Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [105]
“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,