Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [167]
“I did not want him to fight any more, I wanted him to retire,” said Clara. “Then the accident took place. So then he said, ‘Mama, I am going to stop fighting, I am going to retire.’ I went to thank God for this decision. While I was opening my arms to thank God, I saw a cloud close to me, and I said, ‘God, I want to thank you again because my son has retired now and he is going to be a good man now.’ Then I saw the cloud was leaving.”
Ismael Laguna knew it was time. “I left at twenty-eight but Duran stayed around until he was fifty-one,” said the former champ. “Duran came on TV and said that maybe the accident and what happened to him in Argentina was a message from God that he couldn’t keep himself in the ring at that age. It was definitely a message from the man up there to not fight anymore.”
He looked instead to his salsa, his motorcycle (which would again land him in a hospital bed in March 2005), boxing promotions and his family to replace the game he had ravaged since the late Sixties. He split his time between appearances at boxing matches, autograph shows in the US and Europe and singing in his own band. He even retained the five championship belts that were previously stolen from his home in September 1993 by his brother-in-law Bolivar Iglesias. “I’ve spent three or four million dollars on music,” he told Sports Illustrated. “I am never home.” He helped Luis DeCubas, his former manager, promote shows for his Florida-based Team Freedom Promotions, became a partner with DeCubas and Dan Wise in another promotional concern called DRL, and talks often about making a movie on his life, although he thinks there would have to be two: “One where you laugh, one where you cry.”
At times during his boxing career, Duran had put more focus on his music. He played in a salsa band called Tres Robertos (with Roberto Ledesma and Roberto Torres) and played bongos and sang for his Orquestra Felicidad, named after his wife. As early as 1985, he made a recording, Dos Campeones, with the Colon-born “King of Salsa,” Azuquita. The songs he sang included “La Casa de Piedra,” an ode to his childhood in Chorrillo.
When Roberto Duran walks into a room, people no longer gape. Women don’t swoon or check themselves in the nearest mirror. Men don’t step aside or back. Reporters don’t fumble over their notebooks or recorders for a juicy quote. The autograph lines have shortened. There is no longer a Marvelous One, a Sugar or a Hit Man to recreate the pre-fight hysteria reserved for men of grandeur. The muscles, no longer taut, now hold a belly full from fine Panamanian meals in his Cangrejo home or complimentary casino steaks.
Yet he is not heavy like a man who has let himself go. Duran’s belly may be round, but it is still solid and you still wouldn’t want to take one of his punches. When he is angry his Spanish comes in bursts, he waves his hands and gets inches away from his target’s face. Such moments are rare. He is more likely to grab any person within range and hug or make fun of them. If a reporter asks him a question in English that he doesn’t want to answer, he flexes his muscles and smiles into the distance as if to say, “I am still Duran.”
He makes people feel wanted, a trait he inherited from his mother. His cherubic smile is that of a man who can laugh at himself and at others. It illuminates his face and makes everyone around him enjoy whatever he is happy about at the moment. Nor is it affected. For this reason alone, people love to be around him, much more than they would Leonard, Hagler or Hearns. He has the Ali aura of warmth and fun. Yet he still has a fighter’s face. While the anger has subsided, Duran with all the signature creases and jet-black