Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [71]
“Edwin frustrated the shit out of him that night,” said Viruet’s handler, Al Braverman. “Afterward, in the dressing troom, Duran came up to me and said, ‘Why did you put that jumping jack in the ring? He should have stood there and fought me?’” But Braverman and Viruet knew what a fighter called Sugar Ray Leonard would later realize too; there was a way to frustrate Duran in the ring, to make him blow his top – and it might be the only way to beat him.
Duran was not the only person frustrated. A crowd of 7,000 attended the Revolution Stadium in Panama City to watch the bout on closed circuit, but when the picture failed to come through they started to smash up the place and the National Guard had to be summoned.
As the dominant fighter in his weight division, Duran was now regularly mooted for a possible “dream fight” against either junior welterweight champ Antonio “Pambele” Cervantes or WBC welterweight champ Jose Napoles. However, a rift between the two world sanctioning bodies put paid to the Napoles bout, while Cervantes, who had knocked out Duran’s friend Peppermint Frazer, was deemed too dangerous by Carlos Eleta, thus ruling out what would have been built up as the greatest Colombia-Panama clash since Panama was liberated in 1903. “I didn’t want to put Roberto in with him,” admitted Eleta years later in Panama City. “He was a very dangerous fighter.” Cervantes was a dark-skinned native of Palenque in Colombia, a village that produced an inordinate number of world champions. He was a masterful and highly experienced technician who had beaten Esteban DeJesus, Nicolino Locche and many other prominent fighters. The closest he came to fighting Duran was a run-in in the street when Cervantes was in Panama to fight Frazer.
“Duran knew he would win this fight, but I do not know why he did not want to fight it,” said the ever-loyal Plomo. “It might have been because of the money. But let me tell you a bit about Cervantes. One day, Duran and I were walking in the street when we came across Cervantes. So Duran said he was going to show me Cervantes was afraid of him. ‘What’s up? When will we be fighting, you and I?’ he said. To which Cervantes said they were going to fight when the fight was signed. Duran told him he was ready to fight right then and there, to which Cervantes answered he did not fight just like that, only for money. Duran, believing he was afraid, told him he was a coward. But this fight was never signed.”
The Cervantes question surfaced years later in Panama.“Pambele was a very disciplined man,” said Duran at a press conference. “To me, he was a slow boxer. Besides he was a boxer who would open up to anyone. And a man who opens up to Roberto, and who is very slow, I get him out quite quickly. I am not going to stand the beating, and I can hit better than Benitez and Frazer [both fought Cervantes].”
Given his oft-repeated antipathy towards Puerto Rican opponents, the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Hato Rey seemed an odd choice for his next defense, especially against a local opponent. Unlike Edwin Viruet, whose quick feet stifled Duran, Leonico Ortiz suggested resilience through ignorance. His billboard back was wide and hairy, his legs were thick as a linebacker’s and his nest beard as bushy as Serpico’s. He looked like he’d keep plodding ahead even if you hurled a rock between his eyes.
Ortiz came into the ring on December 14, 1975 with an alleged 24-5-1 fight record. A southpaw and the father of four children, he adopted a peek-a-boo style and decided early that he would fight with his back against the ropes, perhaps in an attempt to tire out Duran. Even the most accomplished of pugilists weren’t encouraged to adopt such a claustrophobic style. The ropes were best used as a place to force your opponent to. Only the great ones, most famously