Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [30]
“The Mexican arena where I fought was very close, and I asked this Mexican how do I get there and he says, ‘Just keep straight and you have to see it.’ What a coincidence, and the gym was open. I remembered that arena because I used to watch a lot of Mexican movies. I watched wrestlers like El Santo, Chavo, Blue, all these Mexican wrestlers, so I climb into the ring and make believe the ring is full and I felt like I was a wrestler.”
While there he also met a beautiful girl. “I fall in love with this Mexican woman … and I have to leave for Panama,” said Duran. “Eleta had this guy like a second hand named Issac Kresh. He asked me, ‘You want to fight right here in this Mexican ring?’ And I said, ‘Hell, yeah I do.’ He told me that the fight would be against a guy named Felipe Torres. He said it would be in about three weeks and I told him, ‘Let’s get it on.’ The real reason I wanted to stay was because of the beautiful Mexican girl I had met.”
Torres had just gone the distance with the highly ranked Kuniaki Shibata of Japan and had never been stopped, but Duran knew nothing about his style. It didn’t matter to him and rarely would throughout his career. His opponent could do the worrying. Duran fought with the same instinctive aggression as his Mexican counterparts, with little regard for grace or beauty, though his defence was becoming ever more subtle. Fighting in his opponent’s home, he couldn’t let it go to a decision.
“We go to the movies, and I tell the girl that I am going to stay for a few days because I have a fight,” said Duran. “And she said, ‘With whom?’ I told her Felipe Torres and she was astonished. She knew a lot about boxing, but she didn’t want to say anything to me. The day of the fight my girl is there, but I had charisma and had won over the Mexican people.”
It was 5 April 1970, and Duran had a girl by his side, the Mexican fans warming to him and a right hand from Hell. He also had a fierce desire to see his opponent destroyed. Winning on points was a frustration; seeing the other man prone on the canvas was the ultimate high. He was so obsessed with the knockout that he wouldn’t even allow a photo of Eleta’s nephew standing over him in the middle of the ring. The knockout was sacred, not a joke.
Both men went toe-to-toe. “It was a very bloody match and the guy gave me a punch and I ended up way over across the ring, but I never fell,” said Duran. “It was back and forth, both of us flying across the ring. The fight’s over and we were worried that we were going to get robbed. I had the face like a tamale. I was all swollen and so was he. When the unanimous decision came out for me, a big fat guy … picks me up and says, ‘You just beat the ninth-ranked featherweight in the world.’ Marcel never wanted to fight Torres, and I come in without any notice and beat the guy.”
Something else happened on the trip to further the rivalry between Duran and Ernesto Marcel. “I had a sparring session with Duran,” said Marcel. “I beat him bad for two rounds and after it he called Eleta and told him that he wanted a match with me. Duran was very upset about the beating I gave him in practice. He said, ‘No black man can beat me.’ Then he went back to Eleta in Panama and told him to get the fight.” According to Duran, the two never sparred.
Leaving his Mexican girl behind, Duran returned to Panama. As they shared the same gym for training, Duran and Marcel crossed paths on occasion, and neither gave any ground. Marcel was out to prove that he wasn’t scared of the man who frightened so many opponents, while Duran was just Duran, bold and confrontational. What the public saw, the scowl and stare, was no act. To beat his opponents, he had to hate them.
“When the fight with Marcel was realized, Marcel was training at Neco de La Guardia,” said Duran. “I used to train at the same time from twelve to two-thirty every day. After that I would go play basketball. When Marcel was training he would yell to me to get in condition because I’m going to knock you out. I told