Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [88]
At the end of July 1978, it was reported that Duran had broken two fingers on his right hand in a car accident in Panama and would be out until October. Conflicting reports suggested a thumb injury, others said that Duran was feigning for commercial reasons, presumably so he would not yet have to surrender his lightweight titles, which increased his marquee value while he fought non-title bouts.
Duran went back to Panama after defeating Viruet, gained yet more weight and prepared to fight light-middleweight Ezequiel Obando on September 1, 1978. It would reveal if Duran looked comfortable at the higher weight and if his punches were destructive against a bigger man. Duran came in on the welterweight limit of 147 pounds while Obando was four pounds over at 151.
“Obando was a guy with huge muscles, tall and looked like he was a bodybuilder,” said Duran. “Eleta tells me, ‘I want you to fight him anyway because I want people to see you.’ I said, ‘Give me the fight, I don’t give a damn.’ When the guy comes into the ring he wants to impress me with his physique. He wanted to knock me out, but he didn’t know that I could hit that hard. He came in again and my hand was already in the air ready to catch him. I hit him so hard with one punch that you could have counted up to a thousand and he wouldn’t have gotten back up.” Duran needed only two rounds to dispose of Obando, who was too green to give him a test.
Having cleaned up his division and run out of credible challengers, Duran issued a statement that October from Panama City, possibly at the behest of the publicity-minded Don King, in which he challenged “all the champions in the other divisions, from bantamweight up to middleweight, to fight me.” The statement went on, “I’ll fight them over the weight, for my title or for theirs. This challenge goes for champions like Carlos Zarate, Wilfredo Gomez, Danny Lopez, Alexis Arguello, Pipino Cuevas, Carlos Palomino, Samuel Serrano, Saensak Muangsurin, Antonio Cervantes and Rocky Mattioli. I’d like to become the first man in history to win four different world titles. The welterweight, junior welterweight and junior middleweight titles are all within my reach.”
Don King’s grip on the heavyweight crown had loosened and he needed a new global star. Duran was it. King had lost the inside track with heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali after a failed attempt to drive a wedge between Ali and his manager, Herbert Muhammad, and consequently missed out on some of the biggest fight promotions of the late Seventies. At the same time, many of the sport’s names now came from outside the United States, including the imperious Carlos Monzon and the classy Alexis Arguello. Duran was probably the most saleable of them all to US TV audiences, provided the right opponents could be found.
On November 4, newspapers reported that Duran had signed a four-fight contract worth $500,000 with Madison Square Garden. His first appearance was due against light-welterweight Monroe Brooks, followed by a defense of his lightweight title aganst leading WBA contender Alfredo Pitalua, then a fight against light-welterweight champion Antonio Cervantes, and finally a challenge to welterweight champion Carlos Palomino. That, at least, was the plan.
FIRST UP WAS the ranking black boxer Monroe Brooks, at the Garden on December 8. A streetfighter in his youth, Brooks was ready for the