Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [49]
Eleta appeared to want nothing to do with Buchanan after New York. Few believed that Duran feared any fighter, but he had little say over who his next opponent would be. “Duran never, ever wanted to fight me again,” said the Scot. “I tried to get the rematch … but there was no chance, nothing. I think Eleta knew a wee bit more and thought, this Ken Buchanan is better than we thought he was, so let’s stay away from him. For years there was an anger because I never got my shot. I would have given him a shot, why didn’t he do it for me? But I never blamed Roberto. I tend to think Duran wanted to fight me again, but Eleta didn’t want it to happen. He faced Hagler, and fought them all. I think he would have fought me anywhere, anytime.”
After the fight, Eleta told a reporter, “We would be willing to give Buchanan a return bout any time.” However, he had a way of placating people at the time, then backtracking when he felt pressured. Years later, he claimed, “Omar Torrijos wouldn’t allow the rematch with Buchanan. He told me, ‘Carlos, don’t make that fight. Don’t trust another fight with him in the States.’ He told me that the first defense had to be in Panama. Buchanan wouldn’t fight in Panama, so it was cancelled.”
Despite the recriminations and the bitterness that lingers in Buchanan, Roberto Duran no longer haunts him. Late-night pisses bring back memories, but he no longer boils over with frustration. Still, when so many people remember, it’s hard to forget. “I was no longer world champion and I was beginning to see how corrupt the sport was. It left a sour taste in my mouth,” said Buchanan. “But that was boxing and you take the good with the bad.”
New York State Athletic Commission physician Dr A. Harry Klieman reported that his examination of Buchanan showed “fluid on the testicles.” Buchanan returned to Scotland and a hospital in Edinburgh, where he was treated for swollen testicles and bruised kidneys, then flew to the Mediterranean island of Majorca for a restorative holiday with his wife and young son. At the same time, he vowed to return to New York and train harder than ever against “real rough and tumble boys” in a bid to regain his crown. “If Duran wants to repeat his kind of fight, then I too will throw the kind of punches that aren’t in the book,” he promised.
7
The Left Hook
“Violence is terribly seductive; all of us, especially males, are trained to gaze upon violence until it becomes beautiful.”
Martín Espada, Puerto Rican poet
THE LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION has a long and colorful pedigree. It can be traced back to the end of the eighteenth century, to the days of bareknuckle pugilism, when men fought to the finish in illegal or quasi-legal contests held at secret locations. Various boxers from Great Britain and the United States, the two hotbeds of the sport, claimed the “world” title after the adoption of the Queensberry Rules late in the nineteenth century, but the first man who seems to have been recognized as champion on both sides of the Atlantic was one George “Kid” Lavigne after he knocked out England’s Dick Burge in seventeen rounds at the National Sporting Club, London, in 1896. At that time the weight limit for the division was 133 pounds, but it would eventually settle at 135 pounds.
The most notable early champion was the wonderful Joe Gans, the “Old Master,” who in the pre-First World War period combined form and power, stamina and technique, in a manner rarely seen before or since. His three bouts against Battling Nelson, an imperishable Scandinavian known as the “Durable Dane,” were among the most terrible in history; one went forty-two rounds before the bloodied Nelson was disqualified for a low blow. Gans died in 1910, his slender body ravaged by tuberculosis.
The Twenties brought more gifted fighters like Freddie Welsh, Lew Tendler, Charley White and, above all, the peerless Benny Leonard, a New York Jew of matchless guile and execution. Leonard inspired a generation of boxers from the crowded tenements of America