Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [98]
The bout was finally signed on April 13, but not without immense backstage horse-trading. Bob Arum and Don King, who could barely stand the sight of each other, were forced to form a brief, unholy alliance to co-promote the fight, sharing the dais for the first time. “It was the first time in history that Arum and King worked together,” said Eleta. “I brought them to Panama so we could all work this out.” Arum at the time had twenty fighters on his books, led by Marvin Hagler, while King had thirteen fighters, with Duran and Larry Holmes at the top. As if to endorse the encounter and its significance, the New York Boxing Writers’ Association met in May and selected Sugar Ray Leonard as their 1979 Fighter of the Year, Leonard’s trainer Angelo Dundee as Manager of the Year, and Duran and Muhammad Ali as their Fighters of the Decade.
By then, Leonard was beginning to get an idea of the man he would face. He had done his best to respond with a half-hearted “I’ll kill you” when the fighters met on April 23 at a press conference in the New York Waldorf Astoria, but the threat sounded not only out of character but hollow. Minutes before, Duran had held center stage at the podium. He had brought his personal jeweler along for the ride and was kitted out like a ghetto daddy, with over $37,000 of bling on his person – not including his expensive clothes. He looked and acted like he owned the world. In one account of what followed, Duran “cuffed” Leonard after a scuffle broke out while both men tried on a souvenir boxing glove. “He got into my head,” said Leonard. “He pissed me off and challenged my head.”
Duran, brilliant in the pre-fight mind games, promised that his contempt for Leonard was no gimmick. He didn’t hate the American idol so much as what he stood for. “My father was so happy because that fight represented so much,” said his son Chavo, who was only six at the time. “It showed all the fans, especially the people in Panama, the people that know boxing, that he was not just one of the crowd. My father had many fights but Leonard was very special because he had won a gold medal at the Olympic Games and was the golden kid in the U.S. at the time.”
Duran reviled the kid who grew up with a “golden spoon” in his mouth. He saw Leonard as the product of a privileged childhood. He knew he lacked Leonard’s telegenic charisma, but he suspected that Leonard lacked the toughness that one can only earn through battle. He considered the American not a man but a commodity, a glossy figure enhanced by the media. He wanted to expose this counterfeit.
Duran might not have been the favorite, but the Canadians took him to their hearts. To them, there was nothing fake about the man. His outbursts came from his soul. Duran could mingle with the people without first making sure there was a camera close by, while Leonard smiled the smile of a stranger who expected to be the chosen one. While Duran wore a T-shirt that read “BonJour” to woo the Montreal French, Leonard, who had won his gold medal in Montreal, couldn’t understand the colder reception he received. “That took me for a loop,” said Leonard. “I thought that I was the adopted son because of the Olympics and the exposure. But man, when I got there, went into the ring and they were booing me and embraced Duran, it threw me for a loop.”
Through the papers, Leonard expressed his concerns, claiming that Duran’s tough guy act worked in the ring, but “he should leave it there.” It was obvious that he didn’t know where Duran was coming from. He made the mistake of treating Duran as a normal human being and expected he would act like one, but this was not someone who was going to heed advice about acting in a civil manner. When people spoke of hungry fighters, in Duran’s case it was literally true.
Every time Leonard reacted to an insult, he was becoming a prop in the Panamanian’s show. He had never been confronted by an opponent so tactless and virile, but who still combined malevolence with a touch of charm. Duran didn’t live by any