Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [147]
The punch landed with such force that Duran was out before he hit the ground, face-first. Referee Padilla stepped in and declared a technical knockout at 1:07 of the second round. There was no need to count. “After that last knockdown it was like he was dead, gone,” said Emanuel Steward. “It wasn’t just a right hand he hit him with but what we call a ‘running’ right hand. He was sliding in fast when he hit him with it. Tommy was looking at his chest and Duran never saw the punch.”
In the middle of the ring, Hearns – who was aware that a Hagler fight was all but guaranteed – said he knew that Duran was hurt in the first round. “It’s the Hit Man coming back again,” said Hearns, who fulfilled a second round prediction he made in the papers before the fight. Then he hugged Duran and picked him up like he was a little kid.
As Plomo and Spada rushed Duran out of the ring as if fleeing a bad dream, a crimson stain marked the spot where Duran had landed. If the exit in New Orleans left a bad taste, the head-first collapse that Duran took was more uncomfortable to watch on many levels. In New Orleans there was confusion and it took time for people to understand what had occurred. At first nobody, including Leonard, had an idea that Duran had surrendered. And although the boxing community might never come to terms with Duran’s shocking exit, it wasn’t painful to watch. Hearns left him flat out, his face on the canvas in a fusion of blood, slobber and sweat. “The final curtain falls on a legend,” lamented Boxing News.
No one had ever knocked out Duran, a man whose solid chin was even harder than his fists. Anyone with an interest in him – friend, opponent, family member, associate – would have difficulty dealing with it. “Thomas Hearns really beat him up. It was a sad day for Panamanian boxing,” said Ismael Laguna. “Hearns had all the advantages against Duran, more reach, he could hit hard and was taller. The way he caught Duran with that one-two punch and the way Duran fell without even putting his hands on the floor, the way he hit the floor head-first, I would not forget that moment. Duran would trust his punching power too much, especially his right hand. My wife was a very big fan of Roberto and I had to take her to the hospital after the fight. She almost fainted. She was so mad about what happened that she thought Duran was dead.”
Money, a lot of it, had softened his edge, his belly. Even the anger that so defined his ring presence seemed to have disappeared, and with it his threat. “I do know that he didn’t train properly,” said Bert Sugar. “Yes he got the shit kicked out of him brutally with overhand rights right on the jaw but I got the impression from not training and not knowing it was going to happen, he just wasn’t prepared. These were guys who could intimidate and not back it up. Hearns could hit. When Duran went down in the second round, nose bounced on the canvas, it was like a plane landing.”
“That was one of the harder punches that I threw,” Hearns said years later. “But also one I hit Pipino Cuevas with. I think that punch was harder than the one I hit Roberto with…but I had to be superb that night. If I didn’t go in and knock Roberto out like I did, I probably wouldn’t have won the fight because Duran was a legend in the boxing world. It had to be decisive.” Reflecting on the fight, Hearns had forgotten little from that Vegas evening. “I was training real hard, so hard because I knew I was fighting a legend. A man that had done a whole lot for boxing, that at an early age he was already a champion. But I had in my heart and my mind that I could win, that I wanted to be successful, and