Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [130]
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