 |
So Long, Sugar
After taking a beating from Terry Norris, 11 years his
junior, Ray Leonard says he is retiring for good
by Pat Putnam
Issue date: February 18, 1991
| |
Leonard (left) knew it was time to go after weathering Norris's assault.
(Al Tielemans)
|
Sugar Ray Leonard demanded only one thing: Let him choose
the date of his retirement. ''I'll know when it is time to
go,'' he said repeatedly. He was a warrior; he knew he
would recognize that moment only in battle. Last Saturday
night, at New York
City's Madison Square Garden, the 34-year-old Leonard proved to
himself that he could no longer wield the sword. The final
entry in his ring record will show that Leonard lost a
12-round decision to Terry Norris, the WBC junior
middleweight
champion.
Afterward, though his lips were torn and bloody, Leonard
still managed a smile. Both eyes were battered, and the
left one was almost closed, but they yielded no tears. ''I
don't want anyone to feel sorry for me,'' Leonard said,
standing as proud in
defeat as he ever had in victory. ''I had a great career. It
took this fight to show me it is no longer my time. I am
not of the '90s. I feel very good. I enjoyed my career
tremendously; I wouldn't change a thing. Tonight was my
last
fight.''
Eliminate the bout's historic significance and it wasn't
much of a fight, just a lopsided whipping of a stubborn but
aged challenger by a young champion. Leonard had said that
he expected an ugly fight, but this wasn't quite what he
pictured. Norris, 23
and quicker, knocked Leonard down with a left hook in the
second round and with a short, crisp right in the seventh.
Leonard was never in danger of not finishing the fight.
Only the body had grown older; the will and the heart
remained young and
strong.
''I knew I didn't have it when I entered the ring,'' said
Leonard, who was fighting for the first time since beating
Roberto Duran in a super middleweight bout in December
1989. After the second-round knockdown, Leonard, on legs
that no longer responded
to his commands, was reduced to setting ambushes, none of
which were successful against the overly cautious Norris,
who might well have knocked out Leonard had he been more
aggressive. ''He was trying to bait me,'' said Norris,
''but it didn't
work.''
''It worked against all the older fellows I fought
lately,'' said Leonard, grinning.
This is Leonard's fourth retirement. The first came in
1976, after he won an Olympic gold medal. After returning
to the ring as a professional a few months later, he fought
his way up to the WBC welterweight championship, which he
won from Wilfred
Benitez in
'79.
In June 1980 he lost that title to Duran and then won it
back five months later when Duran quit in the eighth round
of the famous no más fight. In '81, after knocking out Ayub
Kalule to win the WBA junior middleweight championship,
Leonard unified the
welterweight crown by stopping WBA champ Thomas Hearns in
the 14th round.
In '82, several months after undergoing surgery for a
detached retina, Leonard retired for a second time, but he
returned for a single bout in 1984, a lackluster defeat of
Kevin Howard. Disgusted with that performance, Leonard
retired again, this time
for nearly three
years.
Restless and feeling like an artist who had deserted his
easel before completing his life's work, Leonard came back
in April 1987 to win the WBC middleweight crown over the
champion, Marvin Hagler. Hagler has not fought since, but
Leonard continued,
knocking out Donny Lalonde in '88 to win the WBC super
middleweight and light heavyweight titles. That victory
made Leonard the first man to win championships in five
divisions.
After a controversial June 1989 draw with Hearns—Leonard
was knocked down twice—and that second win over Duran,
Leonard took another year off, without announcing his
retirement, to ponder his future. With a 36-1-1 record,
including 25 knockouts,
and millions in the bank, his place in boxing's pantheon was
assured. Still, he was
unhappy.
''I knew I had to fight again,'' said Leonard a few weeks
before the Norris bout. ''I have to know that I've taken my
talent as far as it can go. I want to be the guy who says,
'Leonard, it's time to quit.' I don't want anybody else
telling me that. But
I know I will have to face the younger guys, and at my age
I have to stop giving away weight. I fought the bigger guys
to create a mystery, sort of a mystique. No more. I no
longer can afford to give away the height advantage, the
reach advantage, the
power, the
strength.''
So Leonard returned to his natural fighting weight, 154
pounds, a territory he abandoned in 1984. ''The younger
guys are fresh, they are strong,'' he said. ''I don't give
a damn about what they say about Terry Norris. They say he's
unknown, a nobody. I
hope he's still unknown after our fight. I have to see if I
can stay with the young tigers. I'm not putting pressure on
myself; I'm just making myself realize I can't afford any
more bad performances. I really
can't.''
Some observers said that in Norris, Leonard would be
facing a younger version of himself. Fast and quick-fisted,
Norris has patterned himself after Leonard, whom he
idolizes. He is only an imitation, however. Norris is good—he has won 27 of 30
fights—but Leonard was great. At the same age, Leonard would
have knocked Norris out in three rounds. That is no knock
at Norris. There was only one Joe Louis, one Sugar Ray
Robinson, one Muhammad Ali—and one Sugar Ray
Leonard.
''Now I'm going to move on to something else,'' said
Leonard in defeat. ''Now I'm going to do something I've
been promising myself for a long time. Now I am going to
learn how to play
golf.''
There are no old golfers, only young golfers and senior
golfers.
|
|
CNN/SI followed Holyfield through a typical day of training.
Check out the video clips, but be sure to come back to Evander's
Believe It Or Not.