Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [56]
“After that fight, we went with Ray Arcel to a restaurant and Duran was crying,” said Eleta. “I told him that you don’t win the fight in the ring, but in training. I said, ‘Always remember that. Never forget that I say this.’ He wanted the rematch immediately, but I postponed that fight … so that he would get out of this feeling. I wait until he is ready and then I tell him that he would fight DeJesus again.”
Two and a half weeks later, Ken Buchanan stopped Oriental junior welterweight champion Chang Kil Lee in less than two rounds and then took a blast at Duran. “He’s doing everything he can think of to get away from me,” said the embittered Scot. “If he beat me as easily as he claimed, why is he waiting so long to give me a return?”
Despite the defeat, and his continued avoidance of Buchanan, in November 1972 the British trade magazine Boxing News, which had the most reliable ratings in the sport, rated Duran as the true champion of the division, and listed the top ten contenders:
1. Rodolfo Gonzalez (US), WBC champion
2. Ken Buchanan (Britain)
3. Esteban DeJesus (Puerto Rico)
4. Chango Carmona (Mexico)
5. Mando Ramos (US)
6. Pedro Carrasco (Spain)
7. Ruben Navarro (US)
8. Antonio Puddu (Italy)
9. Javier Ayala (US)
10. Jimmy Robertson (US)
Two months later, the World Boxing Council dropped Panamanian boxers from its rankings following a dispute with the Panamanian Boxing Commission. The commission had broken off relations after WBC President Ramon Velasquez stripped Enrique Pinder of his bantamweight title for refusing to fight the top contender, a Mexican. Bizarrely, according to Velazquez the Panamanian Commission had never been a member of the WBC anyway. It forced the Panamanians to side decisively with the rival WBA, something that would have far-reaching consequences for world boxing.
8
Revenge
“Ads, commercials and, indeed, all the media itself, are dedicated to identifying – and hyping – male machismo. So much so that boxing crowds in Latin countries immediately boo if a defensive fighter is successful in preventing his opponent from connecting solidly while not doing much himself in return … There is not much fun in winning unless you can show evidence of machismo.”
Jose Torres, The Ring, May 1981.
IT WAS THE middle of the day in Panama in January 1973 and Roberto Duran was walking around with a gun sticking out of his jeans. It was not an accessory he needed, but it certainly enhanced his bad-ass persona. If the promise of his fists wasn’t intimidating enough, the shine of a pistol indicated in simple terms the man’s invincibility. In a couple days, he was due to defend his title for the first time against Jimmy Robertson, who was white, durable and willing. Robertson, from Los Angeles, reportedly wasn’t keen on the fight, but couldn’t turn down a title shot.
Robertson had come over with the LA-based promoter Don Chargin, and neither of them were under any illusions. “Then, that guy was hard as a rock,” Chargin said of Duran. “He’d wear Levis and a tight, tight T-shirt. The first time I saw him he was at a hotel talking to people by a pool. He would walk around with a gun in his waistband. Nobody would do anything to Duran and he could get by doing anything.”
A few years earlier, Chargin had taken a phone call from his friend Andy Russell, a Latino singer out of LA. Russell was in Panama and had seen Duran fight. “He said, ‘You won’t believe this kid. You’ve got to come see this kid.’ So I wrote the name down, but I just never got a chance to get down there and I missed out.”
Robertson went into the bout with a reasonable 24-6-1 record, though he had lost three of his previous four fights. Duran, meanwhile, had been complaining about having to train over the Christmas season. On January 20, 1973, they climbed into the ring at the Nuevo Panama Gymnasium. “We knew [Jimmy] wanted a chance and he knew how tough it would be,” said Chargin. “Duran destroyed him. In fact, he knocked out three [recorded as two] of his teeth in the first round. He took a beating and earned every