Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [112]
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