Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [99]
Angelo Dundee understood what was happening to his fighter mentally but couldn’t stop it. Mentally, he had lost Leonard. Dundee and Duran had known each other since Roberto was a raw young terror at the Fifth Street Gym in Miami. With his jet-black hair, baby smile and a right hand that would push your mouthpiece back into your teeth, Duran terrorized sparring partners. “I’ve known Roberto since he was a youngster and he was one of the sharpest guys out there,” said Dundee. “He could con you just by giving a look. He used to psych out a lot of guys before they got into the ring. Just like Ali, he was good at getting the psychological edge. He was this macho guy, so charismatic, and overshadowed all these guys by putting on an act for each opponent.” As for Ray Arcel and Freddie Brown, men he had watched and admired for years, Dundee came up with the classic line, “Those guys, they’re older than water.”
In the gym, Duran was often pitted against bigger men yet referred to anyone willing to challenge him as a maricon, or homosexual. He was used to hitting guys twenty pounds heavier. The ring was his space, where there was no room for mercy or pity. Stepping through the ropes after a fight to the cold concrete, his hatred subsided and even Leonard would remark at what a gentleman Duran was when they squared up for a Sprite commercial with their sons.
At the Fifth Street Gym, Dundee was also privy to his weaknesses. By this time it was no secret that Duran enjoyed his drink and his women, but when he faced a serious challenge the bullshit subsided. Inside the Fifth Street Gym, Duran was pitted against Dundee’s Cuban fighter Douglass Valliant. Valliant had once challenged Carlos Ortiz for the lightweight title. He was a showman, the one type of boxer that didn’t agree with Duran. Good fighters emphasizing angle, speed and movement could frustrate him. “My guy gave Roberto fits in the ring,” said Dundee. “He was a sticker-mover type guy, a good fighter who was in the ring with some great champions, and Duran didn’t know what to do with him.” Surely Leonard would box him the same way.
The fact Canadians supported Duran also baffled the Leonard camp. “Duran captured the crowd, and they were all pulling for him,” said Dundee. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think those people would be pulling for Duran. Ray was a nice kid, good-looking guy, but in certain places they like certain fighters. I thought we had an edge going in there but they were rooting and hustling for Duran like they were doing for Ali in Zaire.” Ali had turned an entire country against George Foreman in Zaire and Duran was building a cult following in Canada.
While he liked to talk tough, others saw it as something the media overplayed. For Eleta, the glitch in translation was a bit bothersome. Did Duran really want to “kill” Leonard? “He didn’t mean anything by it,” said Eleta. “It was taken out of context by the American fans. Every round, as we say in Spanish and it doesn’t mean the same in translation, they tried to kill each other. They put everything they had into that fight.” Leonard responded in kind because he did not want to be seen to back down. “Duran was very antagonistic and had a bully mentality,” said Leonard. “He challenged you and if you didn’t stand up, he knew he had you.”
But Duran wasn’t listening. “Whatever Leonard had to say, I didn’t give a damn,” he said.
Leonard and Duran needed each other. With every great sports figure comes another individual able to extract the pockets of bravery on reserve for the moments that test the will unlike any other. For Ali, it came in the form of a walking tree trunk named Joe Frazier. There were thousands of other