Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [118]
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