Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [101]
“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