Another witness was Victorino Vargas, Duran’s stepfather. “When Duran fought with Chicha Fuerte Ruiz, he made a cut on his face,” said Vargas. “I advised him not to go on fighting in the street because he was a boxer already. He could be facing a judicial claim. So he stopped his street fights then.”
Along with the resistance Duran felt he was receiving from the sport’s bigwigs, a controversy had developed with Plomo. After losing in the Golden Gloves final to Maynard, Duran was scheduled to face one of Panama’s most skilled boxers, Catalino Alvarado. Plomo felt his inexperienced fighter could first use a tune-up against a lesser boxer but Duran disagreed, sparking the first rift between the pair. Duran was stubborn as a mule when his mind was made up, so Plomo refused to handle him for the bout.
“I was fighting Catalino Alvarado from Maranon Gym, a very good boxer,” said Duran. “Out of all the boxers I was the best and the fight was on, but Plomo didn’t want to put me into the ring because he thought Catalino was way too good and would knock me out. “There is a guy named Sammy Medina who comes into the ring [to help me]. The way I beat [Alvarado] is that I could see the punches coming. I would telegraph them and just block them. Medina says to Plomo, ‘Look what your guy did in the ring, and you didn’t even want to put him in there.’ And Plomo tells him that he just didn’t want his guy to get hurt. After that there were several months that I wouldn’t train with Plomo and went to Medina. After about four months I returned to Plomo because Medina was never at the gym to train me.”
Plomo remembered it differently: “When Roberto was still fighting at 106 pounds, Catalino was a much developed boxer, weighing 112 pounds. Duran once asked me to set a fight with Catalino, but I told him that since he had not been training enough, he could not do it. But he insisted, so we organized the fight, which Duran finally won. Since he was a child, Duran had shown that when he had decided something he would always get it. When he wanted to win a fight, he would do it.”
Duran still hadn’t shown the aggression and power that would later define him, but that was about to change, as jockey Alfredo “La Seda” Vasquez began to manage his career and help him financially. Vasquez encouraged him to rely less on his ability to move and box, and more on his punch. It worked against an opponent named Buenaventura Riasco. Each boxing club had to send a fighter to represent it in a tournament and from them a selection would represent Panama City and face off against the boxers from various provinces. The winner would be Panama’s national amateur champion. After completing the elimination rounds, Duran and Riasco were thrown together to compete in the 118-pound division. Panamanian fans took a keen interest in the amateurs, and this particular match promised fireworks.
“Buenaventura Riasco was a very good amateur,” said Duran. “We were about to have a fight, but there was a rumor going around that Carlos Eleta was going to become the manager of Riasco and he was coming to the bout to see how good Riasco really was. I said, ‘Let Eleta come, because I’m going to knock you out.’”
Carlos Eleta was Panama’s leading business magnate and was expanding his considerable interests into boxing. Unlike Vasquez the jockey, he had vast wealth, political clout and a keen mind for closing a deal. Eleta’s presence on fight night often meant that he wanted something and now he had his eye on Riasco, a seasoned amateur. It was rare that Eleta did not get what he wanted.
“Riasco’s brother said, ‘We’re going to knock you out,’ and right away there was some turbulence at the weigh-in,” said Duran. “Then Plomo tells Riasco, ‘You see the corner right there. That’s where we are going to knock you out.’ When the bell rings, Riasco jumps on me right away, and starts hitting me with everything that he has. The second round he breaks my nose, and I go back and tell Plomo that I can’t hit this guy because everything I throw he’s dodging it. The guy came from a very good boxing clinic; he could avoid all punches.”
Duran had learned a few tricks of his own. “I tell Plomo that I’m going to get him now,” said Duran. “He was standing there with his right hand forward and his left hand back. I fake Riasco out and the guy comes in, and opens up a little bit. When he does this, I hit him with a right uppercut. The uppercut had so much strength behind it that he falls over the top rope right in the corner where Plomo said I would knock him out. We were fighting for a club championship that day and you could have counted to a thousand and he wouldn’t have gotten up. It was such a good fight that the gym was packed and during that time the amateur fights drew more than the professionals.”
It was an unforgettable encounter that made waves among the local reporters. “During this great fight, Buenaventura Riasco was leading at the beginning because Duran was a bit anxious,” said Plomo. “Duran was not afraid; it was not fear. As it happens, the very nervous system sometimes fails. At the end, when there was only one round left, I went up to Duran and told him that if he wanted to win he had to use his right hand. So during the third round, Duran hit hard with his right hand and sent Riasco to the corner, at the very corner I had told Riasco he was going to end up.
“It was a great night, as if God had enlightened us. I was really moved. Well, to be a good trainer you also need the capacity to be moved, so as to be able to strengthen your boxer. I believe this is my special gift that I am able to be touched, and to feel that I am also fighting. So, I am able to feel anything that happens to my boxer, to communicate with him with my mind if he fails in any way, and to tell him what to do.”
Many who witnessed the bout felt that the Riasco knockout was the defining moment when Duran switched from being a boxer-puncher to an insouciant brawler, throwing punches at anything that moved. Though the businessman Carlos Eleta was nowhere to be seen, Duran had sent a clear message: “When I knocked him out I pointed to the corner, and said, ‘There’s your shit, where’s Eleta now?’”
ONE THING about Duran, he could punch. “I remember when Roberto hit this kid with a shot to the chest and it was thought that he nearly killed the guy,” wrote Papi Mendez of La Critica. He loved to have confirmation of his fuerza, his force, and would even test it on family members. “I would not get into the ring with him, just to prevent my getting hit by him,” said his stepfather, Victorino. “Once he was training at El Maranon when I got there. I was standing close to ringside and he got down and while walking past me he gave me a strong blow. And then he asked me, ‘Was it a strong blow? Was it strong?’”
Many wondered where the power came from. Some claimed he inherited his thunderous right hand from his uncle Socrates Garcia from Guarare, who could break coconuts with his fists. “Socrates was my cousin,” said Clara. “He used to fight a lot. Once we were in Guarare and my cousin was angry. He then saw a horse and decided to hit him. He struck him so hard that the horse was stunned.”
Margarito, Duran’s father, was another large man with a big punch. Others claimed that his grandfather, Felix Moreno, who was hacked to death by his own cousin, was the toughest family member. And whenever the name of Duran’s redoubtable grandmother, Ceferina Garcia, was raised, every family member would exclaim, “She hit very hard!”
“My mother was in jail for eight days for having hit Guarare’s mayor,” said Duran’s aunt Mireya. “She knocked him down. She had problems with a policeman called Celso. She was taken to the town hall and the mayor came to talk to her. She was a woman with a very strong personality and she knocked him down with a strong fist punch. After this the mayor sent her to jail for eight days. At that time there was a sub-lieutenant called Ireni Caballero. He would come to the cell and, pressing a spoon on the bars, would say, ‘Bad woman, you knocked the mayor down.’ But she had just given birth to Joaquin, and at that time it was forbidden to put in jail women who had to breastfeed. When the mayor discovered this, he set her free. That woman certainly hit very hard.
“Her father was called Felix Moreno and he was also a very strong man. This great-grandfather of Roberto’s was killed by a cousin of his. That happened one day when he was returning after ha
ving killed a cow. He was carrying the meat, and his cousin waited for him on the road and asked him to have a drink with him. He answered that since it was early in the morning, he did not want to drink. In that very moment he killed him, opening the head of Roberto’s great-grandfather with a machete. He fell down injured and crawled to the farm of my grandmother Juana. He only had time to ask for some salt before dying. You may imagine how strong he was to have been able to crawl all the distance. It seems that this resistance is something that runs in the family.” Clara agreed: “Roberto inherited his power from his great-grandfather. Felix Moreno was so strong that he could kill a man with one punch.”
Wherever his power came from, the win over Riasco confirmed Duran’s potential. “They carried me on top of their shoulders and everyone was yelling,” said Duran. “All this time, some fag back there is grabbing my ass. The more packed it was inside the gym, the more we got paid for the fight. Sometimes we got paid four or five dollars. Plomo would take his share and whatever I had left I would run home and give it to my mom for food.”
His next goal was the Pan-American Games, due to be held in Winnipeg, Canada in July 1967. Duran was almost a guarantee to make the team for the tournament in the fifty-one-kilo division. Wins over Alvarado and Riasco had cemented his position as a top prospect, and in 1967 he represented Club Cincuentenario in an elimination tournament that began outside the city in Penonome. However, amateur boxing was riddled with politics, and forces outside Duran’s control conspired against him.
“In that time the military was in control,” said Duran. “There was a doctor for the amateur boxers and he took care of all of us. There was a very good boxer and the doctor was his manager. That kid had more shots and vitamins than anything. Already at that time, my mindset – I was too smart – was that of a professional. Three days before a fight, I’m painting at a hotel that I worked at and I go into a restaurant to eat lunch. They gave me this tortilla, which is a traditional food made of corn, but they were spraying this spray for fleas and it had fallen on my food. I ate it and drank Coke, and I got real sick because of it. I was sick and before the fight the doctor would not give me an exam.
“I was sad because I wanted to go to Winnipeg. I had a bad fever, and I was sleeping in the deposit downstairs of the hotel. Plomo found me and had me drink an Alka-Seltzer. I drank it and the next day I woke up like a bull. I go tell Plomo that the fight’s on. The doctor thought his fighter was going to knock me out, but I gave the kid so many punches that I almost killed him. I fought the next day and the following day, and after those three days I was happier than shit because I was finally going to go to Winnipeg.”
Duran had few influential connections in the sport, relying as he did on Plomo, but had earned the right to compete with his performance during the elimination round of the Panamanian boxing competition, beating Enrique Warren among others. However, Jorge Maynard’s brother Roberto stood in his path. “At that time there was a military leader called [Jorge] Arauz, who did not like us because we were from the Cincuentenario Club,” recalled Plomo. “He would try to have everything accepted without meetings, just through decrees. Maynard used to fight very well then and was experienced. Arauz sent him and another boxer to fight with Duran so as to rule him out. In the fight against Enrique Warren, Duran destroyed both Warren’s eardrums. Then the fight against Maynard was set.
“Maynard did not turn up because of heavy rain, so we set it for the following week. But Maynard failed to come again. He had got frightened. This situation turned Duran into the winner. Once we had got everything ready for the trip, Arauz said Duran had no experience and did not allow his participation. He is a bad guy. And he decided to take Maynard. If it had been Duran, we would have returned with a medal because he was a skilled boxer and had shown his capacity. He had won many titles and was a very good boxer. But because of this man’s badness, he was not allowed to win this title. Duran was very hurt because of this.”
Duran remembered, “I’m on my way and I’m going to go there and meet people. Then Maynard shows up with Jorge Arauz and I’m there with Plomo. Maynard and them never showed up at the gym to fight. The talks heated up because Arauz says, ‘This guy ain’t going nowhere.’ After an hour of discussions, the lieutenant tells me ‘shut up’ or he’ll throw me in jail. I told him to chill and shut up. The point is that I don’t go and they send Maynard instead of me. Maynard gets knocked out in the first round [of the Pan-American Games]. I go home really sad.”
As a result of the injustice, the boxing community rallied behind the young fighter. Trainers from several gyms protested the decision and were backed by the director-general of the Department of Physical Education and Sport, to no avail. Duran took out his frustrations on the few amateurs still willing to enter the ring with him. Having grown into a featherweight, he beat Antonio Ballestas by unanimous decision in January 1968, and then Jose Villalba on February 11, knocking him down three times and out in the second round. Villalba was Duran’s last amateur opponent. With a 29-3 record (some sources have it as 13-3 or 18-3), he moved on.
“Duran told me he would not go on boxing, for he had won all fights and there was no boxer left he could fight with,” said Plomo. “He told me he would devote his time to help his uncle, who lived and worked at the Roosevelt Hotel. Duran said he would help him cleaning and painting, so he would have money to take to his mother. Duran had always helped his mother, since he was a little boy he had liked to get some money for his mother. So I agreed.”
The intermission would be brief. One day, Plomo offered him what was then a substantial purse to get into the ring, and the little kid from Chorillo would never go hungry again. “I’m painting the outside of the window,” said Duran. “I was making one dollar fifty cents a day painting and Plomo comes running in and says, ‘Duran, you want twenty-five dollars to fight, win, lose or draw?’ I tell him, ‘Who do I have to kill?’ He tells me it’s a four-round fight in Colon with a guy who never wanted to get in the ring with me before in amateurs or the pros named Carlos Mendoza. I hadn’t done any conditioning for the fight, but I said, ‘Let’s go.’”
Mendoza, from Chiriqui, was no pushover and would go on to have a fine career, culminating in a world title challenge. While the bout has since been listed by some sources as Mendoza’s debut, Plomo claimed he had already had three pro fights and this was backed up by newspaper reports. “I heard they needed an opponent,” said Plomo. “I knew Mendoza was afraid of Duran, but I told [his manager] that I had a boxer called Roberto Duran. He was painting the day I looked for him. I told him to get down because he was going to be a professional. At the time he wanted to retire from the amateurs and I was offered a fight at his weight. He came down and became a pro at sixteen.”
Duran ran into a problem right before fight time when a bad sore on his hand worsened considerably. “You could see the actual bone in my hand,” said Duran. “The doctor examines me and sees that I have an open sore, and tells me I can’t fight. I tell him, ‘Please let me fight, I need the money for my mom so we can eat.’ I beat Mendoza real bad, with sore and all. That’s how I jumped into the professionals.”
Duran signed the contract on a Monday, trained for two days and boxed on the Friday evening, 23 February 1968, in the Arena de Colon. Before his debut, Duran and Plomo met at Galicia Restaurant, where Plomo’s friend gave the young boxer his first pre-fight meal. It became a ritual. “At Galicia, I would order a salad and a beefsteak or chicken for Duran. No pasta or rice. This is what Duran would eat every day until the day of the fight,” said Plomo. “We received the tickets to go to Colon, traveled there, and got there with 118 pounds. I was very strict on his diet, and whenever I would tell him not to eat or drink something, he would always restrain. This is one of the things that helped us to win. He always did what I told him, so we never failed while he complied with my requests.
“Before the fight they were betting and shouting, ‘Mendoza, Mendoza.’ Nobody knew Duran then. But when the f
ight started, Duran did not give him the smallest chance to get close to him. He kept hitting him, down and up and down again. During four rounds, Duran hit him so badly that poor Mendoza was not able to do anything. Duran won by unanimous decision.”
Boxing writer Papi Mendez had invited the businessman Carlos Eleta along to “see Duran with his own eyes.” Knowing that Colon was the hotbed of boxing, Duran was considering moving there. However, first he had to decide who would manage his career. Although Duran had met Eleta through his street friend Chaflan, many claim that Papi Mendez was the real mediator between them. It was not unusual for boxing writers to act as fixers and on several occasions in his newspaper column Mendez would take credit for acquainting the pair. Their partnership would change the course of boxing history.
3
Papa Eleta
I do not live here to retrieve or multiply what my father lost or gained.
Jorge Luis Borges, Remorse
STANDING AT A window on his vast estate one day in 1963, Carlos Eleta saw a small boy knocking coconuts from a tree. Roberto Duran, then aged twelve, had perfected the art of stealing fruit and Eleta’s compound suited him well. More amused than angered, Eleta went outside and caught him. But instead of scolding the intruder and sending him away, he brought him inside and gave him lunch. He never thought that he would see the boy again. “My first impression of Roberto was this twelve-year-old stealing coconuts,” recalled Eleta. “I grab him and he is so funny that I invite him inside. I didn’t see him again until two or three years later in Colon.”
Hands of Stone Page 5
