Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [158]
Ismael Laguna, who in 2001 would be inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame, agreed. “I think Duran redeemed himself with the win over Barkley. I saw him in the gym before that fight and I told the people, ‘Hey, Duran is really coming to train.’ When Duran trains, I know the result. I told him before that fight exactly what would happen and everything I said came true. He trained so hard, when he works that hard, I don’t think anyone could beat him.”
One of his four sons, Roberto Junior, or “Chavo,” had a front row seat for his father’s last great fight. “Iran Barkley was a monster. I was afraid because I saw that guy and he was tall and he beat Tommy Hearns twice. My father demonstrated he was the best.”
Mike Acri added a fitting postscript: “I’ll never forget, at about three a.m. I get on the elevator and I see two guys carrying Barkley upstairs. Barkley just kept saying, ‘The man just got too much heart. Too much heart.’ And he was beat up. Duran didn’t have a scratch on him.”
20
The Never-Ending Comeback
“There’s only one legend. That’s me.”
Roberto Duran
DURAN WOULD FIGHT twenty-seven more times on his I-need-money tour, losing almost as many as he won. His last bout of any historical significance would be the final showdown of his trilogy with Ray Leonard, at super-middleweight, on December 7, 1989. It was billed as Uno Más: One More. Nine years had passed since their last meeting and neither man could conjure up much false bravado during the pre-fight hype. The truth was they were two pugs way past their prime, looking for a final payday.
Leonard had quit the ring with an eye injury in his prime and remained inactive in the mid-Eighties. He abused cocaine and drank heavily, missing the highs of his boxing career. But in 1987 he had returned with cropped hair and a bulked-up frame and had sensationally taken the middleweight title in a controversial decision from Marvin Hagler. The following year he won the WBC super middleweight and light-heavyweight titles, making him a champ in five weight divisions, and in June 1989 retained his super middleweight crown with a disputed draw against Thomas Hearns. Duran, who by now had fought ninety-two times, winning eighty-five and losing seven, was still the only main to have beaten him in thirty-seven bouts.
“I never said I was going to retire during my career. Nunca. I might have said that I might retire, but that was not a fact. I never made it official. One time I’m drinking with these women. I love whores. The hookers told me, ‘You need to screw with us and then go out and beat the living shit out of that black man.’ They start kissing on me and I told them, ‘You’re right.’ I come home and tell my woman that it’s the last time I drink. Then I start to sharpen myself, and by now I’m praying for the rematch.”
The fight was made, strangely, at 162 pounds, six pounds inside the division limit, something Duran did not seem to realize until it was raised at the pre-fight press conference. As ever, Leonard seemed to be calling the tune. “He wanted to fight with me four or five years later, but he doesn’t want to fight with me in the 168-pound division because he knows I’m going to rip him apart. If he fought me at 168 I would have ripped him apart. At 162, I couldn’t. He almost didn’t make the weight himself. He also didn’t catch me in condition. At the time I had a really big problem that was eating away at my brain. I owed some money to the IRS. But I was happy because I paid everything I owed to them.”
Duran was said to be getting $7.6 million and Leonard closer to $15 million. His IRS debt of $1.7 million had come about through an accounting error after the second Leonard bout, according to adviser Mike Acri. “He got a sixteen-thousand-dollar refund coming