Four Kings

by George Kimball

  The bout agreement called for a twenty-foot ring, which favored the participant who was quicker afoot. And when Hagler insisted on a fifteen-round fight, Trainer replied that if it weren’t scheduled for twelve rounds there would be no fight.

  Leonard even reserved the right to choose the gloves, normally the prerogative of the champion.

  “I’m surprised Leonard didn’t get to choose the color of Hagler’s trunks, too,” cracked one observer. “He got everything else he wanted.”

  Once the terms had been arranged, the two embarked on a twelve-city press tour, including an appearance with Bob Hope at Caesars, where the comedian plugged the bout as “a fight for the common man−two millionaires trying to beat each others’ brains out.”

  Hagler abandoned the tour halfway across the country, accusing Leonard of creating a “circus atmosphere” by joking about the fight.

  “Just because he’s America’s sweetheart,” Hagler had complained, “doesn’t mean that I’m a bum.”

  Hagler was not alone in being put off by Leonard’s style.

  “Leonard’s arrogance is overwhelming,” wrote the estimable British fight scribe Harry Mullan. “He must always be Prince Hamlet, and his fellow-professionals attendant lords. He retires and un-retires at will, and shoves other contenders who have paid their dues out of the queue to allow him to make another grand entrance, at the top, in a title fight.”

  Leonard appeared alone at several Midwestern stops and jokingly addressed “Hagler” questions to an empty chair.

  “Hagler misinterpreted what I said in November,” protested Ray. “That was fun and games, to help the promotion. I had an obligation to fulfill. I knew that as time went by it would turn serious.”

  Marvin didn’t rejoin the press tour until it hit the West Coast.

  Hagler spent ten weeks training for the Leonard fight, by far the most extensive preparation for any bout of his career. “I’m a perfectionist, you know,” he said. “I put a little more effort into each and every one of my fights. In that respect I’m still learning. Hey, I feel young. I feel as though I’m twenty-one again.”

  Marvin once again trained in Palm Springs, where he had an unexpected visitor. J.D. Brown, a knowledgeable scholar of the Sweet Science who had served as matchmaker for several Sugar Ray Leonard promotions during Leonard’s retirement, was dispatched on an espionage mission to the champion’s camp.

  Brown dyed his hair gray, donned horn-rimmed glasses, and went unrecognized by Hagler or any of his people. For three days he watched Marvelous Marvin spar and filed away mental notes of everything he heard Goody Petronelli tell him. On the day he left, just to prove that he’d been there, he had his picture taken with Hagler as the middleweight champion signed autographs for a waiting queue.

  The Hagler camp was furious when word of Brown’s spy mission became public, but Ollie Dunlap pointed out, “Remember, Ray had worked on the telecasts of a whole bunch of Marvin’s fights, so a lot of it was a psych job, too.”

  “Ray had been away for so long he wanted any edge he could get,” said Brown. “I was supposed to go and critique Hagler, bring back a report of what he did in training. The first thing I noticed that impressed me was that he had no entourage: When Marvin walked into the gym he was carrying his own bag.

  “But,” said Brown, “I did notice a couple of things. One was when I watched him spar with the Weaver Triplets. [Floyd, Lloyd, and Troy Weaver, the younger brothers of former heavyweight champion Mike Weaver.] They were young junior middleweights, too quick for him, and when they’d flit around the ring, it pissed Hagler off. ‘Stop running and fight, you little bitch,’ he’d snarl at them. So I knew Ray could frustrate him by doing the same thing.

  “Another thing I noticed was that as soon as the bell rang, Hagler moved straight to the center of the ring. That was his domain. That’s where he wanted to be. So I knew that if Ray got there first, Marvin wouldn’t like it.”

  Leonard, in the meantime, was training on Hilton Head. Dundee, who usually came in to polish off the final few weeks of sparring, arrived at the South Carolina resort on February 28th−over five weeks before the fight.

  After each day’s workouts, the two met to discuss strategy. Dundee reminded Leonard that although Hagler was a left-handed boxer, he was a natural righthander, and that his significant power lay on that side.

  The conventional approach when fighting a southpaw is to move to the right, but, Dundee told Leonard, “You don’t fight this guy the way you fight a regular southpaw. Keep moving to the left.”

  Although Dundee and Mike Trainer would have their differences in the bitter divorce that followed the Hagler fight, in its immediate aftermath the lawyer, recalling those long sessions at Hilton Head, would tell Bill Nack, “I can’t give Angie enough credit. Ray’s talent was there, but Angie helped choreograph it. He stepped in and filled a void.”

  Throughout the long weeks of work as he tried to whip his body back into fighting trim, Leonard kept reminding himself, “Ray Leonard couldn’t do this, but Sugar Ray Leonard can .”

  The question was: Could he ever be Sugar Ray Leonard again?

  A former Irish national middleweight champion, Dr. Terry Christle completed his studies at the College of Surgeons in Dublin, but before embarking on a medical career he wanted to give professional boxing a try. In 1983, with eight pro fights in England and Ireland under his belt, he had flown to the United States and made his way to the Petronelli Gym, and sought out the men who had taken Hagler to the middleweight title to supervise his postgraduate program.

  Christle had a boxing pedigree. His brother Mel, a Dublin lawyer, had been an All-Ireland heavyweight champion, and to this day chairs the Boxing Union of Ireland. Another brother, Joe, had also been a professional heavyweight.

  Billed as “The Fighting Physician,” Christle made his U.S. debut in December ’83, and had won all five of his fights on American soil.

  “We weren’t taking many chances with Terry,” admitted Pat Petronelli. “He was always going to be a better doctor than he was a fighter, and we weren’t going to jeopardize his medical career by getting him hurt. We tried not to put him in too tough−and for years, we wouldn’t even let him spar with Marvin.”

  In Palm Springs, Christle finally got his chance when Goody ordered him to put on the headgear and get into the ring with the champion.

  Hagler had been under the weather for several days. He and Christle went a lackluster two rounds, and it became apparent that Marvin was not himself. He repaired to his room after the workout, where, at Goody’s request, he was examined by Dr. Christle. It may have been the first time in boxing history that one of his sparring partners administered a physical to a reigning champion.

  When Terry emerged from his consultation with his patient, the Petronellis eagerly awaited his diagnosis. Was Marvin all right?

  “Not unless you know of a cure for the common cold,” reported Christle, who proposed a few days of bed rest for the middleweight champion.

  Bob Arum had arranged for a media delegation a hundred strong to travel to Palm Springs for what was supposed to be Hagler’s final sparring session. He was not pleased to hear that there would be no further work-outs. He was even more irate when he learned that activity had been suspended on the instructions of the Fighting Physician.

  “Get us a real doctor,” demanded Arum. “I want a second opinion!”

  The Petronellis listened to Dr. Christle and not Arum. Marvin didn’t emerge from his room again until it was time to leave for Vegas.

  With the bout scheduled exactly a week after the 1987 NCAA basketball championship game, many sportswriters flew directly to Las Vegas from New Orleans on Monday (a full week before the fight), a trip we likened to taking the shuttle from Sodom to Gomorrah.

  A media throng of over five hundred was waiting outside Caesars Palace when Hagler and his traveling party arrived from Palm Springs on Tuesday, six days before the fight. When the champion, wearing a blue tracksuit,
sunglasses, and a white baseball cap bearing the legend No Mercy, stepped out of his white Lincoln limousine he was greeted by a costumed Caesar and Cleopatra, along with several faux centurions.

  “Caesar” read a proclamation in which he described Hagler as “the un-disputed middleweight champion of the world,” but just a few hours earlier that designation had ceased to be accurate.

  Although the WBC had approved Leonard as an opponent, the WBA had not, and ordered its title vacated. Once again Hagler had gone to court, but that morning in Boston, federal judge Robert Keaton had declined Hagler’s request for an injunction forestalling the move, effectively formalizing the WBA’s decision to vacate the title.

  “So what else is new? ” said Hagler. “They tried to take away my title before the Hamsho fight, and they tried to strip me when I fought Scypion.”

  “We’re disappointed, but we’re not totally surprised,” said Pat Petronelli. “Right now I’m sorry we ever got involved with the WBA. We’ve done them nothing but good, and they turn around and do this.”

  Morris Goldings, who had replaced Wainwright as Hagler’s lawyer, said he would appeal the judge’s ruling, but the champion’s camp did not seem optimistic.

  “This isn’t the first time,” said Petronelli. “We’ll just keep whacking away in court and see what happens, but neither Marvin or Goody and me are going to lose any sleep over it. You know how important those belts are to Marvin, but we’ve always said they can only be won or lost in the ring. That’s why he’s not getting too excited about it.”

  Leonard’s camp seemed even less distressed by the news.

  “It doesn’t concern us at all,” said Mike Trainer. “That particular title wasn’t ever part of this deal anyway.”

  On Thursday another federal judge, Bruce Selya of the first U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, rejected Hagler’s appeal, saying that the fighter “failed to land any forceful blows” in his attempt to forestall the WBA action. “Marvelous Marvin Hagler has been less successful in the court than in the ring,” wrote Selya in his opinion. “We need spar with this matter no further.”

  By vacating its one-third of the title, the WBA effectively turned Hagler-Leonard into a WBC title fight. While the IBF took no action, neither did it sanction the bout, meaning that it would continue to recognize Hagler as champion if he won. If he lost, it, too, would vacate the title.

  By eschewing a tune-up bout, Leonard would enter the ring not having fought for nearly three years, but he had not been entirely inactive. In the months leading up to the Hagler fight he had engaged in several “simulated” twelve-round bouts back in Maryland.

  “I trained for nearly a year before the Hagler fight,” recalled Leonard. “I didn’t even know who some of these guys were, mostly guys J.D. Brown brought down from gyms in New York. They’d wear headgear and use ten-ounce gloves; I used fourteen-ounce gloves and no headgear. They might go three or four rounds apiece, but I went all twelve. I was trying to reproduce the competitive nature of a real fight. I wanted to get that feel back.”

  Did it feel like a real fight?

  “Yes,” said Leonard. “Except I didn’t get paid.”

  So who won in those simulated fights?

  “Hey, it was my gym,” said Leonard with a grin. “They were hometown decisions.”

  Correctly anticipating that he would be grilled about the inherent risk to his eyesight, Leonard had prepared a statement, replete with medical testimony, copies of which were distributed before his first meeting with the media at Caesars. That session was preceded by an announcement that Leonard would not entertain any questions about his eyesight.

  No sooner had the floor been thrown open to questions than Pat Putnam raised his hand from the back row of what had to be the largest ballroom in press conference history.

  “Hey, Ray,” he shouted. “How many fingers am I holding up? ”

  In addition to the concessions he had made on the length of the bout and the size of the ring, Hagler had agreed to the Leonard camp’s request for “thumbless” gloves.

  The Reyes gloves the boxers would wear could more properly be described as “thumb-attached.” The extra bit of stitchery had been incorporated as a precautionary device to prevent one boxer from accidentally gouging the other with a stray thumb. Dundee was quick to proclaim the adoption of the weapons an edge for Leonard.

  “It’s going to take away Hagler’s best weapon,” claimed the sixty-five-year-old trainer. “If Juan Roldan hadn’t got thumbed he would have beaten Marvin. Take away the thumb and Roldan wins the title.”

  Goody Petronelli smiled when he heard that.

  “We were using the same Reyes gloves in the Roldan fight we’ll be using for this one,” revealed Hagler’s trainer.

  That Leonard was reluctant to answer questions about his eyesight didn’t mean Hagler couldn’t talk about it.

  “I’m not really thinking about his eye,” insisted the champion. “That’s his business. He’s the one who made the decision to fight. Look, this is a dogeat-dog business. It’s a man’s sport. If it was me, do you think he’d come up to me and say, ‘Oh, Marvin, there’s something wrong with your eye’? ”

  Somebody asked Leonard whether he would consider saying “No mas” if he experienced problems with his eye.

  “I don’t speak Spanish,” he replied.

  That was demonstrated the next afternoon, when Juan Roldan, who would be fighting James Kinchen on the undercard, showed up at the gym to watch Leonard spar. Afterward he was introduced to Leonard, and the two engaged in a brief conversation, with Dundee serving as the interpreter.

  When Dundee discussed the impending matchup, he sounded as if he were training David to fight Goliath.

  “Hagler is a monster,” he said. “It boggles the mind that he hasn’t lost in eleven years. And here’s this little kid trying to beat him.”

  Dundee recalled that this was hardly the first time a fighter of his had been given little chance, citing the then-Cassius Clay’s challenge to the awesome Sonny Liston, Carmen Basilio’s to Sugar Ray Robinson, and Willie Pastrano’s to Harold Johnson.

  “Basilio beat Robinson, and nobody thought he was going to do it,” recalled Dundee. “He opened him up with the jab. [The original] Sugar Ray said, ‘How’s this little midget going to hit me? ’ And he hit him with the jab. Got inside him and beat him.”

  Someone noted that a more apt historical analogy might be the aging Joe Louis’ quixotic attempt to recapture the heavyweight title from Rocky Marciano, then at the top of his game.

  “Joe Louis didn’t have the athletic ability that Ray has,” said Dundee. “Ray is always in condition. He’s never been out of condition.

  “Remember, everyone thought Hearns was going to knock Leonard’s block off,” noted Dundee. “It turned out Ray was the puncher in that fight, and he’ll be the puncher in this fight, too. Ray is the puncher because he hits you with shots that you can’t see. Those are the ones that hurt. Those are the ones that get you out of there.”

  In talking up his man’s chances, Dundee had alluded to the fact that Hagler had been extended beyond ten rounds in his fights against Duran, Roldan, and Mugabi.

  “Yeah? ” growled Hagler when apprised of Dundee’s observation. “Well, I’m still here, ain’t I?

  “The object of this game is to get out of trouble,” he added. “I expected to get hit by Mugabi, and I certainly expected to get hit by Tommy Hearns. I’d say that Hearns has better speed than Leonard.

  “Besides,” said Hagler, “I’ve got more knockouts than Leonard has had fights .”

  In 1982 Leonard had been part of an HBO crew that had visited the Petronelli Brothers Gym to tape a preview for Hagler’s second fight against Obelmejias. For reasons that are not entirely clear, Leonard had allowed himself to be photographed, a self-satisfied smirk on his face and clutching a fistful of money. With the thumb of his other hand he could be seen gesturing over his shoulder to a sweaty Hagler, standing in the ring behind him.<
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  Five years later the photo had become a motivational prop. Taped to a mirror in the Marvelous Marvin Hagler Suite at Caesars, it was the first thing Hagler saw each morning, the last thing he saw before he went to bed at night.

  “Do I resent Ray Leonard? Sure I do,” Hagler nodded one day as he sat in his suite. “I don’t think he has any business being in the ring with me right now, but I’ve just got to prove that to the world.

  “Just thinking about it,” he gestured toward the photo, “makes me mean.”

  With every newspaper and every television network in the English-speaking world on hand in Vegas, there was no question that wasn’t going to be asked. At a session with the press at the Sports Pavilion one afternoon, an enterprising scribe outdid himself when he asked Hagler, “If you were a dog, what kind of dog would you be? ”

  The middleweight champion actually gave it some thought before replying: “Some combination of German shepherd, Doberman pinscher, and pit bull.”

  “There does not seem to be much doubt,” we wrote in recapturing the moment, “that he had decided that Leonard is a poodle.”

  A few weeks earlier, Thomas Hearns had stopped Dennis Andries to win the WBC light-heavyweight title. On Wednesday the Hit Man showed up in Vegas, and, pressed for a prediction in the fight between his old adversaries, forecast a Leonard upset.

  “Don’t make no difference to me,” said Hagler with a shrug. “He’s jealous, I guess. It’s a free country; he can say what he wants. I just hope the result is the same as when I fought Tommy.

  “Am I at the same peak I was for that fight? Well, I’ve got to be even meaner,” continued Hagler. “For the Hearns fight we had a good strategy, and we’ve got a good game plan for this one. I just hope the strategy we’ve got for Leonard works the same way.

  “He can do whatever he wants to. We’ll accommodate him,” said Hagler, whose subsequent vow would come back to haunt him: “I am going to take control of this fight. I’m not going to let Leonard dictate it.”