BOXING’S FOUR KINGS – Part One: JEFF POWELL MBE on the night Sugar Ray Leonard sent Roberto Duran back to Panama with his tail between his legs
This Saturday night in Riyadh, the new boxing capital of the world, a fight takes place that promises to revive the golden age of the ring.
The 1980s, when the Four Kings continued to fight each other – and the best of the rest – instead of protecting their records by beating up no-hopers.
The decade in which Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler revived the glory of the toughest game of the anti-climactic depression that followed Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight era by engaging in nine epic battles between them to decide who was the greatest of them all in their era.
The nostalgia reflex is triggered by the upcoming clash between two undefeated Russian titans for the undisputed world light-heavyweight title.
Namely Artur Beterbiev, who proudly boasts a perfect record of 20 knockouts in his 20 fights, and the also undefeated Dmitry Bivol, who takes credit to the Arabian desert for recently beating Mexican legend Canelo Alvarez while fighting his way through to 23. wins.
Mail Sport relives the iconic night Sugar Ray Leonard (above) defeated Roberto Duran
The pair met for a seismic battle at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in November 1980
Expectations are high, but these two Russians have a lot to live up to when compared to the momentous wars of the kings, of which we now retell the four most historically significant wars, in chronological order and not in order of merit.
We start with the night Sugar Ray took down the Macho Man…
FIGHT ONE
November 25, 1980 – Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, USA
Roberto Duran vs. Sugar Ray Leonard 2
WBC and The Ring World Welterweight Championship
In Montreal just five months earlier, Duran had cemented his bloodied Hands Of Stone reputation by capturing Sugar Ray’s WBC welterweight world title in a typically ferocious performance.
His mission was accomplished thanks to Leonard’s reckless decision to stand up and face one of the most feared fighters in the world, rather than use his range of high technical skills to neutralize Duran. Still, the unanimous decision was close on the official scorecards: 148-147, 145-144, 146-144.
Leonard’s speed of hands and feet blinded the Panamanian and sapped him mentally
Leonard gave his own commentary on the fight while toying with Duran the entire time
The referee eventually waved off the fight as Leonard won by TKO decision
Leonard returned to his noble arts for the rematch. More sugar than despite this time, his speed of hand and foot dazzled the Panamanian, but also began to undermine him psychologically.
To make matters even more disturbing for Duran, Leonard made his own comments in the ring. He recalls, “I was moving, moving all the time and saying Voom when I knocked his head back with a jab. Voom every time I brought it back. Then Pow, when he tried to get me on the ropes, I turned around, spun away and fell with a hard thud.’
Duran’s stun turned to shame in the seventh round when Leonard teased him by twisting his right arm in apparent preparation for an Ali-esque bolo punch, only to snap his head back again with a lightning-quick left jab.
From the beginning of the eighth, Leonard imposed himself as the matador seducing and dancing around a raging bull. Duran was so confused that when he turned himself around with a punch that hit only thin air, a laughing Leonard patted him on the backside.
The shame became more humiliation than the Macho Man could bear. With 16 seconds left in the round, Duran waved his frozen Hands of Stone at the referee and walked to his corner and said, “No Mas.” Spanish for no more.
No one could believe it from this proven warrior when the result was declared a TKO, with Leonard leading the way.
From the beginning of the eighth, Leonard imposed himself as the matador seducing and dancing around a raging bull
Duran, whose Spanish pride was seriously injured, tried to blame it on stomach cramps brought on in the fifth by losing weight too quickly and then eating too heavily after the weigh-in. But his manager Carlos Eleta admitted: ‘Roberto was always full on the morning of a fight. He stopped because he was ashamed.”
To which Leonard cheered, “Stopping Roberto Duran is better than knocking him out.”
Duran, his image damaged and his apology weak, went home to Panama shocked and angry, along with a dramatic collapse in his public status as a national hero. Although he turned 32 on June 16, 1983, they danced through the streets of Panama City again when he famously defeated the previously undefeated Davey Moore to win the WBA light middleweight championship.
He and Leonard completed their late trilogy in Las Vegas in December 1989, in a fight that culminated with Sugar Ray coming to a comfortable unanimous decision. For Duran, there was no escape from No Mas.