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Your support makes all the difference.Once in Las Vegas, before some big championship fight or other, Jim Murray, late of this life and the Los Angeles Times, wrote that in certain parts of the world – "Great Britain, for example," – it was considered perfectly in order for a fighter to quit on his stool.
As the publication of Murray's remark happily coincided with an appointment we had on one of the casino capital's many golf courses, I laid in wait for the Pulitzer prize-winner. Murray was bringing all his concentration to bear on a tricky shot from just off the fairway, one that might have caused even his great golfing hero, Ben Hogan, heartburn, when I quietly said: "Jim, we didn't quit on the stool in 1940." Though I had the decency not to address Murray in full swing, his ball sailed off into a deep greenside bunker. "That was a low blow," he grunted. "Not as low as that sentence in your column," I replied.
To lace on a pair of gloves and climb into the ring, face to face with a man intent on relieving you of your senses, is to give the world irrefutable proof of your courage before a punch is thrown. But no matter how many blows a fighter has taken, no matter how much he has bled, if he gives up under punishment somebody is bound to say that there is a touch of the dog in him, meaning a streak of cowardice.
It would require a great deal of effort to shake the conviction that Roberto Duran was no quitter. Yet the announcement of his long-overdue retirement at the age of 51 inevitably recalls the astonishing fact of his capitulation to Sugar Ray Leonard in New Orleans on 25 November 1980, when defending the World Boxing Council welterweight championship he had wrested from Leonard in Montreal five months earlier. After eight rounds of one-sided activity, Duran turned to the referee and said: "No peleo mas" – I fight no more. Weakened by efforts to train off more than 20 pounds – he had been still well outside the stipulated 10st 7lb limit less than 24 hours before the official weigh-in – Duran found Leonard a different proposition from the fighter who had chosen to brawl with him in Montreal. Frustrated by the challenger's brilliantly-executed manoeuvres, hearing his taunts, Duran gave up, the shame of it following him home to Panama.
As a lightweight, perhaps the most dangerous of all time, Duran won all but one of 63 contests, 51 by knockout. At just 16-years-old he was already a feared professional who fought with a raw intensity, undertaking every contest as a brutal test of strength and will. Squat and swarthy, with powerful shoulders and hair black as a raven's wings, he was instantly identified as a violently malevolent spirit, more likely to insult his opponents than observe the traditional formalities of boxing.
As a welterweight, Duran proved to be less destructive. He dismissed the theory of larger men being better able to withstand the impact of his punches but was nevertheless taken the distance in his first three fights at 10st 7lb.
The second contest was in June 1979 against Carlos Palomino, a distinguished former world champion. Despite being knocked down in the opening round, Palomino gave Duran a hard fight. "At lightweight it seemed he was a tremendous puncher," Palomino said. "But I didn't find him to be that kind of puncher. A good puncher, a strong puncher, but not a devastating puncher."
When Duran took the World Boxing Association light-middleweight championship from Davey Moore in June 1983 he became only the seventh man in history to win world titles at three weights. In November of the same year he was outpointed by Marvin Hagler for the middleweight crown but in making the feared champion seem nervous he was seen again as one of boxing's truly great figures.
When Thomas Hearns, defending the WBC super-welterweight in June 1984, knocked him out in the second round in Las Vegas, Duran did not appear to have much left. As this equally applied to a fortune made from boxing, he was forced to accept fights where he could find them.
Then, in 1989, he was matched with Iran Barkley for the WBC middleweight championship. Duran was 37 and had been boxing professionally for almost 22 years. A thrilling contest ended with Duran standing defiantly sideways on, a snarl on his face. Then, completely out of character, he burrowed through the crowded ring and embraced Barkley before being awarded the contest on a split decision.
Whether it completely erased the shame of New Orleans is another matter. I happen to believe it did but these things stick. "Duran will never be allowed to forget that he quit against Leonard," a friend said this week. "So remind him," I replied. "He's due to speak in Cardiff. Just go up to him and say: 'no mas, remember?' See where that gets you."
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