I Am Duran

by Roberto Duran

  This time, he would have to face me in Panama, in the 18,000-seat Gimnasio Nuevo. The gross was expected to be $400,000, one of the largest gates in the history of boxing in the country. I was going to make $125,000, with de Jesús guaranteed $40,000. There was worldwide interest in it—it was going to be televised live in the United States, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and some countries in Europe. Ringside seats were going for $100, which was big money in those days.

  Before the fight, de Jesús’ manager tried to come up with excuses for losing before I’d even thrown the first punch. De Jesús had suffered a cut lip while training, he said—the fight might have to be postponed. It all got resolved at the last minute, and we were going to have our fight on my home turf.

  Then, what do you know, at the beginning of the first round, about ninety seconds into the fight—boom!—he hits me with the same hook that dropped me in the first fight! Chuleta! Same fucking hook! I got up immediately and took a standing eight count. He thought I was groggy. My fans were worried, too, jumping out of their seats, screaming for me to get up. But I wasn’t in any trouble. I went over to my corner, shook my head, and told them I was fine. I got up and started working him over. Up and down. All over the place. I worked him inside and kept pounding him. It was hot as hell in that stadium, which was better for me because I’d trained in that kind of heat all my life. It wasn’t so good for him, and I sensed his strength ebbing as the rounds went by. He was mine and I just needed to finish him off.

  I took him down with a five-punch combination in the seventh round. I knew he was done then, and I finished him off in the eleventh round with a left hook to the head, a shot to the body, and another right cross to the head.

  There it was: revenge, and my thirty-fifth knockout in forty-two fights. It was a great night for me, beating him like that in front of my people, and it was a good night for me, too, with the money. That $125,000 was the biggest purse of my career to that point, and right away Eleta started talking about a potential rematch with Buchanan, maybe in Canada. I wasn’t bothered. Whichever guy Eleta found who was brave enough to fight me, I was going to kill him.

  After beating de Jesús, I went back to my house, where my mother-in-law threw a party for me, and we were up until five in the morning, drinking and partying. But around seven, a bunch of cops knocked on the door. I thought I was dreaming. They just knocked harder and harder until they eventually got me out of bed, hungover as hell. “Señor Torrijos wants you to go to Cuba,” one of the police captains told me.

  “Cuba? I haven’t even been paid for the fight yet.”

  “You’ll get paid when you get back.” The cops threw me in the shower, got me dressed, and put me on the presidential plane to Cuba.

  It all happened so quickly, I’d forgotten to take my passport, and before I knew it we’d landed in Cuba to be greeted by this big Cuban guy with an attitude. “Hey, Chico, where’s your passport? You need your passport or we’ll arrest you.”

  “I don’t give a shit”—I really didn’t. All I wanted to do was go back to bed.

  Finally, they took me to this barracks and there was Torrijos, sitting all alone at a long table. “My son!” he said, offering me a glass of whiskey I definitely didn’t want. “I want to introduce you to Castro. You’ll like him—he’s a boxing fan like me. We’ve got a lot in common.”

  In due course we ended up at this white castle, which looked like a museum but was actually Fidel Castro’s presidential residence. There I was shown his memorabilia, including some of the weapons he’d used when he came down from the mountains during the revolution.

  And then there was Castro, sitting next to Torrijos. Torrijos jumped up and shouted out for everyone to hear, “Durán, I would like you to meet Fidel!” I turned my back on him to put my drink down, which apparently you’re not supposed to do—another person would have shit in his pants and dropped his drink—but me, I turned my back on him and then I sized him up. Castro looked at me quizzically, cigar in mouth, as though he was thinking, No one has ever done that to me. Eventually, he shook my hand and we talked for a while.

  That night we went to a baseball stadium to see the Cuban heavyweight Teófilo Stevenson. They had seats for me at the front, but I went to the back, because if there was a shooting, the generals and their group were the ones who were going to get hit. This is typical of me—I always think the worst. But a henchman came over and said, “The Comandante wants you to sit with him,” so reluctantly I went and sat next to Castro.

  There had always been discussion of how Stevenson would fare against Muhammad Ali. He’d been considered the world’s premier amateur heavyweight after winning a gold medal in the Munich Olympics, but somehow he’d never managed to take the way Ali had. Tonight he was fighting some chump who weighed 147 pounds; somehow the guy was giving the great Olympian, who weighed close to 200 pounds, a beating through the first three rounds. And then all of a sudden the pelao seemed to get tired. Something wasn’t right.

  Midway through the third round, Castro turns to me, chomping on his cigar, and addresses me as a brother: “Oye, consorte, Cassius Clay and Stevenson—how do you see it going?”

  “Lo mata, jefe. Lo mata.” He’ll kill him, chief. He’ll kill him.

  “You mean Stevenson kills Cassius Clay?”

  “No, jefe. Cassius Clay kills Stevenson.”

  He looks at me again, chomping on his cigar.

  “Sir, do you know that Clay is on the way down?”

  “No, sir. You’re wrong. In his whole life Stevenson has never fought fifteen rounds. He’s only fought three- and four-rounders in the amateurs. And Ali can take a lot of shots—Stevenson won’t be able to knock him out. Ali has too much experience for him. Next to Ali, Stevenson looks like a little kid.”

  “Oye, consorte, how can you say that?” Fidel was amazed I hadn’t picked his guy. But I was a hundred percent right. Ali would have killed Stevenson if they’d ever fought.

  When I got back to Florida, where I was training at the time in Miami Beach, all the Cuban journalists descended on me, thinking I was buddy-buddy with Fidel. I understood how close Miami was to Cuba and how many Cuban exiles were there—and everywhere I went they asked me what it was like back there now and how a pelao like me could end up sitting next to Castro. I tried telling them what had happened, but no one believed me!

  To be honest, I couldn’t care less about politics or politicians—as far as I’m concerned, each is as bad as the other. So I told them: Whoever comes from Cuba to Panama, I am friends with them. Whoever comes from Cuba to Miami, I am friends with them. If Castro is a Communist, that’s his problem. I live my life.

  As it happened, my greatest friend was a Cuban: Victor del Corral, owner of Victor’s Café in Manhattan. He was like a father to me—a real father—and I loved him like the devil. And he treated me like his son, since he’d never had one of his own, only a daughter. I got to know him when I began fighting in New York, as I was always on the lookout for Latin food. It was just before I fought Huertas in 1971 that we first went to Victor’s Café, and my translator Flaco Bala introduced me to Victor: “He is going to be world champion one day.”

  “Have whatever you want,” Victor said. “On us.”

  His restaurant was on Seventy-first and Columbus Avenue, and since it opened in 1963 had become very famous. It was always packed with New Yorkers, people from Latin countries, and celebrities—stars like Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, and Michael Douglas—but I was always treated as a favorite. Every time I was in New York to fight, we’d work out at the gym until we were half dead and then head to Victor’s place. The bond between us lasted for the rest of our lives. Through good times and bad, he never deserted me. I can’t say that about everyone.

  THREE

  THE LION KING

  MY LOVE OF BOXING was second only to my other passion—music. Specifically, música típica from Panama, and salsa musi
c. I was a big fan of Rubén Blades. We’d met as teenagers when he was in a group called Bush y Sus Magníficos and playing at some club in Panama City—a mutual friend introduced us. I told him I loved music and would have been a singer if I could. He laughed and told me I sang as badly as he boxed, and he wasn’t wrong.

  The biggest influence on my musical life, though, was my brother Pototo. From when he was a kid, he’d be at clubs all night singing and I’d be waiting for him outside after he got paid in case something happened, like a fight. It was tricky: I wanted to watch his back, but I didn’t want to get arrested. Then we’d go out to eat, before bringing the money back for our mother. Plomo’s brother was a conga player: he’d shown Pototo how to play the congas, and from then on Pototo was the star. The idea of the band came from a friend who’d just been released from jail and wanted to get an orchestra together and wondered if I could help him financially. Sure, I told him, on the condition that my brother plays congas. “And if he’s no good,” I said, “then, fine, he’s gone.”

  And so we formed an orchestra, which also included one of my best friends, Marcos Guerrero, an excellent musician. I’d known him since we were pelaos growing up in El Chorrillo, and although we didn’t hang out together a lot, I’d occasionally run into him after he got involved in music and playing congas and percussion in local bands. It would be the start of a lifelong friendship.

  We named the group Los Mamalucos, Panamanian slang for “overalls.” I bought all the instruments—they cost $40,000, but it was worth it—we started practicing, and we added real quality by bringing in Camilo Azuquita, a singer who was very well known in Panama. We recorded an LP, Dos Campeones, Two Champions, which was well received and sold strongly. In 1975, I’d record my first album with Pototo’s other salsa band, doing vocals on several songs.

  Between my fights, we toured as much as we could—to Colombia, then back to New York, where I introduced the band to Victor—but the problem was, the guy, who’d been released from jail, was keeping most of the money for himself and giving the little that was left to the musicians. I didn’t care about the money because I was getting loaded from my fights, but it still made me mad, so I took the instruments away for a while. That seemed to do the trick.

  My trouble was that I was having too much fun, and by 1974 it was all too much of a distraction from training. I was twenty-five, and 135 pounds was a hard weight for me to hold as world champion with all the music and the partying. I was going to have to quit the music or I was going to have to find another way to keep my weight down, which was a drag. I didn’t have time to be world champion at 135 pounds!

  Despite these concerns, my boxing career was still going well, as I expected. After de Jesús, I breezed through five more fights, including my fifth defense of my WBA lightweight title against Masataka Takayama, knocking him out in the first round in San José, Costa Rica, in December 1974. I knew I had him even before we fought—it was easy, perhaps too easy. Two rights, he went down for the first time. Another right—boom!—he went down again. And then I finished him with a couple of hooks and another right to the head. It was over in a hundred seconds, after which I got right back to the good life. Takayama said I hit him without mercy, that I hurt him, and that he had no chance against all my punches. He was right on all counts.

  That was easy. Ray Lampkin was not. He was my second opponent of 1975—this time, in March—as I defended my WBA lightweight title in Panama City. I loved fighting there, of course, even though when I fought outside Panama, ABC would show the fights in my country—they brought in their satellite trucks and stayed at the Panama Hilton. It was all so new and exciting for my family.

  Lampkin coming from the United States to meet me on my home turf would give me an immediate advantage. He was a good prospect, coming in with a 29–3–1 record that included twelve knockouts. He had also lost to de Jesús twice, both in twelve rounds, and had won six straight fights since the last defeat by him, and also held the North American Boxing Federation lightweight title. But then he had to face me, at home, in front of my people, in an outdoor arena, hot and humid—all things that worked in my favor, so I didn’t lose too much sleep over it.

  Unfortunately, I realized too late that I was having a hard time making the weight. I was getting too big, and now that I was world champion and there were so many distractions, it was hard for me to stay disciplined. Cerveza. Comida. Beer. Food. With a week to go, I could still do it, but it was far from ideal: losing that much weight in such a short period of time takes it out of you. By the time the fight came around, I was ready, but I didn’t know what the cost would be.

  Lampkin thought he could beat me with his speed by throwing me off my timing. In the first round he stayed on the outside, knowing that if he got too close I would land one of my trademark hooks. He managed to connect with some rights to the body in the second, but he never hurt me, and I got some of my own shots in, as the people of Panama kept hollering and cheering me on. His punches weren’t hurting me, and even though my preparation had not been ideal, I still felt invincible.

  Minute by minute I kept the pressure on him and continued attacking. He did make it to the twelfth round, which made him the longest-lasting challenger of my career till then, so good for him, but he had a black eye and didn’t seem up for the fight. I knew he wouldn’t go the distance. Less than thirty seconds into the fourteenth round, I caught him with a hook flush on his jaw—bam! I fooled him with a flash of my hands and he covered up, thinking I was going to hit him with a right, but I tagged him with a left—Manos de Piedra right there. I knocked him out and he fell back and his head hit the canvas. He wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.

  It was when I went back to my corner, arms over my head for the crowd, who were singing my name, that I realized I’d hurt him badly. They carried him out on a stretcher, and he was having convulsions before he had even left ringside. The doctors had to give him oxygen in the dressing room. He was out for over an hour and ended up in the hospital for five days. His left leg was temporarily paralyzed and he was close to death. He was lucky I wasn’t in the best shape for that fight: if I had been, I would have knocked him out in six rounds. “Today I sent him to the hospital,” I said after the fight. “Next time I’ll put him in the morgue.” I can’t apologize for what happened: this is what we do—we’re boxers and these are the risks we take when we get in the ring. I knew that and Lampkin knew that, too.

  Only later did I find out he’d ended up in intensive care, where they’d given him all sorts of neurological and clinical tests. General Torrijos had even called to congratulate him for fighting well. I went to see him in the hospital, and one of the nurses said, “Oh, Señor Durán, Mr. Lampkin was in very bad shape. We had to save his life.” He couldn’t talk, couldn’t remember anything. When he finally woke up, though, he asked for coffee, and the only brand they had was one sold in Panama called Café Durán.

  “No, I don’t want Durán coffee!” he told the nurses. “Please, no!”

  His manager wanted a rematch as quickly as possible. Why? I have no idea, when even his own trainer was saying it would be four to six months before he’d be able to fight again. He went home to Portland in a wheelchair, his eyes still puffy from the beating. He needed to go to therapy every day and walk using those bars they have for rehabilitation. He had swelling at the back of his brain and his manager was talking about a rematch! His trainer was right: it was going to take a long time. He didn’t fight for another seven months, and he was never the same again after our fight. We never did have that rematch.

  For me, it was my forty-second knockout in fifty professional fights. I made $75,000 tax-free, plus training expenses. But I’d also reached the point where I could not make that weight anymore, which meant a conversation with Eleta. I was twenty-five now and my body was different—at least that’s what I told him. My natural weight was 152 pounds, which would make life difficult in the lightweight div
ision, where the limit was 135. Even when I was training hard I could barely make 140, the super-lightweight maximum. The truth was, the other reason I started to fight in higher weight classifications was that I needed the money to take care of my family and the heavier divisions paid more. Thank God everything worked out in the end, but first I had some business to take care of at lower weights.

  Two fights later, I traveled to Managua, Nicaragua, for a fight on August 2, 1975, against Pedro Mendoza—there they called him “El Toro,” The Bull. It was a non-title fight, light welterweights. A few days before the fight, a policeman showed up at the hotel and told me General Anastasio Somoza, the president, wanted to meet me. Somoza’s palace was nearby, and when I arrived, the general, who was a big guy—much bigger than me—didn’t even look at me. Then he said: “Durán, don’t kill El Toro.”

  “If I don’t kill him,” I said, “he’s going to kill me. If I don’t knock him out, he’s going to knock me out.” The general didn’t have much of an answer to that. I wasn’t going to back down for anyone—I didn’t care how important they were. My wife just laughed when I told her—“You’re crazy, Durán!”

  I came into the ring in a colorful robe and the Nicaraguans started taunting me, calling me a butterfly. La mariposa! La mariposa! Butterfly, my ass. I knocked the guy out two minutes into the first round. Immediately this drunk woman climbs into the ring and starts berating me—“I hate you! I hate you! You’re the worst person to visit Nicaragua!”—before falling on her face. The crowd thought I’d done it, went berserk, and tried to lynch me. I was lucky the police grabbed hold of me and escorted me to the dressing room before anyone could get near me. I got out of there as fast as I could and flew back to Panama the next morning, relieved to be out of that crazy place. I would never fight there again—never been back. Later I heard that the woman was Eleanora Baca, El Toro’s fiancée. All I know is, she was trying to hurt me—I didn’t want any trouble.