Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [48]
For Buchanan, the pain would never subside as he was holed up in a Scotland hospital for ten days following the bout. “The referee let Duran hit me anywhere he wanted,” said Buchanan. “In the thirteenth round, LoBianco has a hold of Duran and a hold of me, and when the referee touches you, you have to stop. But Duran never did. Bang! He hit me. But he never hit me straight on … at one point his hands were like ten inches off the ground. Next thing that happens, he hits me right up there and busts a vein in my right testicle.”
LoBianco could have disqualified Duran; he could have declared Buchanan unable to continue and ruled the bout a “no contest”; he could have given the champion time to recover, warned the challenger, then allowed them to continue. Instead he declared Duran the winner because he had not seen the low blow and felt Buchanan was in too bad a state to continue. With a relatively muted protest from Buchanan’s corner, LoBianco’s ruling stood. “A lot of people who said that if Buchanan had the right corner Duran would have been disqualified,” said promoter and matchmaker Don Elbaum. “I know if I had Buchanan, I would have gone nuts. I would have been fighting that.”
Others, like Philadelphia promoter J. Russell Peltz, rubbished the various excuses. “I don’t understand all the Buchanan stuff that’s come up. He was getting his ass kicked when Duran hit him. It was a low blow, but if he got up he would have just got beaten even more.”
Most fighters lack impartiality when it comes to analyzing a poor performance. They all got screwed at one point in their careers. It is hard to deny the fact that Buchanan was in dire need of a knockout if he was keeping his crown. Even if Buchanan shook off the pain and continued, he was in there with a fighter not willing to give him a break. While fighters keep a running tab and decide when their lead is big enough to stay away from their opponent in the late rounds, Duran rarely exhibited such reticence. As “cute” as some experts felt he was as a defensive fighter, Duran came forward all the time. While other fighters used their feet to get away from danger, Duran always went toward his foe or cut off the ring, trusting his instincts to steer him clear of trouble. Often he would throw a right hand or a left hook, go with it, then force his way inside, clinching and locking his opponent’s arms. That way, nothing would come in return.
No single punch in Duran’s career would cause so much animated discussion. No previous Duran punch landed with so much on the line. In fact, the only punches that would place Duran under such scrutiny were ones he didn’t throw a decade later in New Orleans.
“We talked one night at his hotel [in England] into the small hours,” said Buchanan. “I told him that after I fought him, I became European champ and I was boxing in Italy when I got poked in the eye by the referee. Roberto started laughing. I asked him why. ‘Ken hasn’t been very lucky in boxing, between the referee sticking his finger in your eye and me punching him up the balls,’ Duran said to me.
“I told him, ‘I got you! I got you!’ Even today the liquid doesn’t get up that way and it stops and I still get a pain there every time I go to the bathroom. I’ll have that until the day I die. I told Roberto, ‘I’ll never forget you. Every time I take a piss I’ll think of you.’ Over the years you mellow, but there are times when I feel a wee bit like, what would have happened? You know, Carlos Eleta bought that fight. It never cost Madison Square Garden to pay me because Eleta put the money up. He was a millionaire. You know the old song, ‘Money talks, but it don’t sing or dance.’ He brought in the referee. I was really annoyed with Madison Square Garden and the referee because he wasn’t competent. He shouldn’t have been in there, it