This Saturday night in Riyadh, the new boxing capital of the world, a fight is taking place which promises to rekindle the golden age of the ring.
The 1980s when Four Kings got on with fighting each other – and the best of the rest – rather than 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 hardest game from the anti-climactic depression which followed Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight epoch by engaging in nine epic battles between them to decide who was the greatest of their era.
The nostalgia reflex is being triggered by the imminent clash between two undefeated Russian titans for the undisputed world light-heavyweight title.
Namely Artur Beterbiev, who carries with pride a perfect record of 20 knockouts in his 20 fights, and the also undefeated Dmitry Bivol, who brings with him to the Arabian desert the distinction of having recently defeated Mexican legend Canelo Alvarez while boxing his way to 23 victories.
Mail Sport revisits the iconic night when Sugar Ray Leonard (above) beat Roberto Duran
The pair met for a seismic bout at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in November 1980
The expectations are high but these two Russians have a great deal to live up to when compared with the momentous wars of the Kings, the four most historically significant of which we are retelling now, in chronological sequence, not order of merit.
We begin with the night Sugar Ray took down the Macho Man…
FIGHT ONE
November 25, 1980 – Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, USA
Roberto Duran v 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 taking Sugar Ray’s WBC world welterweight title with a typically ferocious performance.
His mission had been accomplished with the help of Leonard’s foolhardy decision to stand and meet one of the most feared fighters on the planet, rather than use his range of high technical skills to defuse Duran. Even so the unanimous decision was close on the official score cards: 148-147, 145-144, 146-144.
Leonard’s speed of hand and foot bedazzled the Panamanian and undermined him mentally
Leonard provided his own commentary of the bout as he toyed with Duran throughout
The referee eventually waved the fight to its conclusion as Leonard won by a TKO decision
Leonard reverted to his noble arts for the rematch. More Sugar than spite this time, his speed of hand and foot bedazzled the Panamanian but also began to undermine him psychologically.
To make matters more disconcerting for Duran, Leonard provided his own commentary in the ring. He recalls: ‘I was moving, moving all the time and saying Voom when I snapped his head back with a jab. Voom every time I snapped it back again. Then Pow when he tried to get me on the ropes and I’d pivot, spin off and come under with a strong punch.’
The bewilderment of Duran became embarrassment in the seventh round as Leonard teased him by twirling his right arm in apparent preparation for an Ali-esque bolo punch, only to snap his head back once more with a lightning left jab.
From the start of the eighth Leonard imposed himself as the matador tempting and dancing around an enraged bull. So confused was Duran that when he spun himself around with a punch which hit only thin air, a laughing Leonard patted him on his backside.
Embarrassment became more humiliation than the Macho Man could stand. With 16 seconds left in the round Duran waved those frozen Hands of Stone at the referee and walked to his corner saying: ‘No Mas.’ Spanish for No More.
No one could believe it of this proven warrior as the result was declared a TKO, with Leonard ahead on the cards.
From the start of the eighth Leonard imposed himself as the matador tempting and dancing around an enraged bull
Duran, his Hispanic pride sorely wounded, tried to blame stomach cramps brought on in the fifth by taking off weight too quickly and then eating too heavily after the weigh-in. But his manager Carlos Eleta admitted: ‘Roberto always gorged himself on the morning of a fight. He quit because he was embarrassed.’
To which Leonard exulted: ‘To make Roberto Duran quit is better than knocking him out.’
Duran, his image damaged and his excuse lame, went home to shock and anger in Panama, along with a dramatic collapse in his public status as a national hero. Although come his 32nd birthday, on June 16, 1983, they were dancing in the streets of Panama City once more as he knocked out the renowned, hitherto undefeated Davey Moore to win the WBA light middleweight championship.
He and Leonard completed their belated trilogy in Las Vegas in December 1989, in a fight which fizzled out as Sugar Ray coasted to a comfortable unanimous decision. For Duran, there was no escaping No Mas.