to party and have a good time, few talk about him
solely as a womanizer. Felicidad allegedly blew millions at casinos but she and
Roberto also had an extremely loving, and to some extent open, relationship
typical of many Panamanian couples. “He told me this story about this girl in
Chile,” said Acri. “She smoked marijuana and then they had sex. She starts
breathing real heavy and Roberto was like, ‘Is that from the marijuana or from
our passion?’ She looks at him and goes, ‘I have asthma.’ He told that story in
front of Felicidad.
“He wasn’t always into the women that much. He knew how to take
advantage of celebrity but all fighters do. He wouldn’t have sex with Felicidad
three or four weeks before a fight. He was too disciplined. Don’t get me wrong,
a lot of women wanted to have sex with him but they weren’t flocking to him
like he was Oscar De La Hoya or even Hector Camacho.”

HAD THE TWO met at night in a New York ghetto, it would have been the
streetfight of all time. The Stone and the Blade. No guns or knives. Just a black
gangbanger from the South Bronx and a ferocious Cholo who once beat five
men in a brawl.
For all the talk about how badass Duran had once been, no one intimidated
like Iran Barkley. Six feet and 160 pounds of pent-up rage, he was Ronnie Lott
coming over the middle on an unsuspected wideout; he was Fred Williamson
without the ’fro, with Jim Brown’s scowl. Barkley didn’t defeat people; he
fucked them up royally. He was a ghetto nightmare who had run with the Black
Spades, a ferocious street gang that numbered hiphop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa
among its former recruits. When bored of watching the local drug dealers,
Barkley and his crew would “go around beating people up, stabbing them and
hitting people with lead pipes.” Barkley was so menacing he might have forced
some of Duran’s backup in Chorrillo to get backup.
He had finished a job on Thomas Hearns that Duran couldn’t even start. Cut
badly above both eyes and behind on points, Barkley had blazed back in round
three to floor Hearns twice and stop him in a sensational war in June 1988 to
take the WBC middleweight title. “I don’t care about the cuts because I didn’t
have time to bleed,” said Barkley afterwards. His destruction of the Hit Man was
a reminder that slowly the great fighters of the Eighties were falling to
combustible young talents. As Barkley watched Hearns topple from a left hook,
he stood over him and banged him with another right hand, as if trying to send
him through the canvas. One legend was down, another was next. The people
who once feared Duran could now look across the ring and see a bigger, meaner
version in black trunks.
And then there was Davey Moore. Moore was like a brother to Barkley. They
had grown up together in the South Bronx, boxed as amateurs together, sparred
with and supported each other as pros. But Duran had ruined Davey’s promising
career. He was never the same after that brutal beating in New York, had gone
into a decline, lost fights he should have won. In June 1988, in a freak accident,
Moore left his car idling in reverse when he stepped out to open his garage door;
the car backed up and crushed him to death in the driveway. He was twenty-eight
years old.
Iran Barkley became Davey’s avenging angel. “If he thumbs me like he did to
Davey, I’ll thumb him,” vowed Barkley. “If he bites me, I’ll bite him. If he kicks
me, I’ll kick him. I’m gonna clear Davey’s name. This is a personal vendetta.”
Based on recent performances, Duran didn’t deserve a title fight, especially
against a warrior as formidable as Barkley. But he still had marquee value and
also the backing of WBC president Jose Sulaiman, who had often helped him in
the past. Barkley’s management had also been convinced by Duran’s lacklustre
showing against Jeff Lanas that while the veteran might stick around for a few
rounds and make a fight of it, he had little chance of winning. They agreed to a
defense of the title on February 24, 1989, in Atlantic City. Coming from the
viscid heat of Panama, Duran would be forced to see his breath in the frigid New
Jersey night.
Yet Duran could sense something, as he had with Hagler, Cuevas, and so
many other hard men. He appeared not the least bit intimidated. “Barkley’s the
one who’s going to have to worry,” he said calmly. “I’m going to prove I’m not
finished.” Barkley’s wide-open, wade-in style was made for the older Duran,
who now liked men to come to him rather than having to chase as he did in his
youth. Barkley could be tagged and hurt, had taken punishment in the past and
was technically clumsy. “The wind is old but it keeps blowing” was an old
proverb Duran was fond of quoting. He believed that he knew too much for
Barkley. He had been boxing professionally for twenty-one years. The
consensus, however, was that Barkley was too big, too young, too tough and too
strong.
Duran came into camp at a whopping 220 pounds, having put back on all the
weight he had lost for the Lanas fight. Now handled by promoter Luis DeCubas,
advisers Mike Acri and Jeff Levine, he went through hell in his Miami training
camp. “He had to get back down to a hundred and fifty-six,” said DeCubas. “In
sparring sessions he was getting the shit kicked out of him on a regular basis.
Then, as he got down in weight, he would do the kicking. The reason we got the
Barkley fight was because of the Jeff Lanas fight. Barkley saw Duran in that
fight and thought it was going to be an easy fight for him.” Added Acri, “We
were tough on him and I think he respected us for that reason. We would tell him
he looked like shit when other people wouldn’t. But you had to stand up to the
guy or he would run right over you.”
It had been close to two decades since Duran had overwhelmed Ken
Buchanan and a long time since he had been the favorite in a title fight. Boxers
of his magnitude rarely threw up so many contradictions. Arguably the greatest
fighters of the Eighties were Leonard, Hearns, and Hagler. Hagler didn’t always
fight with passion; Leonard had his detractors, who despised his showboating;
Hearns could be hurt and knocked down. All three had their deficiencies but
their careers did not have the extreme highs and lows of Duran’s. There were no
Kirkland Laings or Robbie Sims on their records and they never neglected
training. None had such a gap between their zenith and nadir. However, when
Duran entered the ring, the audience knew they “were going to see a fight,”
whether it was a good one or not. It wasn’t going to be a dance or a sideshow.
If Duran hadn’t sunk low in previous fights it wouldn’t have been what Gil
Clancy called “a miracle” when Duran pasted Moore. To his credit, the fact that
Duran made his debut in 1968 and still had it in the ring was a miracle of sorts.
He could have retired a legend after the first Leonard fight nine years earlier. As
he kept on fighting, the audience kept guessing, not because they wanted to but
because Duran prefaced every comeback with failure. But Duran didn’t see it as
failure. To him, each loss was just another fight where he hadn’t trained properly
and he’d make it up somewhere down the line. There would always be another
fight. It was like he enjoyed creating doubt so he could dissolve it.
Duran was at home in Miami, similar in climate and atmosphere to Panama
City but without the endless throng of fans. He had a house there and friends,
and he trained hard. Among his sparring partners was cruiserweight Leroy
Heavens. According to childhood friend “Chapparro” Pinzon, who described
himself as Duran’s valet, Heavens refused to step back into the ring after one
brutal four-round session, complaining of pains all over his body.
Certainly his passion, and anger, seemed to have returned. By earning
$350,000 to Barkley’s $500,000, Duran felt he wasn’t getting the respect he
deserved. “Another rumor spread that I was burned out and finished,” said
Duran. “I started again to train, and I was going to teach all these Panamanians
and shut the press up that talks a lot of shit here in Panama. I inspired myself. I
had a fight with Spada [and] I left and found a new manager in Carl Hibbard.
Then I get the fight with Iran Barkley, that’s the toughest man to show the
Panamanian public. When I fought with Davey Moore, the people weren’t on my
side. I’m sitting there thinking I had to be champion again.”
The people’s doubts fired up Duran. The less supportive they were, the more
determined he became. Yet what Duran called the “rumor” of him being burned
out was, as far as anyone could tell, reality. Ray Arcel said that the Panamanian
people didn’t like losers. Barkley could be his final vindication.
Members of Duran’s camp needed to spice things up. Was it possible that the
death of Moore could work as motivation for both fighters? “There were a lot of
things said like this was payback for Davey Moore, who had just died before the
bout,” said DeCubas. “It got personal and we tried to get Duran psyched up.” It
worked. Duran was pumped. “I heard what Barkley said, he said he was going to
avenge the defeat of Davey Moore. I tell Plomo, ‘This motherfucker acts as if I
killed Davey Moore. But this one I am going to kill. Wait.’”
In the locker room before the fight, Duran burned. “You should have seen
him,” said Mike Acri. “He was just sitting there, rocking back and forth chanting
Barkley’s name. He was so focused. The morning of the fight, Duran was eating
breakfast and he just kept saying, ‘I feel like fighting tonight. I feel like fighting
tonight.’”
A 3-1 underdog by fight time, Duran couldn’t go in there and brawl with
Barkley. At least, that wasn’t the strategy. Three punches had served Duran
especially well in his career: the straight right, the left hook (often thrown after
faking the right and sliding over) and the uppercut, a devastating weapon on the
inside and he could throw it from all angles. He would have to land all of those
patented shots while avoiding Barkley’s booming hooks. Speed and stealth
would blunt the Blade. “I was sparring with this guy who was really fast and
tried to pummel me. His name was Carlos Montero and he later fought with me,”
recalled Duran. “He was really fast, didn’t know nothing but I couldn’t keep my
eyes off him because he would hit me. He was really quick. I’m ready now when
I see Iran Barkley. I just look at him and I just tell Plomo, ‘This black guy is
really big dude. But don’t worry Plomo. No te preocupes. I’m going to make him
eat punches.’ And that’s what I did. I beat him. I shut the Panamanian public’s
mouth.”
Years later Barkley would downplay the claim of exacting revenge for
Moore’s defeat. “Everybody built that fight up like it was a grudge match for my
best friend Davey Moore, who got destroyed by Duran,” said Barkley. “Sure, I
was revenging his thing, but also for me. It was for him, but it was more that he
was inside of my spirit fighting with me.”
While Duran (84-7, 64 KOs) came in at 156¼ pounds, Barkley (25-4, 16
KOs) weighed at 164 on his first try, then returned moments later to make 160.
Rumors had a member of the Duran camp playing games with the scale as
Barkley somehow dropped four pounds in a minute. Barkley noted that his goal
was to finish off the legends. “This is personal,” he said. “His people have no
respect for me so I have no respect for him.”
The fight was the same weekend that Frank Bruno challenged Mike Tyson in
Las Vegas and many of the leading sportswriters were forced to choose between
the still-great Tyson or the once-great Duran. Most chose Vegas. Then a sudden
snowstorm on the eve of the Atlantic City fight buried the Boardwalk under a
foot of snow and closed down the city, as the frigid New Jersey shore in winter
housed locals in casinos and bars. It lent a funereal atmosphere to the build-up.
Even the Greyhound buses ferrying in the daily slots players were cancelled.
Many fight fans sat it out in the popular Irish Pub, the only bar open twenty-four
hours, where fight debates dragged on over lager and the famous crabcake
sandwiches.
“Barkley was a tough kid, but he wasn’t great by any sense of the imagination.
I gave Roberto a shot going into that fight,” said Bert Sugar. “I had a choice of
going to the Saturday night fight Bruno-Tyson or the Friday night here, and I
chose Vegas. We sat in a tent watching it and I thought I just made the wrong
plane. I particularly thought that when Bruno came into the ring crossing himself
twenty times. [Duran] was an echo of boxing past.”
If stature meant anything, Barkley had all but won the bout before Panama’s
National Anthem. He stood six feet one, weighed 159 pounds to Duran’s 156¼
and had a six-inch advantage in reach. Duran was unlikely to beat him from the
outside and to get inside meant risking Barkley’s pounding hooks. And then
there was age: Duran was thirty-seven, with the wear and tear of twenty-one
years as a boxer.
It was the kind of night where the inside of a boxing event actually guaranteed
warmth. The only reason to be outside was to get to your car or a cab. High-
rollers took their comp’d tickets to see Duran one more time; others who knew
nothing about the sport could at least recognize the name and the reputation.
 As Duran walked to the ring, many felt it was the last time they would see this
great champion. Even his son Chavo was scared. Barkley looked bigger than
ever as the combatants faced each other, bathed in sweat, for the pre-fight
instructions. Referee Joe Cortez called for a reluctant Barkley to touch gloves.
“Iran, c’mon. Shake hands.”
Duran stood and waited.
Starting the fight, Duran moved to his left, and felt his way around the twenty-
foot ring. Barkley loomed forward like a nightclub bouncer keeping a
troublemaker out of his club. Despite controlling a good portion of the three
minutes, Barkley was shaken at the end of the round when Duran landed an
overhand right that forced him to back-pedal to safety. Not in serious danger,
Barkley smiled to the crowd, the grin of a boxer who got hit with a punch that he
knew he shouldn’t have. What should have been his New York crowd started
chanting “Doo-ran” after the bell, but Barkley didn’t seem fazed. He had his
supporters too. “Duran was a legend so you could expect half of Panama to show
up,” Barkley said. “Half of the Dominican Republic and blacks from everywhere
came to see me and we sold this place out.”
Duran found his faithful short left hook off the ropes, overhand right, then
clinch, to be effective. The right hand, held high for protection, slowly dropped
down by his chest as the fight progressed. Duran’s mouthpiece showed early in
the fight, a worrying sign that a boxer is gasping, but he knew how to pace
himself. He came off the ropes in a fury in the fourth round and hit back with
ferocity for the first time. The sudden ambush elicited a brief return to his youth.
There is someone in front of me who will push me one last time. In him, I see
myself, my power.
Duran tripled up his right hands in the fifth and appeared invigorated in the
sixth, while the Blade concentrated on a consistent body attack. Between rounds
white healing cream was smeared on Barkley’s eye. In the opposite corner,
Plomo sponged Duran’s face hard. Another man massaged his stomach. Duran
was already looking through them, listening to his own instincts rather than his
cornermen. “The big thing was how Duran changed his game plan during the
fight,” said DeCubas. “The original plan was to turn Barkley, make him move
and never let him get set. But the canvas was so thick that Duran had to stay in
the trenches with him and go into the eye of the tornado.”
Barkley doubled up on a left hook and stunned Roberto late in the seventh
round. Duran stuck his chest out as Cortez jumped between the fighters at the
bell, then Plomo entered and nudged him back to the corner. Neither boxer was
backing down.
This one is for Davey. Barkley nearly laid to rest Davey Moore’s ghost with a
brilliant left hook in the eighth round. It caught Duran walking in and spun him
around like a shotputter, his glove brushing the canvas, then his body contorted
away from his opponent. Duran’s army of fans fell silent. Barkley stood for a
moment, astonished his foe was still on his feet, then stormed in throwing right
uppercuts and left hooks to the body. He raised his hand as the round ended. The
crowd booed him but he had won the round and was gaining the edge.
“Barkley threw a punch at my chin, and I moved so Barkley would miss. I
slipped and I ended up looking at the ring,” recalled Duran. “When I looked up
Barkley hit me in the neck. He thought that he had me in a bad state but he didn’t
have me dizzy. When I got back to the corner, Plomo said, ‘What the hell’s
wrong?’ I said, ‘No Plomo, I went to go maneuver around and he hits me square
in the throat.’ He asked if I was dizzy and I told him what the hell dizzy was.
‘Clean these gloves, I’m going to beat this black guy.’ I inspired myself from
within. I told him, ‘You’re too strong for me; you’re too tall for me; but I know
more than you.’”
Barkley’s left eye was by now a slit covered by bumps. Still, as the tenth
closed Barkley’s left hook had proven to be just as effective as Duran’s right
hand. Then Duran came back. Having tasted a left hook early in round eleven,
Barkley got nailed late in the round with a right hand that froze him for a
glancing left hook and another solid right that sent him to the canvas. Referee
Cortez was over him counting away as he stared into Barkley’s squinting eyes.
Rolling on his back, Barkley pushed himself up by the count of five as Roberto
waited patiently to begin his celebration. With twenty-five seconds left for Duran
to finish him off, the shots didn’t come fluidly enough and Barkley hung on,
though partially blinded and stumbling.
The legions of fans who had made the snowy trek were on their feet. It had
been a caustic eleven rounds of give-and-take. The final stanza began with a
Duran left hook on the inside; Barkley responded with an uppercut. Both knew
that they needed a strong finish, and with no charades they fought till the end. As
the bell rang, Duran in typical style jutted his jaw in the middle of the ring as if
to ask for more.
Plomo embraced him at the bell, then Duran hugged Barkley and told him in
broken English, “Man, you very good, very strong.” Propelling himself closer to
the crowd from the top rope, Duran signaled for approval. “Next time I fight
Leonard I will be in a lot better shape. I love you Panama! I like you Miami. I
like you United States.” He looked up and pointed his fist to the sky in relief and
exultation. And as the scores were about to be read to the crowd, there was no
indication that this was the last time Duran would truly be young again.
As the hubbub fell silent, the verdict was announced. The official scorecards
showed a split decision: 118-112 and 116-112 for Duran, against 116-113 for
Barkley. At thirty-seven years and eight months, Duran was the oldest fighter to
win a world title since Bob Fitzsimmons in 1903.
“People thought I was crazy to put Duran in there,” said DeCubas. “When he
won that fight, I had put him with the greatest warriors of all time. Barkley told
me that the left hook he hit Duran with would have knocked down a wall. People
look at me crazy when I say that at thirty-seven years old … and fighting a full-
fledged middleweight was the greatest sports accomplishment of all time.”
Duran had taken a puncher and made him come after him. “I could have
knocked Barkley out in the first round,” he claimed later. “I got him into a really
bad state. But Plomo said, ‘No, stay calm, it’s twelve rounds and this guy is big
and heavy. It’s going to be a long bout and you’re going to need the extra
strength down the road.’ I started studying him and I saw short arms. When he
would defend himself, I was too far from him. I had to think a lot to come into
him. How would I make him miss to throw mine? What beat him was the
necessity I felt to become champion and the fortitude I had to be a champion
again. When he would hit me, he would knock me off balance. I would stand
there and he would throw his punches so hard that he would throw me to the
side. So I could never really hit him as hard as I wanted to.”
When both men would see each other years later they would hug, knowing
that their fists had created an unbreakable bond, brothers in blood. “Duran is a
great fighter and I am a great fighter and we made one of the greatest fights in
our time in Trump Plaza in 1987 in the snow,” Barkley would say years later.
But he never accepted that he had lost the fight. “You can’t win a fight on one
knockdown,” said Barkley. “It should have went to me. I knew he was a crafty
guy. I knew he was dangerous and did dirty things in the ring. He kept a clean
fight, and sadly to say it was a great fight that I knew that I won. In spite of the
situation, I had to take it on the chin. But that fight made me and Duran best
friends. I didn’t get bitter because I knew I won, and I walked away as a
champion and that’s what a champion is all about. You walk away with your
head up and don’t worry about what is what. Duran didn’t cause that fight for
me; it was … the promoters. I got cheated out of it.”
Barkley would subsequently hint darkly that the boxing powers had conspired
against him because a Duran-Leonard rubber match was on the cards. He felt he
had been sacrificed to build up Duran. Others also had Barkley winning the
fight. “I was the scapegoat for him to make that fight with Sugar Ray Leonard,”
he said. “They needed my belt to do that fight and that’s what happened. The
deck was stacked against me. [Arum] frankly lied and I knew he was lying
because he said to me, ‘After you fight Duran you’re going to fight Leonard for
the big money.’ I knew that was a lie and I knew that at that point in my career I
couldn’t say no because they would have stripped me of my title. Back then
Arum had control … and Sulaiman was great marketing for Duran because
Duran was Latino. I just went on with the fight.”
Duran headed to New York City and Victor’s for a free dinner for everyone. It
would be the last significant victory feast he would have there. “Victor’s kids
used to hate it when Duran came because he never paid a cent and he brought all
of these people with him,” said Acri. “They never paid for anything.”
The doyens gave their approval. “Duran is a marvel who’s still got head action
he always had,” Angelo Dundee told the Washington Post. “He stands on a dime
and makes you miss, like Willie Pep did. Don’t count on landing a punch against
Roberto.”
The ninety-year-old Ray Arcel exclaimed, “That was the way I knew him.”
Another great trainer, Emanuel Steward, was amazed. “I’ll never forget when he
beat Barkley, who was so much bigger physically than Roberto. Not only did he
beat Barkley, but he also dropped him. He stood toe-to-toe with him in a
slugfest.”
Daughter Irichelle concurred: “I know that Buchanan and Sugar Ray Leonard
were very important fights, but I was too little to enjoy them. It was Barkley; I
was fourteen and it was the greatest fight for me. Here in Panama everyone was
going crazy. The people lost faith in my dad and that kind of restored faith. My
dad teaches us to give people a second chance in life. And that was a good
example for me.”
Ismael Laguna, who in 2001 would be inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame,
agreed. “I think Duran redeemed himself with the win over Barkley. I saw him in
the gym before that fight and I told the people, ‘Hey, Duran is really coming to
train.’ When Duran trains, I know the result. I told him before that fight exactly
what would happen and everything I said came true. He trained so hard, when he
works that hard, I don’t think anyone could beat him.”
One of his four sons, Roberto Junior, or “Chavo,” had a front row seat for his
father’s last great fight. “Iran Barkley was a monster. I was afraid because I saw
that guy and he was tall and he beat Tommy Hearns twice. My father
demonstrated he was the best.”
Mike Acri added a fitting postscript: “I’ll never forget, at about three a.m. I
get on the elevator and I see two guys carrying Barkley upstairs. Barkley just
kept saying, ‘The man just got too much heart. Too much heart.’ And he was
beat up. Duran didn’t have a scratch on him.”

20

The Never-Ending Comeback

“There’s only one legend. That’s me.”
Roberto Duran

DURAN WOULD FIGHT twenty-seven more times on his I-need-money tour,

losing almost as many as he won. His last bout of any historical significance
would be the final showdown of his trilogy with Ray Leonard, at super-
middleweight, on December 7, 1989. It was billed as Uno Más: One More. Nine
years had passed since their last meeting and neither man could conjure up much
false bravado during the pre-fight hype. The truth was they were two pugs way
past their prime, looking for a final payday.
Leonard had quit the ring with an eye injury in his prime and remained
inactive in the mid-Eighties. He abused cocaine and drank heavily, missing the
highs of his boxing career. But in 1987 he had returned with cropped hair and a
bulked-up frame and had sensationally taken the middleweight title in a
controversial decision from Marvin Hagler. The following year he won the WBC
super middleweight and light-heavyweight titles, making him a champ in five
weight divisions, and in June 1989 retained his super middleweight crown with a
disputed draw against Thomas Hearns. Duran, who by now had fought ninety-
two times, winning eighty-five and losing seven, was still the only main to have
beaten him in thirty-seven bouts.
“I never said I was going to retire during my career. Nunca. I might have said
that I might retire, but that was not a fact. I never made it official. One time I’m
drinking with these women. I love whores. The hookers told me, ‘You need to
screw with us and then go out and beat the living shit out of that black man.’
They start kissing on me and I told them, ‘You’re right.’ I come home and tell
my woman that it’s the last time I drink. Then I start to sharpen myself, and by
now I’m praying for the rematch.”
The fight was made, strangely, at 162 pounds, six pounds inside the division
limit, something Duran did not seem to realize until it was raised at the pre-fight
press conference. As ever, Leonard seemed to be calling the tune. “He wanted to
fight with me four or five years later, but he doesn’t want to fight with me in the
168-pound division because he knows I’m going to rip him apart. If he fought
me at 168 I would have ripped him apart. At 162, I couldn’t. He almost didn’t
make the weight himself. He also didn’t catch me in condition. At the time I had
a really big problem that was eating away at my brain. I owed some money to
the IRS. But I was happy because I paid everything I owed to them.”
Duran was said to be getting $7.6 million and Leonard closer to $15 million.
His IRS debt of $1.7 million had come about through an accounting error after
the second Leonard bout, according to adviser Mike Acri. “He got a sixteen-
thousand-dollar refund coming from 4.2 million. The withholding taxes in
Canada and those places, King held onto it and never paid the government, I
believe,” said Acri. “When they checked it, he was supposed to get a refund of
sixteen grand in the late fall of 1988 before Barkley. He gets one check for
sixteen grand and cashes it, no big deal. Next week he gets a hundred and sixty
grand, cashes it and a couple weeks later, 1.6 million. The government fucks up.
That’s why he had to pay back $1.7 million after the third Leonard fight. He took
eight hundred grand of the 1.6 back to Panama in cash and put in on his whole
family, carrying cases all over them. He lost one hundred grand in cash one time
when he checked it on board. It never got back.”
As he had in Montreal, Duran made sure to include “the people” again. He
held daily workouts in the hotel atrium open to hundreds of fans. Leonard kept
to himself in locked workouts in the warehouse district. The press hounded
Duran about no más, but the angst and disdain had subsided with time. Neither
fighter yearned to revisit the baggage that carried over from New Orleans. Duran
made the right noises before the bout, saying how he had waited nine years, but
the “fight” itself was instantly forgettable. On December 7, 1989 a crowd of
16,305 showed up at the outdoor arena at The Mirage in Las Vegas.
Duran, at thirty-eight, showed all the aggression of a sloth in a coma, while
the thirty-three-year-old Leonard was a muscular shadow of his glorious pomp,
though he still danced and strutted his stuff. Duran did land a glancing right hand
in the first round; his next real punch came ten rounds later. By the second
round, Leonard was already showboating and seemed in complete control. He hit
on the break, stared down the Panamanian at the end of rounds and even threw
low blows. In round three, Leonard side-stepped a Duran rush and rubbed his
head against the top rope out of view of referee Richard Steele. Then he let him
up and thrashed him with a left hook. The tactics that Duran taught other fighters
were being painfully recycled on him.
By the middle of the fight the fans were booing and by the tenth round they
chanted, “Bullshit! Bullshit!” The safety-first Duran seemed to be waiting for
inspiration or motivation that never came. Before the eleventh, Plomo stood in
front of his fighter and pleaded with him to throw punches, but even when
Leonard then suffered a bad cut above his left eye, Duran didn’t capitalize on it.
Despite his injury, Leonard won a wide twelve-round decision.
Leonard would need more than sixty stitches from the cuts in his mouth and
above his eyes, but there was never any doubt about the outcome. Duran had
barely even gone through the motions. “The war becomes a bore” and “Leonard
beats hapless Duran” declared the papers the following day. Bizarrely, Duran
claimed he should have won the decision. “He never could get off,” said Duran’s
manager Mike Acri. “It was freezing, his corner wasn’t prepared. There was no
blanket in the corner. The next day he was embarrassed and very nervous. We
went back to the airport and when he started to hear that Leonard didn’t fight
good either, he felt a little better. Someone said it was, ‘One wouldn’t and one
couldn’t.’” Duran told a Miami Herald reporter, “Leonard didn’t beat me. The
IRS did.”
Leonard would fight twice more in the next eight years, losing both, but like
Duran his place in the boxing canon was assured. They will forever be
intertwined. While Duran couldn’t balance the excesses of fame and sport for
one tragic evening, Leonard shone. However, while Duran lived for the moment,
Leonard never took the time to enjoy the jewels of his success. “The thing about
life itself is that once you’re in the limelight you’re too deep into it to really
appreciate and smell the roses,” said Leonard. “But once you get out of it and
see some of the things you could have corrected or taken advantage of. But all in
all, I’m healthy; I’m happy; I have a family and a career. I have a vision and life
is good.”
Duran ballooned again. “We saw him five, six months after Leonard and he
was fat as a pig,” said Acri. “He had just bought a pair of $400,000 diamond
earrings. I don’t know if he was ever that extravagant, but these people spend
like they had rock-star money. I think his kids and his wife for a long time used
to live off the hog. They never thought the money would run out and that’s why
he kept fighting: fifty grand here, seventy thousand, he couldn’t turn it down.
“As far as leeches, he never gave them anything. They just followed him and
got to eat free and got fat. It wasn’t like he gave people close to him or his
family money, no. He’d give a stranger money before he gave his good friend
money. That’s just how he was.” Accounts to the contrary belie Acri’s
convictions about the fighter not helping those close to him. They would later
have a falling out.
The famed Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa once wrote about a nomadic
friend who felt that “getting rid of everything he had as quickly as possible was,
for him, something of a religion.” That could have been Duran. While his
handouts helped him connect to the people, and distance him from the star label
that so many athletes clung to, his generosity tag factored in to his current
fluctuating financial state. This state was defined by an ebb and flow of income
that contradicted any real consistency.
“Duran always liked to be admired and he actually had an escort of
followers,” said Augustin Jaramillo, a Panama City resident. “Whatever he
would tell them, they would accept. He never had problems with them because
they never contradicted him, in particular after receiving the money he used to
give them. I believe he used to do that in order to feel stronger and that he
needed people to be constantly flattering him. This made him feel well. It was
kind of a necessary expense for him. All these admirers would only tell him
good things, and would hide the bad ones, in order not to contradict him. They
would always tell him that everything he did was correct and maybe this is what
brought Duran bad luck, because they never told him the whole truth.”
Spada added: “The man had such a big heart. But maybe it was too big. He
closed my mouth once. I used to ask him why he gave all his money away. He
said, ‘Because those people are my friends.’ He closed my mouth.”
Though the performance against Barkley gave Duran the juice for the final
showdown with Leonard, his bag of miracles was empty. Those who watched the
celebration dinner at Victor’s were privy to the last page of a legend, the last bite
of the steak. Barkley represented the last sip of champagne, the final standing
ovation for a man steeped in the brutal epithets of fame.

AT 1 A.M. ON December 20, 1989, 27,000 U.S. troops, backed up by Stealth

fighters and Apache helicopters, invaded Panama. Operation Just Cause was
launched to depose and capture the irascible despot Manuel Noriega, who was
wanted for drug smuggling and money laundering. The might of Uncle Sam
quickly overwhelmed the 3,000-strong Panama Defense Force, though the
military operation continued for several days, mainly against small bands of
loyalists. An attack on the central headquarters of the PDF touched off several
fires, one of which destroyed most of the heavily populated El Chorrillo
neighborhood in downtown Panama City. Most of the homes there, meant
originally for laborers building the Canal, were wooden. The little houses
Roberto Duran moved in and out of as a child burned to ashes. Chorrillo was laid
waste.
The invasion followed a failed attempt by the George Bush administration to
oust Noriega in a general election that May. For all its visible poverty, Panama
had for many years enjoyed economic success thanks to revenues from the Canal
and its position as one of the world’s major crossroads. But opposition to
Noriega, who was strongly suspected of drug running and money laundering, led
to American financial pressure that had left the tiny state a shadow if its former
self. Many of the banks on Central Avenue closed; people couldn’t cash cheques
and every day seemed like a Sunday on the once busy streets.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was given $10 million to funnel
clandestinely to the election campaign of Noriega’s main rival, Guillermo
Endara, in the hope that the pockmarked military strongman they called
“Pineapple Face” would be overthrown. The plot did not work out as planned.
Not only did Noriega immediately annul the election result, but the “bagman”
entrusted with laundering the money into Endara’s campaign was arrested in the
United States and charged with conspiracy to import vast amounts of cocaine.
The bagman was none other than Carlos Eleta Almaran, tycoon, political patron,
sportsman, songwriter and one-time manager of Roberto Duran. Endara, a
wealthy corporate attorney, had worked with Eleta for twenty-five years and was
a stockholder in one of his companies. Eleta was arraigned in Bibb County,
Georgia, by Drug Enforcement Agency officials who also accused him of setting
up dummy corporations to launder projected drug profits.
Questions arose from the very beginning about Eleta’s arrest. Many in Panama
have always believed that he was set up by his enemy, Noriega. “Middle
Georgia’s biggest drug case ever – involving an alleged plan to import 1,320
pounds of cocaine a month into the state – has given an ironic boost to General
Noriega’s fortunes and added new intrigue to Panamanian politics,” reported the
Atlanta Journal and Constitution. “This has played beautifully into Noriega’s
hands,” said an expert on the political situation in Panama, who spoke to the
Journal on condition of anonymity. “It has given him an opportunity to connect
the opposition to drug trafficking.”
Noriega-backed newspapers railed at the seventy-year-old businessman and
efforts were made to close down his Channel 4 television station. “The general
feeling I perceive from everybody I talk to in Panama is that this could be a
setup,” said Roberto Eisenmann, editor of the opposition newspaper La Prensa.
Eisenmann’s paper had been closed by the Noriega regime and he fled to Miami
for his safety.
While Eleta sat in a Georgia prison – with partners Manuel Castillo Bourcy,
Panama’s former ambassador to Belize, and Juan Karaminides – protesting his
innocence, Noriega was enjoying the last months of his rule. Born in a
neighborhood called Terraplen, not far from the Canal and home to many port
workers, he had grown up fatherless and hawked newspapers at an early age. In
his biography, it was noted that Noriega had lived a troubled upbringing.
“Growing up among foreign sailors and prostitutes and with a daily life
punctuated with drunkenness and violence, Noriega became street smart without
becoming a tough. He was small for his age and tended to be the one the rougher
kids picked on.” He and Duran became Panama’s most famous, or infamous,
sons. Both had a passion for women and drink. Duran loved whiskey and milk;
Noriega’s choice was Scotch. Both loved designer clothes, both had wives
named Felicidad and both occasionally traveled with personal jewelers.
A Department of Defense Intelligence Report in the Seventies described
Noriega: “Intelligent, aggressive, ambitious, and ultra nationalistic, a shrewd and
calculating person.” Sycophantic to his superiors, he was tyrannical to
subordinates. Noriega knew power and how to use it. Like his predecessors,
Noriega exploited Duran’s fame for his own ends. “Duran always was used by
the president or military as a figure to promote themselves,” said boxing
journalist Juan Carlos Tapia. “The one exception was Omar Torrijos. Torrijos
really loved Duran and supported him but most of the others used Duran for
publicity because he was an idol. Noriega was the one who used him the most
for his own benefit.”
Noriega was also wracked by paranoia, hate and fear and was suspected of
decapitating his political rival Hugo Spadafora, whose headless body was found
stuffed in a post office bag in 1985. Duran’s former adviser Mike Acri said, “I
think that they wanted Duran to get political and he wouldn’t. Duran didn’t want
to be political [Duran would run for Senate in 1994, but his grasp of politics was
shaky at best]. Even when Ruben Blades ran for president, they were trying to
get Duran to do some things and he wouldn’t do that. I think he was smart
enough to realize that if he pissed off one party, what happens if the other people
get in power?”
Evading capture in the initial hours of the invasion, Noriega hid out and
eventually sought sanctuary in the Vatican embassy. He spent Christmas and
New Year’s there, surrounded by U.S. troops who baited him by blasting out
rock music like “I Fought The Law” and “Working On A Chain Gang.” (Despite
the attention on Noriega, it was still Duran’s country: the boxer was mobbed
when he walked into a Holiday Inn across the street from the embassy to speak
with reporters one day in late December.) After nineteen days, the Papal Nuncio
convinced him that enough was enough and he marched out to his captors in
military uniform, a bible in his hand. Endara was installed as the new president.
The incarcerated Eleta, meanwhile, had befriended his fellow inmates and
become a sort of cult hero in the slammer. Despite being a millionaire, Eleta was
no snob. His ability to mix with anyone served him well in prison, where for the
first time in his life he was stripped of his status. “We would play cards all the
time. The people inside the prison loved me,” said Eleta. “When I left the jail in
Macon, the guards even gave me a watch as a present.”
“Noriega was a criminal and a sonofabitch, he ran like a rat,” added Eleta
years after the event. “When they came after him, he didn’t defend himself. But I
knew that if I ever got back there I would take care of him. I saw a killer in
Noriega but I was not afraid of anything.” By then he could afford to talk tough.
Noriega would be tried and sentenced to forty years (later reduced to thirty) in
jail for drug trafficking and racketeering. Carlos Eleta was freed on $8 million
bail. After the U.S. invasion of Panama, all charges against him were dropped.

FIFTEEN MONTHS after Leonard, Duran returned to the ring against “Irish”
Pat Lawlor on 18 March 1991, at the Mirage in Las Vegas. Lawlor had only
fourteen wins and one loss in his brief career, but after five rounds was ahead on
points. Duran had hurt his shoulder during training, and after getting hit in the
bicep in the sixth the pain returned. Referee Carlos Padilla took the injured
veteran over to ringside doctor Flip Homansky and the fight was called off in
Lawlor’s favour at 1:50 of the round. A second no más, some called it. “I’m
going to ask Don King for a rematch,” said a weary Duran. “This was practice.”
He next hit the ring in October 1992, at the age of forty-one, to score a wide
ten-round decision over American Tony Biglen. Duran, now trained by the
Martinez brothers, Hector and Freddie, actually looked in shape and had Biglen
down in the first and fourth rounds but couldn’t finish him off. Duran was by
now a master at playing to the gallery. In the fourth, as Biglen’s father screamed
instructions to his son, Duran moved Biglen into his own corner, stuck his head
through the ropes and shook his head “no” at Biglen’s father.
He closed out 1992 with a string of wins against second-rate opponents. He
fought three times at Casino Magic in Bay, Mississippi. Small casino towns had
now become his home, out-of-the-way gyms his temporary havens. People
wondered why the man was still fighting, but for Duran boxing was his way to
keep afloat financially and mentally. In December 1993, Duran went into his
hundredth bout, against an opponent half his age. “Not many make it to one
hundred fights,” he said. “I want to be known as the greatest fighter of all time.
I’ve been rated number two behind Sugar Ray Robinson. I think I deserve to be
number one.”
Originally the bout was set for early November and coincided with the Day of
the Dead, a tradition common throughout Central America and developed from a
mixture of local religious practices and Christianity. Families congregate in
cemeteries and around altars in the home, accompanied by music and song.
Those who gather in cemeteries take picnics, making sure to put some food aside
for deceased relatives. The superstitious Duran refused to box on that day.
“Because it was Duran, we postponed it six weeks,” said Mike Acri.
During the postponement, Duran ran for political office for the Arnulfista
Party, which was traditionally strong in the rural interior. Elections were being
held that summer. “My mother asked me to run for the Senate, to run for the
people of Panama,” said Duran to a local reporter, a former boxing champion in
four weight classes. “I know the people, know what it is to be poor. The people
need me, they need somebody just like them.” Duran would miss being elected
in a close race.
Despite the fact that corruption was still rife in Panamanian society and
politics, the environment was noticeably less hostile. “Indisputably the country is
better off,” wrote reporter Alma Guillermoprieto in The Heart That Bleeds:
Latin America Now. “With occasional lapses, there is press freedom, in which
any number of dreadful tabloids revel. The National Assembly has approved, in
record time, a package of sensible changes in the Constitution. The oppressive
atmosphere of the final days of the Noriega era is gone …”
Training in Diamondhead, Mississippi, Duran had his usual entourage of
friends, hangers-on and backslappers, but was now a very different person to the
wired teenager who bragged about putting people in hospital. On December 14,
Duran (90-9) knocked down the twenty-one-year-old Tony Menefee in round
five with a straight right over a weak jab and dominated his brave opponent until
the bout was stopped in the eighth. When the end came, with Menefee struggling
to rise after another knockdown, Duran actually gestured to referee Elmo Adolph
to stop the fight. “I didn’t want to kill him,” he said later. “I signaled to the
referee because he’s a young fighter, an up-and-coming guy, and I didn’t want to
hurt him.” How times had changed.
A month after the Menefee beating, Duran stopped Terry Thomas at Casino
Magic. Duran broke Thomas’s nose midway through the third, the popping
sound being heard by ringsiders. Thomas courageously continued but the fight
was stopped in the fourth round.
 Next was his most meaningful opponent since Leonard. On June 25, 1994,
Duran dropped former champion Vinny Pazienza in the fifth round on his way to
a close twelve-round decision loss for something called the IBC super
middleweight title. The IBC, or International Boxing Council, was yet another
unnecessary “governing body” in a sport already plagued by confusion and
politics. But Duran and the colorful Pazienza, known as the “Pazmanian Devil,”
were still a draw and over 10,000 spectators packed the MGM Grand Garden in
Vegas to see the former champs battle it out at a contracted 165 pounds.
Before the fight Duran sneered at Pazienza’s usual outrageous macho act: “He
thinks he’s the mother of Tarzan.” And the sight of Pazienza on the canvas in the
fifth round from a perfectly executed right-hand counter sent the crowd into a
frenzy. The three judges, astonishingly, were much less impressed and all scored
the round a 10-10 draw. A clash of heads brought blood flowing and Duran
continued to punish Pazienza, opening a cut on his face and denting his pride. He
couldn’t keep up the pace, though, and let Pazienza back into the fight. The
Pazman won the last five rounds on every scorecard and the unanimous decision.
“I outpunched him,” Duran claimed afterwards. “If this kid is so tough, look at
his face and look at mine. What did he do? He slapped the whole night.
Everybody thought I was old but it was the other guy who fought like an old
man. I didn’t lose the fight.”
He set his sights on a rematch with Pazienza, first stopping Heath Todd in
what amounted to a tune-up at Casino Magic. But when he met Pazienza again
for the same title on January 14, 1995, in the Atlantic City Convention Hall, he
was never in it and lost a lopsided decision. On some cards, Pazienza won every
round. Duran took his best shots and remained standing but couldn’t shake off
the rust of the years.
In February 1996, a flabby old man outpointed Ray Domenge over ten tepid
rounds in front of 1,800 at the Mahi Shrine Temple in Miami. “Once upon a
time, Duran generated fear and awe,” said Boxing News. “Now it’s pity … He
looked like a ‘weekend’ athlete who should not have been doing anything more
demanding than riding an exercise bike.” Vinny Pazienza, at ringside, remarked,
“I like Duran, now that we ain’t fighting, but he ought to retire.” Hector
“Macho” Camacho, who lined up to fight Duran that summer, was equally
scathing.
The decision win over Domenge, and a couple of stoppages of similarly weak
opponents, helped prepare Duran for a showdown with Hector “Macho”
Camacho, the flashy, loudmouth Puerto Rican southpaw, for the vacant and
lightly regarded IBC middleweight title – well above both their natural weights.
They fought on 22 June 1996, at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, and it
was an indication of their continuing appeal that the bout was screened on US
pay-per-view television. Both men traded insults and threw punches at the press
conference after Camacho repeatedly made jibes about the no más fight. The
promoter, who stood between them, came off worst, though Camacho cut his
hand on a ring on Duran’s finger.
Both fighters would have put on a fine display of speed and power in their
lightweight primes; now it was a case of who had more left. As 5,200 witnessed
in the sold-out Mark Etess Arena in the fight billed “Legend to Legend,” the
question would be answered in a surprisingly entertaining twelve-rounder. The
bout featured many vintage Duran exchanges. He had gotten down to 157, his
lowest weight in seven years, his stamina held up and his punches were crisp and
definite. The posturing Camacho brought out the competiitve fire in him, and
each right hand that bounced off the Macho Man’s temple brought a glow of
satisfaction to the old warhorse.
Camacho created an early lead with his jab but Duran came back at him and in
the middle rounds his more accurate and harder shots cut the light-hitting Puerto
Rican. Duran talked to Camacho during infighting, let him know who was the
boss. He targeted a cut under the Macho Man’s right eye in the fourth and had
him desperately clinching in the fifth. For all of Camacho’s flash and
braggadocio, his swagger had waned and ability to avoid punches had eluded
him over the first half of the fight. That classic right hand was often deposited
from various angles, and Duran looked to build an early lead. Would the judges
reward speed or strength? Even though Duran had matched Camacho and even
bested him during several trade-offs, he had lost steam in the late rounds and
couldn’t win over the judges. Camacho ended up winning an unpopular yet
unanimous decision. “Why should I quit?” Duran told reporters at the post-fight
press conference.
Back in Panama, Duran was pitted in a horribly overmatched bout with Ariel
Cruz, who hadn’t won a fight in thirteen contests, that August. Duran disposed
of the journeyman in one round, and would head back stateside. Less than a
month later at the Mountaineer Race Track in Chester, West Virginia, Duran
faced Mike Culbert, a southpaw from Brockton, in front of a crowd of 2,800. He
knocked Culbert down three times, opened a sizable gash on the side of his left
eye and eventually stopped him in the sixth round. Duran earned $50,000. “‘Old
Man’ Scores a TKO” was the headline in the Charleston Daily Mail.
In June 1997, Duran scored his hundredth win and gained revenge over
Argentina’s Jorge Castro, the former WBA middleweight champion who had
controversially outpointed him in February. On the evening before his forty-sixth
birthday, he survived a fierce pummeling from Castro early in round three to
take a narrow ten-round decision – 97-95 on all cards – before close to 10,000
spectators in Panama City. Castro’s strong start had petered out in the intense
heat and Duran earned a top-ten ranking in the super-middleweight division with
the win. Years later, this author sat with Duran watching a tape of one of the
Castro fights and he declared what he would have done to the man if he were in
shape. By now he was boxing with little, if any, training.
Two days later, he was interviewed by Joe Cross of International Boxing
Digest in Ralph’s, an “upscale poolroom-bar” on Via Espana in Panama City.
“He was celebrating with both hands,” recorded Oliver, “a drink in one, a pool
cue in the other. Two days after scaling 168 for the fight, he weighed 180. Duran
gets fat by breathing smoke and looking at food.” He was surrounded by young
women, and friends, and seemed happy, talking about another big payday against
Leonard or Camacho.
Duran kept plugging away but the deterioration that he had hidden so well in
the Camacho bout was now undisguisable. It showed on November 15 when he
traveled to South Africa to fight. Replacement David Radford was flown in from
England at two days’ notice to fight him and managed to rock Duran on two
occasions before losing the eight-round decision. Duran went down in a storm
with the South African crowds and was presented with a photograph of himself
and Nelson Mandela, who reportedly described him as the most charismatic
fighter he had ever met.
Duran met the canvas in his next fight. Fighting at a gross 170 pounds, he
went down in the first round to Felix Jose Hernandez, a 10-5-1 “tomato can,” but
came back to fell Hernandez in the fifth and twice in the eighth round. He won
an eight-round decision and kept alive his streak of never having lost a pro bout
in Panama. It was something to cling to.
Those who called for Duran’s retirement were placated by the fact that he still
had his mind, his experience and a residue of his skills. Against inferior
opponents, these were enough, and no one on his seemingly never-ending
comeback tour had hurt him – until he signed to fight the WBA middleweight
champ. Roberto Duran had nothing left to teach WBA middleweight champ
William Joppy. They were set to fight August 28 at the Las Vegas Hilton on a
Don King production. Well aware that he was sending Duran to slaughter, King
was more concerned about his still-evident ticket-selling potential. Joppy was
strong and close to his prime, with twenty-five victories to one loss, and the little
tricks and tactics Duran had perfected in the clinches and off the ropes were not
enough. Press conference talk of him springing a surprise on the young fighter
was drowned out by laughter.
Joppy punished the Panamanian for two rounds before referee Joe Cortez
stopped the bout at 2:54 of the third. The sight of Joppy pummeling a helpless
Duran – after a blistering right hand midway through the round had forced him
to cover up – should have been enough. Even Duran promised, “I’m finished.”
The Nevada Boxing Commission suspended him while his back-up team, which
consisted of Acri, DeCubas, and attorney Tony Gonzalez bickered. “Gonzalez
made the Joppy fight,” said Luis DeCubas. “That was the worst thing I ever saw
in boxing. It was criminal.” The IRS reportedly took $225,000 of his $250,000
purse money to pay back taxes.
Duran followed up the Joppy catastrophe with a ten-round loss to Omar
Eduardo Gonzalez in Argentina. On his forty-ninth birthday Duran waited in
Panama to take on journeyman Pat Lawlor in a rematch. He trained in a San
Miguelito Gym with Plomo and female trainer Maria Toto. The fight was titled
“The Battle of Five Decades” as Duran, almost incredibly, had fought in every
decade since the Sixties. In 1960, he was running the streets with Chaflan,
learning to survive. In 1970, he was assaulting the lightweight division. In 1980,
he conquered the indomitable Leonard by forcing him into an alley brawl. In
1990, he was coming off a victory over Iran Barkley. In 2000, the fame and
nearly $45 million has vanished through investments and the belief that it would
never end.
Before the fight Duran told the press, “Lawlor is fatter and crazier. Sadly, he
came to Panama to get a beating.” He then went out and celebrated his birthday
with a points win, avenging that earlier stoppage loss to Lawlor when an injured
shoulder had forced him to quit.
The show puttered on. Two months later Duran faced P.J. Goosen at the
Legends Casino in somewhere called Toppenish, Washington. The unheralded
Goosen came in with a 19-2 record. Duran, in his 119th bout, railed against his
naysayers. “I ignore all the people who say I shouldn’t do this. I don’t care what
they say,” he told reporters. “The commissioners in Las Vegas should worry
about their own boxers. I’ve seen ten-times worse boxers down there and they’re
still able to box when they shouldn’t have a license. I’ve taken every test, and
besides, I know what my body’s able to do. I listen to my body, and I will know
when my body tells me it’s time to quit. The decision will be made by me. When
I step into the ring I’m just doing my business.” After promising reporters, “you
will see if my hands are still made of stone,” Duran banged out a ten-round
decision.
“The problem is that the only thing he can do is to fight, and all he’s done is
fight; he doesn’t know anything else,” said Juan Carlos Tapia. “He’ll risk his life
to fight just to get money for his family.” Eleta urged him to quit, “I told him,
‘Before you hit them and they went down. Now you push them and then
embrace them. What happened to you?’ He didn’t like that.”
Duran was only fighting to pay back debts that he claimed his wife accrued
and money Carlos Eleta stole from him. It was never his fault. After a loss, he
never took any blame, and in life, it was always someone else who made him
broke. All of the money had disappeared with his skills. The man had fought
since 1968, and he felt he had earned the right to spend his money accordingly.
“We went to Panama once to see his house and where he was born,” said
promoter Butch Lewis. “This guy would go down the streets of Panama and dig
into his pockets and give money to people, kids in the streets. It didn’t matter
how much he made in the fight because he would split it amongst the kids in the
neighborhood. There’s no coincidence he’s a hero and it’s not about the money.
After every fight he always came back and never forgot. And that’s the way
things are.”
As he traveled to Denver, Colorado, to fight Hector Camacho on 14 July 2001,
the man was stuck in a vacuum. The cold reception of only 6,597 fans in the
19,000 Pepsi Center revealed the truth that he wasn’t marketable anymore. His
boxing daughter, Irichelle, backed her father’s decision to continue fighting.
“How can you ask a man who has boxed all his life to do something else?” The
truth was you couldn’t. Duran was going to box; it was his life. Even at fifty.
Camacho pounded out a unanimous decision to win the National Boxing
Association super-middleweight belt in a quickly forgettable twelve-round fight.
“I was affected by the altitude in Denver,” said Duran. “If Camacho can’t knock
me out, then who can?”
Salsa legend Ruben Blades said before the first Duran-Leonard that the
American was “not fighting a man … he is fighting an emotion.” Now Duran
was fighting in slow motion. It was time to leave the sport. But would he do it on
his own terms?
 21

The Last Song

“The end is going to be exactly how it started, in Chorrillo.”
Juan Carlos Tapia

IN THE BACK of every ex-boxer’s mind lurks a belief that he can still fight. He
watches bouts on television and mentally breaks down the competitors, finding
their faults, thinking how he could beat them, kidding himself. It is a dangerous
illusion.
Even at the age of fifty-four, Duran still wished he was in the ring. “I would
have no problem with the young guys today,” he told Sports Illustrated. “None.”
But by then it was, finally, all over. He would always be Manos de Piedra to his
people, Duran to the boxing fanatics, the no más guy to the casual sports fan. But
he would never be a boxer again; never lean over the top rope to salute the fans,
never breathe the sweet scent of success, never watch a man fall to the canvas
before him. He did not go without a fight.
On 3 October 2001, he was in Argentina to promote a salsa CD and was
traveling with his son Chavo and two reporters when their car crashed. Duran
suffered several broken ribs and a collapsed lung. Slowly he would recover from
the injuries, but his boxing career was finished. For those who cared about him,
the accident came not a moment too soon. Finally something would stop him
ever getting in the ring again. On January 27, 2002, Roberto Duran officially
called an end to a glorious, memorable career that stretched back five decades.
“I did not want him to fight any more, I wanted him to retire,” said Clara.
“Then the accident took place. So then he said, ‘Mama, I am going to stop
fighting, I am going to retire.’ I went to thank God for this decision. While I was
opening my arms to thank God, I saw a cloud close to me, and I said, ‘God, I
want to thank you again because my son has retired now and he is going to be a
good man now.’ Then I saw the cloud was leaving.”
Ismael Laguna knew it was time. “I left at twenty-eight but Duran stayed
around until he was fifty-one,” said the former champ. “Duran came on TV and
said that maybe the accident and what happened to him in Argentina was a
message from God that he couldn’t keep himself in the ring at that age. It was
definitely a message from the man up there to not fight anymore.”
He looked instead to his salsa, his motorcycle (which would again land him in
a hospital bed in March 2005), boxing promotions and his family to replace the
game he had ravaged since the late Sixties. He split his time between
appearances at boxing matches, autograph shows in the US and Europe and
singing in his own band. He even retained the five championship belts that were
previously stolen from his home in September 1993 by his brother-in-law
Bolivar Iglesias. “I’ve spent three or four million dollars on music,” he told
Sports Illustrated. “I am never home.” He helped Luis DeCubas, his former
manager, promote shows for his Florida-based Team Freedom Promotions,
became a partner with DeCubas and Dan Wise in another promotional concern
called DRL, and talks often about making a movie on his life, although he thinks
there would have to be two: “One where you laugh, one where you cry.”
At times during his boxing career, Duran had put more focus on his music. He
played in a salsa band called Tres Robertos (with Roberto Ledesma and Roberto
Torres) and played bongos and sang for his Orquestra Felicidad, named after his
wife. As early as 1985, he made a recording, Dos Campeones, with the Colon-
born “King of Salsa,” Azuquita. The songs he sang included “La Casa de
Piedra,” an ode to his childhood in Chorrillo.
When Roberto Duran walks into a room, people no longer gape. Women don’t
swoon or check themselves in the nearest mirror. Men don’t step aside or back.
Reporters don’t fumble over their notebooks or recorders for a juicy quote. The
autograph lines have shortened. There is no longer a Marvelous One, a Sugar or
a Hit Man to recreate the pre-fight hysteria reserved for men of grandeur. The
muscles, no longer taut, now hold a belly full from fine Panamanian meals in his
Cangrejo home or complimentary casino steaks.
Yet he is not heavy like a man who has let himself go. Duran’s belly may be
round, but it is still solid and you still wouldn’t want to take one of his punches.
When he is angry his Spanish comes in bursts, he waves his hands and gets
inches away from his target’s face. Such moments are rare. He is more likely to
grab any person within range and hug or make fun of them. If a reporter asks
him a question in English that he doesn’t want to answer, he flexes his muscles
and smiles into the distance as if to say, “I am still Duran.”
He makes people feel wanted, a trait he inherited from his mother. His
cherubic smile is that of a man who can laugh at himself and at others. It
illuminates his face and makes everyone around him enjoy whatever he is happy
about at the moment. Nor is it affected. For this reason alone, people love to be
around him, much more than they would Leonard, Hagler or Hearns. He has the
Ali aura of warmth and fun. Yet he still has a fighter’s face. While the anger has
subsided, Duran with all the signature creases and jet-black hair still looks like a
man who once ruled with his fists.
The fun, the spontaneity and the smile mean that Duran can still draw a crowd
no matter where he goes. One thing that separates him from most of his greatest
opponents is that he has no problem being part of the crowd. Fitting in has
always been a Duran strength. When he became a world champion, he didn’t
have to go back and play dominoes with his friends from Chorrillo. He didn’t
have to go back to the old haunts to gorge on beans and rice. He didn’t have to
walk around Panama handing out his purse money. And he didn’t have to stay
put in Panama, a downtrodden country where a lot of the world-class athletes
have escaped with the fame. But he did.
One can see the real Duran when he is home with his family. He has four sons,
known as Chavo, Robbie, Branbi and Fulo, and three daughters, Irichelle,
Jovanna and Dalia, and has recently adopted another son. Chavo and the pretty
Irichelle both briefly became boxers themselves, though neither showed even a
sliver of their father’s genius for the ring. In Panama, one can find him sorting
through his huge DVD collection – Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro are his
favorites – playing pool with a friend or joking with his sons. If he is not home,
he could be shooting pool and drinking a beer at one of his local haunts,
Magnum Eventos. Wherever he is in Panama, he is always accessible, and
Felicidad is not far behind. “My dad would die for us,” says Irichelle.
There were times that Duran feared for his own life. In the Eighties, he was
flying a plane over Panama without a pilot’s license. He was enjoying the view
when the plane started to plummet toward the ocean. He started to tell himself, I
can’t die now. What will they say about Roberto Duran? The plane crashed in the
water, Duran got out of the cockpit, and then swam the two miles to shore. “I
knew I was not supposed to die this way,’’ he said.
Duran believes that he will be rich again and millions will come his way. He
has said this many times. If fate has it, he will. Always he is waiting for
insurance money from his accident or a business deal that never comes.
Impulsive in the ring, he is worse with cash in his hands. There never has been a
plan because as anyone associated with him knows, “Roberto does what he
wants with his money.” In that sense, nothing has changed. He made between
$45 and $50 million in the ring. Everyone associated with Duran has a story to
tell about his generosity: walking through the streets of Panama with a bag full
of money or giving an opponent an expensive wristwatch. “He liked to give
away presents,” said Plomo Quinones. “When he won the championship and he
already had money, lots of people used to come up to him for unpaid bills they
had, and they would ask him to help them cancel their debts for electricity,
water, etc. And he would help them all, one after the other. I remember one
Saturday when, after finishing giving away the money he had been asked for, he
looked at me and said, ‘I have given away ten thousand dollars this week.’”
“One time him and his friends stayed for a few days in a hotel in New York,”
said his former promoter Walter Alvarez. “People were signing his name for
meals and bar tabs and gifts. The bill came to something like $60,000. I’ve seen
him go in restaurants, pay everyone’s bill, and end up spending $4,000.”
Duran’s true gratification during his spending sprees came from allowing poor
people from Chorrillo and other low-income areas to eat prime rib and sip the
best champagne in fine hotels for the first and last time in their lives. It was no
exaggeration; he tried to bring Chorrillo with him. “I remember when there were
500-600 people waiting outside in the freezing cold to meet Roberto,” said his
lawyer Tony Gonzalez. “A young guy in his 20s had brought his father to meet
Roberto as a surprise and kept his back turned until his father reached the front
of the line. When the guy turned around to see Roberto, he immediately broke
down in tears.”
The stories never ceased: “My dad was a mason and one time he went to do a
job for Roberto Duran. Duran was the world champion at the time,” said two-
time world champion Hilario Zapata. “All the boys looked up to him. One day
Duran tells my father, ‘I hear you have a son who is always fighting.’ He said,
‘He fights so much that I don’t know what to do with him.’ Duran says, ‘Take
these gloves and give them to your son so he can practice.’ The gloves were
sixteen-ounce and they were yellow. I was so happy to receive the gloves but I
was more happy because they were the world champ’s gloves. I still have the
same boxing gear that I began with back then.”
Many benefited from Duran’s spectacular Robin Hood complex. “A close
friend of Duran’s once told me that Duran would bring $14,000 every time he
went back to his old neighborhood,” said local promoter and manager Carlos
Gonzalez. “And those people never forgot. They loved him. He would just go
through the streets handing out money. It was amazing.”
Many also say Felicidad gambled away much of their fortune. “She lost much
money,” said Plomo. “There were times when the National Police, the
Comandos, the highest rank officers, would go to the casinos where she used to
gamble. He would sometimes mention this but his love for her is so big. She was
spending lots of money, twenty-five thousand dollars, fifteen thousand dollars, a
lot of money. But he learned to cope with this. She took advantage of his love for
her because she could get hold of the money in the bank. She would withdraw
money and spend it freely.”
People in Panama love to speculate how much Felicidad lost at the tables. The
responses range from “a lot” to the Panamanian term for broke, “limpio.” When
Duran was making $8 million for eight rounds in the Leonard rematch, he never
expected the cash flow to stop. When Duran had a Panamanian bigwig break
into an account worth $2 million that Eleta had opened for him after the Leonard
debacle, he figured he could double that in the third fight that came a decade
later. Athletes rarely think that their time will wind down and their gifts will
slowly disappear. According to many associated with the family, when Felicidad
had money, it was a good guess where she was heading.
“She spends a lot of money,” said Mike Acri. “She likes to shop. I don’t know
if that affected Duran. They are still together and it is some form of relationship
that has strength and endurance. At times they would fight and if he tried to
interfere or get into something, they would have a problem. She didn’t interfere
in the boxing. I like her.
“Once I said to her and Plomo, because I was pissed off at Duran, the
insurance policy was seven million and I said we should shoot him when he’s
doing roadwork. Then we could split the money. After two seconds, I was like,
‘I’m just kidding.’ But Plomo looks over and says, ‘That’s not enough.’”
Fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco, who remembered the up-and-coming prospect at
the Fifth Street Gym in Miami, was less forgiving of what many considered
Duran’s ultimate fault. “People like him are either broke or have got a lot of
money. They can’t hold a dime. He was a puma inside the ring and a manchild
outside of it. He couldn’t hold money and whatever he had his wife gambled
away.”
Carlos Eleta didn’t blame the gambling. “All the family tried to intervene in
the financial affairs. It wasn’t just Felicidad. Even without her, he would have
lost that money anyway. Even before he was champ, he wanted to be like Robin
Hood and give his money to the poor. [Felicidad] was in the picture from the
beginning. She was a good influence and was good to try to keep him away from
other women.”
However in an August 1988 Ring interview, Eleta had a different perception.
“When Duran got married to Felicidad, that was the beginning of all the
problems. The father of Felicidad was always difficult. I used to control all the
money that Duran earned but as Felicidad couldn’t touch any money, they forced
Duran to turn against me. The father started to take care of the rent of the house.
Then Felicidad started businesses. She also began gambling every night.”
Duran didn’t deny it. When interviewed by a Panama reporter about his
money woes, Duran told the reporter that he better ask Eleta or Felicidad where
the money went. But he knew that being his wife was no easy job. “To be
married to Roberto Duran for thirty-five years is not possible,” Duran told a
reporter. “She is a saint.”
In 2000, Duran was winding down and the purses had vanished through bad
investments and unrestrained spending. He had in fact hit rock bottom in 1997,
when his family was nearly forced out of its home in Cangrejo. There were
rumblings that Mike Tyson, whose hero was Duran, had planned to step in and
foot the bill. “He was going to lose his house because he owed a lot of money
and he put his house up as collateral,” said Tapia. “He never paid that money.
When Ernesto Endara was President, he asked me personally to resolve Duran’s
problem with the house. I talked to the men who Duran owed the money and told
him that the interest rates were high and I made the loan go down from five
hundred to three hundred thousand dollars. And then I met with several people to
resolve Duran’s problems. I had a meeting with Duran’s bank manager, so he
would give a twenty-year mortgage and give Duran twenty years to pay for his
house, not immediately.
“We were a hundred grand off and I told Duran that I could make a campaign
with my friends. Four people that could give twenty-five grand each and the
problem would be solved. But I needed his authorization. He said no and that he
had money. The problem was not resolved. He’s very proud. For many years
Duran has hidden his true economic situation. He tells everyone he’s a
millionaire but he’s not.”
Duran claimed that when he needed help, Panama turned its back. “If the
Government really wanted to help me when I was down on my luck they would
have helped me pay for it,” he said. “Any one of the past presidents like Endara
could have helped. When I paid for this house, they should have helped me
because I really needed this house. When I pay my house off I’m going to put it
into the paper, ‘I paid my house with no help.’ What a shame for the Panamanian
Government.”
Although some remark on his stubborn ways and refusal to take handouts,
Duran has asked for and accepted help on many occasions. He has also been
forced to adapt his lifestyle. He used to drink Chivas Regal from the bottle after
fights, now it is Seco and orange juice or an Atlas beer, his favorite. Of the
eleven cars that he once owned, only a motorcycle and a couple of cars remain in
his driveway. There are no chefs or hired help, just a man and a dog hiding in the
shadows to keep away fans or reporters. Duran is not alone; many boxers fail to
manage their money wisely. Duran had the leeches, the women who spent freely,
and a lack of education. All contributed to his current plight.
“There’s a lot of people who want to see him well but he thinks because we
tell him the truth that we’re the enemy,” said Tapia. “Duran is not prepared to
make sacrifices, he wants the easy life. You have to remember … there were
many negative times during his career. He has lost all his money and three times
he has gone bankrupt. He spends it. They take it from him. They give it away.
He does everything. In his mind he thought that he had gone through a lot of
effort to earn that money. Since he’s a great boxer, he thought it would be easy to
keep making money.”
Duran has claimed in the past that he has no need for material things. The
white Armani suits, often worn with a driving cap, are gone. He no longer
flashes $1,000 earrings and his gold jewelry has been auctioned off. Having been
so enamored of the outfits of the wealthy, it is possible to conceive that Duran
misses these items the most.
Eleta is one of a select few left from the good old days. Duran said Flacco
Bala died of AIDS and in the end was two-faced. He also has the same disgust
for Molo, a close friend and confidant from Chorrillo. Arcel and Brown passed
away years ago, but Plomo can still be found toiling away at the Jesus Master
Gomez Gym in Barrazza.
“The poor people from where he comes from, they don’t care that they abused
Duran,” said Panamanian boxing personality Daniel Alonso. “They interpret it as
the possibility of having something of all that Duran has earned, someone from
their own family. To me, Duran has one of the noblest hearts. He always trying
to go out and help people. When you put everything he’s done in a balance, the
satisfactions that Duran gave us against his bankruptcy, mistakes, failures, the
result is very favorable for Duran.”
A common theory that some hold as absolute truth is that Eleta skimmed a lot
of money from his fighter. After I interviewed Eleta for this book, several
individuals sent warnings of his motives. With white, receding hair, and a stylish
dress shirt, Eleta, eighty-six, came across as a classy gentleman who didn’t let
age stop him from continuing to work. Yet he kept retelling the same stories, as
if he were convincing himself of his innocence during Duran’s career. “I want
this to be known. I tried to preserve his money,” he said. “They say that Eleta is
stealing Duran’s money. Duran believed everything that the people told him. I
wanted to save his money. The people here are against anybody who makes
money. They are not hypocrites but are envious.”
Although Eleta seemed to care more about his own image than Duran’s
ultimate fate, he has an insight into the man that few people have. With the
autograph signings dwindling and the flow of money having stopped, there was
a ubiquitous feeling in Panama that Duran would end up right where he started.
“I was in a restaurant and he came and embraced me,” said Eleta in 2004. “He
said, ‘I know that you are mad with me. I will not talk bad about you anymore.’ I
said, ‘It’s about time.’ Some people have lost respect for him but they pardon
him. They know that he is crazy and he talks too much. What he says, they don’t
pay any attention to. But they know what he did for Panama.
“He will end with nothing; he will end up worse than that. He tells me that he
will come to my office but he will not ask me for money. I will help him in my
way when he has nothing left. I don’t know if it will have a sad ending. I don’t
know how sad. I know that he’ll never lack to eat or to sleep because I’ll be after
him.”

DURAN’S FAMILY finds it easier to look back to happier times than face the
present. The beer flowed at parties; women were everywhere; cash was abundant
and everyone dipped into the money pot for any need or want – some more than
others. Now, for most of the extended Duran family the gleam of the glory days
has turned to rust.
A man once told Clara Samaniego, “There has not been another woman here
in Panama that has given birth to a man like Roberto Duran.” From almost since
he was old enough to walk, she relied on her son. Now La Casa de Piedra is a
memory, replaced by a crumbling apartment building. Chorrillo is a dark place,
an epicenter of drugs and crime, and there is no sign that Duran ever lived there.
A vast army of unemployed wander the streets. Scarred children with sunken
eyes hang out of broken windows draped with washing, staring down on empty
futures. It will perhaps never be as dangerous as the appalling Colon, but violent
death is a constant threat.
During his adolescence, Duran often turned to his stepfather Victorino Vargas
for advice. However, by the time Duran had reached his mid-twenties, Vargas
and his mother had split. Today it is only possible to reach Vargas’s home in
Guarare Alto by traveling along several winding dirt roads. There he sits on his
porch, cornered by filth. A flattened barbed wire fence lies on the ground, almost
inviting one of the several small children running around the yard to step on it.
Neglect is a feature of his home. Broken glass substitutes for a window. Clothes
are scattered around the yard.
Victor was once slim and powerful; now his full belly rests on his thighs. He
has trouble remembering all his five children’s names, and he no longer speaks
with Clara or any of her offspring. When he asks an interviewer to tape a
recorded message for his daughters Anabelle and Isabelle, he purposely leaves
out Clara. But he strongly defends Roberto’s wife.
When he was earning millions in the early Eighties, Duran helped his family.
Whether paying their electric bills or helping to buy a house for grandmother
Ceferina, he knew that he was in a special position and felt responsible to spread
the wealth. However, many have noted that the fighter would buy drinks and
steaks for the manzanillos before he would consider helping his family and close
friends.
“After winning the championship, he started opening some businesses. A
grocery store, then a boutique, and he then bought a couple of buildings. He did
not buy any more, he just kept these things,” said Vargas. “He did not want to go
on with this. He bought a car, a big screen for movies because he likes movies
very much, and that is about all. He also bought a piece of land with cows
around here. He contacted me and asked me to go and take care of those cows.
But in the meantime he got me a job at INTEL, the telephone company, so I did
not go there. He talked personally with the manager there and succeeded in
getting me a job. I worked there twenty-two years. Till today I am thankful to
him for this job. I retired after working there.”
Vargas is one of the few family members who didn’t charge Duran with not
doing more with his money. Although Vargas left his mother, Duran continued to
help his stepfather. “One day Justiniano [Vargas’s son] was stabbed. Fula was
around, and he was taken to hospital,” Vargas recalled. “They had a kiosk and a
couple of criminals tried to rob him and stabbed him. He had to be urgently
operated on because his stomach was badly damaged. And Duran paid for it all. I
was once in the hospital myself and Duran paid for the operation. I had to be
operated on several times because of a cyst but the operations had not been
properly done. So Duran talked to Eleta in order to find a place where I could be
operated on properly. I was sent to San Fernando. I got in on a Sunday, and on
Monday I had already undergone surgery. He paid five hundred dollars for my
stay there. So I can say nothing bad about him, for he always helped me out
whenever I was in trouble.”
Vargas also staunchly defends Felicidad. He claims he would sometimes go to
casinos with her and “she would never lose. On the contrary, she would always
win two or three hundred dollars. People used to say she was wasting his money
at the casino but since I would go with her and be present, I saw she did not
waste the money as people liked to say. I do not believe it was her who spent the
money. After winning her money, she would say, ‘Let’s go home.’ And we
would go back home.”
Toti Samaniego, Roberto’s older brother, also defends Felicidad. “If he is
married to his wife and he decides to give her money, then she may spend it on
whatever she likes, right?” he said. “If he knew that she would go to the casino,
did he give her money? This is the way he was. He did not care about the money.
He would just give it away for her to do whatever she pleased. And since she
lacked nothing at all, what could she do with the money? She would just go into
the casino and use it all there.”
Living with a woman in Nuevo Arreglan, in a house that Roberto bought for
him twenty-five years ago, Toti has had little contact with his family over the
years. He has the impish quality of a cartoon character and emotion resonates on
his large face. He doesn’t look like his brother and the world seems already to
have passed him by. His smile is sad and his wrinkles suggest a lifelong struggle.
He survives with an energy touched by exasperation.
Duran’s uncle Moises was an accomplished folk singer, but it is Toti’s voice
that the family raves about. While money flashed signs of freedom and
autonomy for Roberto, it didn’t affect his brother. Although Toti currently lives a
twenty-five-minute cab ride from Duran’s home, it is in a community way off
the beaten path. He has no phone and to find him visitors travel through a thick
forested area and ask for “the house of the brother of Duran.” Toti sits nervously
in a café off the main highway in Nuevo Arreglan and speaks about his love for
his brother. Little seems to connect the brothers anymore. While Roberto
constantly travels abroad, Toti rarely leaves the small town he calls home.
“Whenever I asked for money, it was because I was in real need of it. He
would always give us money, his family,” said Toti. “His friends would also ask
for money but they would end up taking his things away, stealing the money
from him. He once held a party in his house and he had a wallet with six hundred
dollars in it that he left on the table. The wallet got lost in the middle of the party
and since those were all hundred-dollar bills he could have asked to search
everyone in the party for the money. But Duran said he did not care about the
money, he only wanted to get back his ID and the other documents. And the
wallet turned up, without the money, which meant the thief was still there at the
party. Those were the manzanillos.
“Yes, they did take everything. Whatever was left there: things, money, shoes,
anything. They would take whatever they found. They were his friends and he
would not hear a word against his own friends, even more when it was not
possible to point at one of them in particular. Besides, it was his home. I cannot
tell him what to do. It is his house and he is the one to decide.”
Before Toti moved to his current house to live a more primitive lifestyle, he
shared in his brother’s financial success. Nor has he been pushed aside. Roberto
and Felicidad have tried to accommodate a move back to Panama City.
Toti fidgets with his matches as he lights a cigarette. There is work to be done
at his home, he says and motions to leave. Like Clara and Victorino, he lives in
near poverty. Still he doesn’t complain about his lot. He doesn’t blame Roberto
for anything and lauds him for being a great brother. “I must admit that we used
to be a lot closer in the past. At present we are not that close. It is nothing like it
was at those times when we were together all the time. I do not go to Panama
now. He still treats me well when I go to visit him, but it is not the same. He
used to be nicer with us then. When I go there we do talk. He always advises me
to come where he is and to stop drinking. But I am not used to luxury places. I
do not like this.”
Moises Samaniego lives several miles from Toti. Moises is Duran’s uncle on
his mother’s side. Back in the Seventies, when life was good, Moises had a
minor following as a folk musician. Stylish and good-looking in old photos,
Moises, whose wife Rosina has passed away since then, seems content. Back in
the 1950s, he spent time working with Margarito Duran in the Panama Canal
Zone and still reserves a special place for his friend. Moises looked after young
Roberto for long periods of time when Clara needed to get away. However,
Samaniego doesn’t hold Roberto in the same regard as he used to. There is a
sense that Moises is even angered by Duran’s careless nature with money.
“Sesenta millones, sesenta millones or sixty millions,” Moises repeated over
and over again as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying. Although it might
be an exaggerated sum, Moises holds Duran responsible for the state of the
immediate family. “Something happened to my sister Clara. Now she is too
poor.”
When Moises needed Duran to get his son out of jail for gun possession, he
was left waiting. There was no money at the time. “My son was in jail for having
a gun without a permit,” said Moises. “I asked Roberto to help me get him out of
jail, but he was waiting for a million dollars that was coming from Argentina. He
never got it, and my son is still in jail [in April 2004]. I can’t get him out.
“[Roberto] hardly did anything for his family. He never cared as much about
helping his family as he did for the chombos, or blacks. I was trying to help my
friend get a business started and he needed some money to start it up. Roberto
didn’t want to help. He never did anything for this family. I want this to be told.”
Jairo Ivan Garcia is another who sounds a critical note. Tears come down his
face, the tears of a man who felt spurned by a member of his own family, of a
man who wants to be part of something again and not be treated as a stranger.
Garcia lives on 4th Street in Guarare, next to the green house where Ceferina
lived. He says that he is Duran’s uncle, though that is disputed amongst family
members. In the tangled genealogies of Panama, anything is possible. Certainly
he is related to the boxer and did play a role in raising Roberto.
“Roberto used to come here when he was little. That boy would eat anything,”
said Garcia. “He would even eat iguanas. My brother Socrates was very good
with him and taught him how to box. Socrates was a very big man and was
always with Roberto. That is where Roberto inherited his power from. My
brother challenged Ali to a fight one time but he said no.”
Garcia was at La Cantina Choco Choco when Roberto flattened the horse.
Choco Choco is still in Guarare across from the park. “When he used to come to
stay here, I would get out of my bed and sleep on the floor,” said Garcia. “I
would give Roberto my bed to sleep in. He loved to watch cartoons and
wrestling. Even back then he would fight anyone in the streets.” Although
Garcia claims to never have seen Duran lose his temper, there was always the
threat. “He talks very loud and strong when he got mad.”
One time, when Duran was famous, Garcia went to his house to drop off
something, and some money disappeared. “He accused me of stealing five
thousand dollars,” said Garcia, “and he wouldn’t talk to me after that. We
haven’t spoken in twenty-two years. When he comes here to Guarare, he never
stops here.” Garcia uses the back of his hand to dry his tears and looks next door
for more evidence of Duran’s hard-heartedness. There is a huge crack in the
concrete and the house looks abandoned, a small toy car the only hint that
anyone has been there in years. Decades ago, Ceferina ruled that same house
with a strong fist.
“Look at that house,” said Garcia. “He never even helped repair that broken
down house. That is the house that he grew up in. I would have liked that house
to be open for people to see the help Duran would give his family. Duran used to
help strangers but not his own family. When people would ask him about the
needs of his family in Panama, he would always pride himself on the help he
would offer. But that was a lie. He only helps his friends, not his family. Please
write this because it is the truth about Roberto. He did not help his family to
live.”
To stress his own generosity, Garcia points to the floor, “This is where I slept
when Roberto came to stay, right here.”
“All families have differences,” shrugged Mireya Samaniego, Clara’s sister
and Roberto’s aunt, “Jairo says that he is Roberto’s uncle, but he is only a cousin
because he isn’t a brother to Margarito or Clara. No one in the family talks to
Jairo because he talked rudely to my mother. Also, Roberto bought a lot of
things for Jairo to help him at his house.”
 Jairo did spend some time with Roberto during his career. Like always, the
money flowed. “He had seven cars, seven. But he only needed one. Why
seven?” The sadness turned to anger.
Mireya Samaniego is unlike many of her relatives. She is married to a doctor
and lives in a well-kept, one-story home in Guarare, across from the Escuela
Juana Vernaza school where young Roberto and his sister Marina were briefly
enrolled nearly four decades ago. Mireya has two sons, one named after Roberto,
and quickly shows her fist and recalls the time when her mother, Ceferina,
knocked out husband Chavelo with one punch and then helped deliver Duran
hours later. She also recalls a time when Duran argued in the street with Ceferina
and threw a $100 bill at her.
Mireya has a round face and an engaging laugh. “Many people became rich
taking advantage of Duran. Many indeed,” she said. “And Roberto knows it. But
he says, ‘I owe to God all I have.’ He has not been an ambitious person. I believe
this is because he knew what it is like to be poor. And he will also die in poverty.
This is what Roberto is like. He has always had an enormous heart and has never
been ambitious. He did not like to show off either. He would come to visit us in
his BMW and he would give away the keys for others to drive it. If he had been
different he would not have let others touch his car. But he is a person with very
good feelings. He loves his kids very much, and has never abandoned them.”

THERE HAS ALWAYS been an affinity for Duran in Guarare, his mother’s
birthplace in the Los Santos province, bordered by the Pacific Ocean on one side
and the Bahia de Panama on the other. Everyone there who was alive at that time
can remember where they were or how much they won when Duran won the
lightweight title in 1972 or dethroned Leonard in 1980. “I was watching that
fight on a big screen that they set up in a field here in Guarare,” says resident
Daniel Peres, sat in a local bar. “All the lights were on in the town and when
they announced that Duran was the winner, a man next to me flung a child very
high in the air. That’s all I can remember from that night.” And when he lost to
Leonard? “The city was dark that evening.”
Traveling through Guarare to the several apartments and homes that Clara
used to rent near La Plasita del Toros, along with Duran’s old hangouts, it is
clear that the people recall him with great affection. “I remember he used to steal
coconuts from El Rio. He used to come around here to the house as a young
boy,” said Lesbia Diaz, who lives a block off the Carretera National. “He would
walk in and ask my mother, ‘Mama, mama, tengo hambre?’ She used to feed him
rice, beans, patacones and anything she put on the table he would eat. The whole
town would be lit when Duran won.” Lesbia’s late father, Arquimedes, was
Duran’s biggest fan, and would travel from Guarare to Panama City to
congratulate him after victories. Diaz can pull out an entire photo album from a
parade the town had after Duran won the lightweight title. Duran was their hope.
Clara Samaniego still lives in the house that her son bought her in the
Seventies. It is in Los Andes No. 2, a district in the town of San Miguelito.
When Duran bought the house, Los Andes was a safe place to live. It no longer
is. Cab drivers refer to it as a red-light district, another name for a low-income
housing project. It is the same house where Clara sat with a local reporter to
watch her son defeat Sugar Ray Leonard in 1980. She was also there for the
rematch, and she remembers hearing people yell, “Cholo, perdio, Cholo perdio,”
after he walked out. Euphoria and joy encompassed the house when Clara’s son
was still great.
Young, half-dressed children spread around the house in chaotic disharmony.
Dirty dishes are stacked in the small sink to the left. Random phone numbers are
scribbled in frat-house comprehension. It has been decades since Clara
Samaniego was young but the hard years have not dissolved her kindness. She
waits outside her home on a chair for nothing in particular. People pass and
exchange glances or small talk. We drive up in a cab, and the driver asks her for
“La mama de Duran.”
“Soy yo,” said Clara softly.
Twenty-five years earlier, things were better. Roberto took care of her. He
bought this home for her, one that time has ravaged. Now, with the exception of
Roberto, all her sons struggle to make a good living. “I was sad because I fought
really hard so as not to fail to my children,” she said. “I never failed them. When
I say you fail your children, I mean you abandon them. I never did that. I started
working to buy their food. Roberto was born with a weight of eleven-and-a-half
pounds but he always had his milk ready because I worked. There is a form
where you write month after month your baby’s weight, and he grew pretty well.
His milk bottles were always ready for him when I went to work and my
compadre took care of him. Upon my returning, I would bring some more
money to buy extra food. They never knew what to be hungry was.
“One day there was a party at home, and Roberto asked me to sing a ranchera
for him, ‘Volver, Volver.’ When he was a child he liked a ranchera called ‘Ya No
Llores Más.’ He used to be very happy whenever I would sing that song for him.
I had a rocking chair where I used to sit and he liked to come to me when I was
sitting there and to ask me for that song.”
Duran’s sisters Anna and Isabelle live with Clara at the home in Los Andes.
They are obviously fond of their brother and credit him, not VictorninoVargas,
with being the father they needed. They talk about Duran’s jealous streak and
how every boyfriend feared their brother. However, Anna does not like the
attention that she gets for being related to a famous boxer. Everywhere she goes
people say, “There’s Duran’s sister.” She has stayed with her mother for support
but yearns to travel. There are no chairs in the house, just empty space. Family
members and friends filter in and out throughout the day. Ripped photos of
Duran’s career adorn the walls. All of this is a sign that life has changed and
might never be the same.
“It was a painful moment when Roberto was boxing,” said Clara. “It was a
great pain to know he was receiving punches. I would always just wait until it
was over and then I would ask him if he won. I don’t know what happened [to
my son],” said Clara. “Sometimes this idea makes me very sad, and so I start
singing a song, a popular song, and then I feel like crying…
“I go to his house because he does not come to my house. He always behaves
very well with me. He kisses me and asks me to take care of myself. I always tell
him not to worry about me. So I leave and come back home. He asks me not to
marry again and I tell him I won’t. I do not know how does he feel now … It just
makes me sad to see my son like this, for he was a very good son. That is why I
sometimes feel like singing the song that goes, ‘Mano de Piedra Duran …’ [she
starts singing a song in which she prays to the Virgen del Carmen for her son,
and another one which also tells about Duran’s life, ‘No Llores Más,’ a bolero].
This is a song Roberto likes very much. I heard this last song when they were
singing it on the radio, and I learned it.”
Tears form as she sings the final song for her son.

JOURNALIST DANIEL Alonso, who has known Duran for many years, calls
his life “a story with a sad ending.” But it is not over, and who can say how it
will end? Sadness and poignancy there is, but also hope and a defiant kind of
joy. “He has that house and many expenses and many problems,” said his
brother Toti, “but he remains the same person. He has not lost his high spirits.
He is never sad. You can see him here in the Chorrillo on Sundays, always
laughing and having fun. He goes to the beach. If he sees someone who needs
money, he will always give him some. He does not care about money.”
Salsa superstar Ruben Blades once told a reporter, “You go to his house and
there he’ll be in his shorts. It is not a plastic thing, Roberto’s life. It is amazing.
The more attention he gets, the less complicated he gets. He is very, very close
with all of his relatives. He doesn’t travel with people who want to make him
feel great by saying, ‘Yes, Yes, Roberto,’ all the time building up his ego. He
doesn’t need them or want them.”
Roberto Duran’s hands are soft, fleshy maps of a life of fighting in streets and
rings. His knuckles are ghastly bumps, narratives of the men who confronted
him. The man – father, friend and son – has lived in extremes. He has stood with
presidents, dined with world figures, danced with goddesses, defeated poverty,
partied with celebrities, sipped the world’s best champagne, driven expensive
cars, draped himself in rare jewelry, and brawled and bested the world’s toughest
men. He thrived among crowds. When his people turned away, he turned inward;
when the world called out, he soaked in its luxuries. When he fought, he
punched to kill. When the sport passed him by, he still heard its addictive call.
All fighters do. As his reflexes and skills slowly left him, he tilted at ghosts that
no longer existed.
Yet when someone was in need, he emptied his pockets and expected nothing
in return. His children adore him; his wife has never left his side. He treats his
sons like royalty, his daughters like queens. They live for him. His people
affectionately chide him, “Duran is loco, but we love him and always will.” He
found happiness with friends and family, in small things like sitting down to
black beans and fried plantains at Victor’s Cafe, playing dominoes or billiards,
listening to Celia Cruz or Willie Colon, playing the bongos till dawn, drinking a
whiskey with milk, eating an ice cream dessert, or heading to the beach on a
Sunday afternoon. At his lowest, he settled for lonely makeshift gyms and club
sandwiches in far-away forgotten casino towns. Those who love him won’t
remember that Duran. They will remember the fighter that made war on life.
The man himself remains optimistic: always a fighter but perhaps, above all, a
survivor. He will never change. “The Panamanian public loves me now, now that
I’m old,” he said. “They’ve recognized now that the greatest thing that Panama
ever had was Roberto Duran. They have to accept that. I was born poor in
Chorrillo, never smoked marijuana, don’t do drugs, have beautiful kids, good
education … never stole from anyone, give money to others when I have it. I
could be starving but if I see another man starving I would take my food and
give it to him.”
Then he flexed his muscles like the Duran of old.
 Notes

Unless otherwise stated, all quotes come from interviews with the author.

Chapter 5
“Don’t you dare … he’s in shape,” Dave Anderson, Ringmasters (Robson
Books, 1991). “He was dangerous … you know a lot,’” quoted at
www.cyberboxingzone.com

Chapter 6
Popular opinion … Buchanan seemed to fit the bill, quoted in Harry Mullan,
Heroes and Hard Men (Hutchinson, 1990). “If Duran wants … the book,” he
promised, quoted in Boxing News, 14 July 1972.

Chapter 7
“The second oldest trade ... which they pronounce ‘Bookanar,’” Boxing News, 7
July 1972.

Chapter 9
“A woman came … throw a punch,” Boxing International, October 1975.
“Edwin frustrated … stood there and fought me?’” Knockout, Spring 1990. “I
was supposed to be … apologized to me,” Boxing News, 21 March 1980.

Chapter 10
“Holy Christ!” said … a Puerto Rican gym, Boxing News, 5 November 1976. “I
told Duran not to worry … It worked,” The Ring, January 1977.

Chapter 12
“A programme of boxing … modern era of the game,” Hugh McIlvanney, The
Observer, 15 June 1980. “He moves faster … in a boarding house,” Boxing
Illustrated, May 1980. One magazine reported … to make a counter offer,
Boxing Illustrated, March 80.

Chapter 13
“Ray Charles Leonard was a prodigy … all natural talent is suspect,” Sam
Toperoff, Sugar Ray Leonard and Other Noble Warriors (Simon & Schuster
1988). “And all throughout the workout … or express exuberance,” John
Schulian, Inside Sports, 31 August 1980.

Chapter 14
“He was with … had no shame,” Miami New Times, 5 October 1995. “It would
require a deal … never could be a quitter,” Red Smith, reprinted in The Red
Smith Reader (Random House, 1982). One boxing magazine … and Leonard’s
taunting, KO, April 1981.

Chapter 15
“I almost had a nervous breakdown … to be electrocuted,” World Boxing, July
1982. “At 157 pounds … a finished fighter,” Knockout, Summer 1993.

Chapter 16
“The satanic eyes … so human and weak,” Knockout, Summer 93.

Chapter 18
“Then I got rebellious … ‘just let him go,’” Peter Heller, In This Corner (Da
Capo Press 1994).

Chapter 19
“When I was penniless … those times when I was penniless,” quoted in Peter
Heller, In This Corner (Da Capo Press, 1994). “The best round ... in nearly three
years,” KO, November 1986. “Roberto’s an old man,” declared one headline,
Boxing News, 14 October 1988.

Chapter 20
“I didn’t want to kill him … didn’t want to hurt him,” quoted in Arlene
Schulman, The Prizefighters (Lyons and Burford, 1994).

Chapter 21
“One time him and his friends … end up spending $4,000,” quoted in KO, July
88.
 Acknowledgments

I conjure up strikingly vivid images every time I think of Panama City. I

remember dodging the incoming punches of the prince of Panamanian boxing,
Ismael Laguna, in the middle of the night, and will forever treasure the pride on
his face as he relived, at a restaurant, every second of his 1965 victory over
Carlos Ortiz.
In Chorrillo, I saw the sorrow sad, slow descent into the ground of former
world champ Pedro “El Rockero” Alcazar, as thousands of fans said goodbye. I
remember the surreal scene of his casket being first driven through the streets
while a fellow boxer followed in a slow jog. Alcazar was twenty-two years old.
I remember walking into the Jesus Master Gomez Boxing Gym in Barrazza to
see a trainer stitching back together the remnants of a boxing glove. The speed
bag was wrapped in tape. The protective headgear was falling apart. In a
Curundu Gym, the roof couldn’t contain rainwater from a storm and would flood
often. The back bathroom was gutted and dirty. The locker rooms doubled as
bathrooms. Yet, the fighters found solace in the disorder. Hope grew in small
pockets of the gym, while the Government looked away.
In the Papi Mendez Gym in San Miguelito, boxer “Chemito” Moreno’s glove
flapped in the wind as he pounded away at his trainer’s hand pads. His
stablemate Ricardo Cordoba was busy lifting rusty weights, while preparing to
spar in a ring that had potholes under the canvas. There was no running water
and the electricity was about to be turned off. The wires were duct-taped
together. Another stablemate, Pambele Ceballos, walked around with holes in his
sneakers. Fighters slept in a bedroom in the gym. They never complained. Each
one treated me like family.
The amateur boxing program barely stayed afloat. In fact, during an evening
of bouts in the Rommel Fernandez Stadium, the fighters depended solely on
handouts from parents and coaches for proper equipment and food. It didn’t
change the mood of the evening, as the little kids belted away. The lack of
security at fights was forever a concern, as anyone in the crowd could run up to
the ring apron unopposed. In one instance, a mother ran into the ring to get
avenge her knocked-out daughter, yet to many it only added to the collective
chaos. That was Panama.
Trainer and close friend Celso Chavez Sr. passed away, but provided a
presence and a smile for any kid who wanted to dedicate himself to the sport.
Pedro Alcazar left too soon, and journalist Alfonso Castillo also died during this
research. And as I look back, I will think of the fighters who knew there was no
future, but who had to keep fighting to pay bills or support their families. There
were those who were ravaged in the ring, yet returned out of necessity. This
book was written for those fighters.
This journey would not have been possible without the unwavering help of
friends, my entire family and the people of Panama. Without them, this would
still be nothing more than an ambition. I can never forget the Panamanian people
who took me in and supported me, a stranger. When I think of Panama, it was
the legacy of Duran for which I searched, but I found the love of the Bravo
family of Poppa Juan, Edilma “Mimma”, Romellin, Itzel and the rest of the
family who introduced me to patacones in Sabana Grande.
I would not have completed this biography without the support and lifelong
friendship of Carlos Gonzalez. It is essential that he knows how much he means
to me. It would take me years to properly thank Greg, my best friend, for his
devotion to this book, and endless one-on-one games. Amy and Ali always
supported me, and I love you for it. Tair was my heart and soul throughout. Nora
Davila gave me advice, platanos and Barillito rum. Ildemaro and Munchi gave
me life in Panama, and educated me on the baseball rivalry between Chitre and
Chiriqui. Hector Villareal, Ludo Saenz, Fredy Moreno, Celso Chavez Jr. and his
wife were always there for a meal or to steer me the right way. Guarare resident
and friend Daniel Peres led me to places I never would have reached, and gave
me somewhere to stay. Every Panamanian taxi driver kept me entertained with
endless conversation.
I want to thank Monica Krebs for her flawless translation and generosity. Lee
Groves provided me with countless videos, while Rick Scharmberg never lost
hope. Jose Torres met me in a deli in New York and changed the face of this
book with his knowledge. I never met Chon Romero in person, but this book has
felt his impact and I am deeply grateful for his kind and generous donation of
photographs. The people at Fightnews and Gloucester County Times were
indispensable resources throughout.
Panama consul and friend Georgia Athanasopulos always made time for a
visit, and it was greatly appreciated. Dale Carson put up with me through this
project, while Steve Farhood, my first real interview, provided countless
connections and feedback. Miguelito Callist took me under his wing and
protected me in the worst gyms, while translators and friends Alexandra
Newbold, Margorie and George saved me in times of need. I can’t repay Clara
for all her class and dignity, while Toti, Ana, Isabel Moises, Jairo, Mireya, and
Victorino welcomed me into their lives. Lesbia Diaz invited me in and I felt her
passion for Duran. Boxers and trainers Peppermint Frazer, Pambele, Yanez,
Soto, Victor Cordoba, Antonio Campbell, Franklin Bedoya, Chavo and Carlos
Eleta gave me a history lesson on boxing in Panama. The enthusiasm of the
students in the Haddonfield school district, and more specifically Bob Bickel,
Chuck Klaus, Mike Busarello and Stafford, was an inspiration. Behind the
scenes, Mike Willmann and John Yurkow did extensive PR work. Ed Koenig has
been and always was there for me. Dan, Cory, Brian, Kevin and Matt had faith in
the book. Peter Walsh deserves my utmost respect for believing in my ability and
tracking me down. Lou Papa, a great man, shared a love for travel and boxing
with me. Buddy Nask told me never to back down from this challenge when it
seemed hopeless. To Angel Romero, my thanks for teaching me how to box.
I will never understand the generosity and love of the Panamanian people who
took me in, treated me like family, and never expected anything in return. This
journey is my gift to them.
 Roberto Duran’s Professional Record

Birthplace: El Chorrillo, Panama

Hometown: Panama City
Birthdate: 16 June 1951
Record: 104-16 (70 KOs)

W = won on points. KO = knockout. TKO = stoppage. L = lost on points.

Date Opponent Site Result

1968
Feb 23 Carlos Mendoza Colon W 4
Apr 4 Manuel Jimenez Colon KO 1
May 14 Juan Gondola Colon KO 1
Jun 30 Eduardo Morales Panama City KO 1
Aug 10 Enrique Jacobo Panama City KO 1
Aug 25 Leroy Cargill Panama City KO 1
Sep 22 Cesar De Leon Panama City KO 1
Nov 16 Juan Gondola Colon KO 2
Dec 7 Carlos Howard Panama City TKO 1

1969
Jan 19 Alberto Brand Panama City TKO 4
Feb 1 Eduardo Frutos Panama City W 6
May 18 Jacinto Garcia Panama City TKO 4
Jun 22 Adolfo Osses Panama City TKO 7
Sep 21 Serafin Garcia Panama City TKO 5
Nov 23 Luis Patino Panama City TKO 8

1970
Mar 28 Felipe Torres Mexico City W 10
May 16 Ernesto Marcel Panama City TKO 10
Jul 10 Clemente Mucino Colon KO 6
Sep 5 Marvin Castanedas Chiriqui KO 1
Oct 18 Ignacio Castaneda Panama City TKO 3

1971
Jan 10 Jose Angel Herrera Mexico City KO 6
Mar 21 Jose Acosta Panama City KO 1
May 29 Lloyd Marshall Panama City TKO 5
Jul 18 Fermin Soto Monterrey TKO 3
Sep 13 Benny Huertas New York TKO 1
Oct 16 Hiroshi Kobayashi Panama City KO 7

1972
Jan 15 Angel Robinson Garcia Panama City W 10
Mar 10 Francisco Munoz Panama City KO 1
Jun 26 Ken Buchanan New York TKO 13
(Won WBA Lightweight Title)
Sep 2 Greg Potter Panama City KO 1
Oct 28 Lupe Ramirez Panama City KO 1
Nov 17 Esteban DeJesus New York L 10

1973
Jan 20 Jimmy Robertson Panama City KO 5
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)
Feb 22 Juan Medina Los Angeles TKO 7
Mar 17 Javier Ayala Los Angeles W 10
Apr 14 Gerardo Ferrat Panama City TKO 2
Jun 2 Hector Thompson Panama City TKO 8
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)
Aug 4 Doc McClendon Puerto Rico W 10
Sep 8 Ishimatsu Suzuki Panama City TKO 10
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)
Dec 1 Tony Garcia Panama City KO 3

1974
Jan 21 Leonard Tavarez Paris TKO4
Feb 16 Armando Mendoza Panama City TKO3
Mar 16 Esteban DeJesus Panama City KO11
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)
Jul 6 Flash Gallego Panama City TKO5
Sep 2 Hector Matta San Juan W10
Oct 31 Jose Vasquez Costa Rica KO 2
Nov 16 Adalberto Vanegas Panama City KO 1
Dec 21 Masataka Takayama San Jose KO 1
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)

1975
Feb 15 Andres Salgado Panama City KO 1
Mar 2 Ray Lampkin Panama City KO 14
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)
Jun 3 Jose Peterson Florida TKO 1
Aug 2 Pedro Mendoza Managua KO 1
Sep 13 Alirio Acuna Chitre KO 3
Sep 30 Edwin Viruet Uniondale, NY W 10
Dec 20 Leoncio Ortiz Puerto Rico KO15
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)

1976
May 4 Saoul Mamby Florida W 10
May 23 Lou Bizzarro Erie KO 14
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)
Jul 31 Emiliano Villa Panama City TKO 7
Oct 15 Alvaro Rojas Florida KO 1
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)

1977
Jan 29 Vilomar Fernandez Florida KO 13
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)
May 16 Javier Muniz Landover, MD W 10
Aug 6 Bernardo Diaz Panama City KO 1
Sep 17 Edwin Viruet Philadelphia W 15
(Retained WBA Lightweight Title)
1978
Jan 21 Esteban DeJesus Las Vegas TKO 12
(Unified World Lightweight Title)
Apr 27 Adolfo Viruet New York W 10
Sep 1 Ezequiel Obando Panama City KO 2
Dec 8 Monroe Brooks New York KO 8
1979
Apr 8 Jimmy Heair Las Vegas W 10
Jun 22 Carlos Palomino New York W 10
Sep 28 Zeferino Gonzalez Las Vegas W 10

1980
Jan 13 Joseph Nsubuga Las Vegas TKO 4
Feb 24 Wellington Wheatley Las Vegas TKO 6
Jun 20 Sugar Ray Leonard Montreal W 15
(Won WBC Welterweight Title)
Nov 25 Sugar Ray Leonard New Orleans TKO by 8
(Lost WBC Welterweight Title)

1981
Aug 9 Nino Gonzalez Cleveland W 10
Sep 26 Luigi Minchillo Las Vegas W 10

1982
Jan 30 Wilfred Benitez Las Vegas L 15
(For WBC Light-Middleweight Title)
Sep 4 Kirkland Laing Detroit L 10
Nov 12 Jimmy Batten Miami W 10

1983
Jan 29 Pipino Cuevas Los Angeles TKO 4
Jun 16 Davey Moore New York TKO 8
(Won WBA Light-Middleweight Title)
Nov 10 Marvin Hagler Las Vegas L 15
(For World Middleweight Title)

1984
Jun 15 Thomas Hearns Las Vegas TKO by 2
(For WBC Light-Middleweight Title)

1986
Jan 31 Manuel Zambrano Panama City KO 2
Apr 18 Jorge Suero Panama City KO 2
Jun 23 Robbie Sims Las Vegas L 10
1987
May 16 Victor Claudio Miami Beach W 10
Sep 12 Juan Carlos Gimenez Miami Beach W 10

1988
Feb 5 Ricky Stackhouse Atlantic City W 10
Apr 14 Paul Thorne Atlantic City TKO 6
Oct 1 Jeff Lanas Chicago W 10
1989
Feb 24 Iran Barkley Atlantic City W 12
(Won WBC Middleweight Title)
Dec 7 Sugar Ray Leonard Las Vegas L 12
(For WBC Super Middleweight Title)

1991
Mar 18 Pat Lawlor Las Vegas TKO by 6

1992
Sep 30 Tony Biglen Buffalo W 10
Dec 17 Ken Hulsey Cleveland KO 2

1993
Jun 29 Jacques Blanc St. Louis W 10
Aug 17 Sean Fitzgerald St. Louis KO 6
Dec 14 Tony Menefee St. Louis TKO 8

1994
Feb 22 Carlos Montero Marseilles W 10
Mar 29 Terry Thomas St. Louis TKO 4
Jun 25 Vinny Pazienza Las Vegas L 12
(For IBC Super Middleweight Title)
Oct 18 Heath Todd St. Louis TKO 7

1995
Jan 14 Vinny Pazienza Atlantic City L 12
(For IBC Super Middleweight Title)
Jun 10 Roni Martinez Kansas City TKO 7
Dec 21 Wilbur Garst Fort Lauderdale TKO 4
1996
Feb 20 Ray Domenge Miami W 10
Jun 22 Hector Camacho Atlantic City L 12
(For IBC Middleweight Title)
Aug 31 Ariel Cruz Panama City KO 1
Sep 27 Mike Culbert Chester, WV TKO 6

1997
Feb 15 Jorge Castro Buenos Aires L 10
Jun 14 Jorge Castro Panama City W 10
Nov 15 David Radford South Africa W 10

1998
Jan 31 Felix Jose Fernandez Panama City W 10
Aug 28 William Joppy Las Vegas TKO by 3
(For WBA Middleweight Title)

1999
Mar 6 Omar Eduardo Gonzalez Buenos Aires L 10

2000
Jun 16 Pat Lawlor Panama City W 12
(Won NBA Super Middleweight Title)
Aug 12 Patrick Goossen Toppenish, WA W 10

2001
Jul 14 Hector Camacho Denver L 12
(For NBA Super Middleweight Title)
If you enjoyed Hands of Stone, please check out more of our great titles at
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 Table of Contents
Prologue
1 Hunger
2 Fighter
3 Papa Eleta
4 Streetfighting Man
5 Two Old Men
6 The Scot
7 The Left Hook
8 Revenge
9 Hands of Stone
10 “Like A Man With No Heart”
11 Esteban and the Witch Doctors
12 “The Monster’s Loose”
13 El Macho
14 “No Peleo”
15 King of the Bars
16 Return of the King
17 Redemption
18 Tommy Gun
19 “I’m Duran”
20 The Never-Ending Comeback
21 The Last Song
Notes
Acknowledgments
Roberto Duran’s Fight Record