Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [168]
The fun, the spontaneity and the smile mean that Duran can still draw a crowd no matter where he goes. One thing that separates him from most of his greatest opponents is that he has no problem being part of the crowd. Fitting in has always been a Duran strength. When he became a world champion, he didn’t have to go back and play dominoes with his friends from Chorrillo. He didn’t have to go back to the old haunts to gorge on beans and rice. He didn’t have to walk around Panama handing out his purse money. And he didn’t have to stay put in Panama, a downtrodden country where a lot of the world-class athletes have escaped with the fame. But he did.
One can see the real Duran when he is home with his family. He has four sons, known as Chavo, Robbie, Branbi and Fulo, and three daughters, Irichelle, Jovanna and Dalia, and has recently adopted another son. Chavo and the pretty Irichelle both briefly became boxers themselves, though neither showed even a sliver of their father’s genius for the ring. In Panama, one can find him sorting through his huge DVD collection – Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro are his favorites – playing pool with a friend or joking with his sons. If he is not home, he could be shooting pool and drinking a beer at one of his local haunts, Magnum Eventos. Wherever he is in Panama, he is always accessible, and Felicidad is not far behind. “My dad would die for us,” says Irichelle.
There were times that Duran feared for his own life. In the Eighties, he was flying a plane over Panama without a pilot’s license. He was enjoying the view when the plane started to plummet toward the ocean. He started to tell himself, I can’t die now. What will they say about Roberto Duran? The plane crashed in the water, Duran got out of the cockpit, and then swam the two miles to shore. “I knew I was not supposed to die this way,’’ he said.
Duran believes that he will be rich again and millions will come his way. He has said this many times. If fate has it, he will. Always he is waiting for insurance money from his accident or a business deal that never comes. Impulsive in the ring, he is worse with cash in his hands. There never has been a plan because as anyone associated with him knows, “Roberto does what he wants with his money.” In that sense, nothing has changed. He made between $45 and $50 million in the ring. Everyone associated with Duran has a story to tell about his generosity: walking through the streets of Panama with a bag full of money or giving an opponent an expensive wristwatch. “He liked to give away presents,” said Plomo Quinones. “When he won the championship and he already had money, lots of people used to come up to him for unpaid bills they had, and they would ask him to help them cancel their debts for electricity, water, etc. And he would help them all, one after the other. I remember one Saturday when, after finishing giving away the money he had been asked for, he looked at me and said, ‘I have given away ten thousand dollars this week.’”
“One time him and his friends stayed for a few days in a hotel in New York,” said his former promoter Walter Alvarez. “People were signing his name for meals and bar tabs and gifts. The bill came to something like $60,000. I’ve seen him go in restaurants, pay everyone’s bill, and end up spending $4,000.”
Duran’s true gratification during his spending sprees came from allowing poor people from Chorrillo and other low-income areas to eat prime rib and sip the best champagne in fine hotels for the first and last time in their lives. It was no exaggeration; he tried to bring Chorrillo with him. “I remember when there were 500-600 people waiting outside in the freezing cold to meet Roberto,” said his lawyer Tony Gonzalez. “A young guy in his 20s had brought his father to meet Roberto as a surprise and kept his back turned until his father reached the front of the line. When the guy turned around to see Roberto, he immediately broke down in tears.”
The stories never ceased: “My dad was a mason and one time he