On 26 June 1972, 18,821 fans jammed into the Garden, paying $223,901, a new indoor record for lightweights. Bagpipes played the Scot into the ring, while the Panamanian contingent responded with drums. Duran came in at 132¼ pounds, with Buchanan at 133½. The champion had lost only once in forty-four bouts and was a 13-5 favourite, though many in the crowd hoped that the raw power of the young challenger, who had won twenty-four of his twenty-eight bouts inside the distance, would be enough to upset any odds. He also had Chaflan, whose presence in his eclectic attire screaming at Buchanan to “sacudele la minifalda” or take off the skirt, a reference to the Scottish kilt, was a pricless sight at ringside.
As they faced each other in the middle of the ring, Buchanan knew that this was no speedy, elusive Laguna in front of him. While Buchanan had to time Laguna, throw his jab a second earlier, while not worrying about his power, he had to be aware of Duran every second. Just seconds into the fight, he had his first test of the young man’s power. A right cross made him stumble and his glove grazed the canvas, causing referee Johnny LoBianco to rule it a knockdown, though many thought it was a slip. Later in a fierce first round, Buchanan landed a wild left hook that sent an off-balance Duran into the ropes.
The fight quickly became a free flow of elbows, uppercuts, knees and feints. Buchanan wasn’t handling the pace with much aplomb over the early rounds and his knees buckled in the fifth round from another Duran right hand. Later, Buchanan’s mouthpiece shot out of the ring from another straight right. “Laguna would stick and move and he was a survivor,” said Buchanan. “But Roberto was young and strong and was in there to make his mark … to be just like Ismael was when he was young. He would do everything, throw everything, until the referee told him to stop.” At times during the fight, as Buchanan later noted, it was almost as if Duran was trying to kick him. Few men would have been capable of withstanding such an onslaught as the challenger built a clear lead on all three cards over the first twelve rounds, but Buchanan stayed calm as Duran rushed in.
The fighters headed out for the thirteenth. Duran continued to charge forward, hurling a blizzard of leather at the beleaguered champion, but Buchanan was made of stern stuff. In the dying seconds of the round, he caught Duran with a decent right hand. As he followed up with a couple more straight punches, the bell rang. Neither fighter seemed to hear it as referee LoBianco moved in and grabbed Duran by the shoulders to pull him back. As he did so, Duran fired a low, almost casual right hand that hit Buchanan squarely on his protective cup.
Buchanan grabbed his groin, his face contorted in pain, then keeled over and rolled on the canvas. Later he would claim the punch was destined to arrive under his testicles, in an upward trajectory against which the cup offers less protection. Buchanan’s cornermen leapt into the ring and tended to him as the boxer squirmed in agony on the canvas. After about fifteen seconds, he was able to rise, still hunched in distress, and sat down on his corner stool. There, he was visited by referee LoBianco and the ringside doctor. After a few more seconds, LoBianco turned away from the corner and waved his arms in the air, as if to signal the bout was over. But no one seemed sure. As Buchanan’s cornermen protested, the Scot, his face battered and weeping blood, rose to his feet and said several times to the referee, “I’m okay, I’m okay,” though he was clearly still in pain.
Despite this, as the warning buzzer went off for the start of the fourteenth round, LoBianco walked across the ring to raise Duran’s arm in victory. Bedlam ensued, with Duran leaping into Eleta’s arms, a huge grin on his baby face, as his supporters skirted the edges of the ring.
The fiesta lit Panama and New York City until the sun rose. Boxing writer Papi Mendez described the scene in Panama as a mar de enthusiasmo, a sea of enthusiasm. In La Critica the headline read, “Buchanan received a beating like the one you get in the worst slums of New York.”
“I felt like I was King of the World,” recalled Duran. “I had avenged the loss of my idol Ismael Laguna. I wanted to come right back to Panama because I was in love with my wife and she was pregnant at the time.”
Going into that thirteenth round, the scoring was one-sided. Judge Bill Recht had the bout 9-2-1 for Duran, while LoBianco, 8-3-1, and Jack Gordon, 9-3, also gave it to the challenger. Two of the three officials forgot to score the last round. “I felt that I was doing okay going into the thirteenth round,” said Buchanan. “I didn’t feel I was losing the fight. I remember the commentary saying that I was cut under the left eye, and then when I came out for the fifth round, they changed and said, ‘Buchanan isn’t cut, the blood is coming from Duran’s nose.”
“He was an awkward fighter but I didn’t even have a bleeding nose; it was his nose that was bleeding. If they had given me a few minutes to recover I could have continued. LoBianco didn’t want to know, he just saw a chance to stop the fight and that was it. I didn’t know why Duran wasn’t disqualified. LoBianco was in the ring, number one man, and he just took it upon himself to do what he did. As far as I was concerned he was paid to do a job and he done it, so he goes for the money. And the proof is in the pudding. He should have went to the judges, and said to them, ‘Did you see what happened there?’ If LoBianco had went to talk to them, then I would still be champion.”
Originally, Clancy wanted Buchanan to pace himself, hoping that Duran would punch himself into exhaustion. The punches kept coming as if Plomo recharged Duran’s battery between each round. Some fights can be blamed on a trainer’s strategy, but this had nothing to do with Buchanan’s corner, and all to do with Duran.
“First of all Duran hit about four times harder than Laguna,” said cornerman Gil Clancy. “He was really nailing Kenny with some pretty good shots. It was partially my fault that Kenny lost that fight, because Roberto was knocking everybody out early and I figured if my guy could get him into the last six rounds of the fight that Duran would be tired and Buchanan could take over. I was dead wrong. The guy had so much energy you can’t believe. Buchanan’s best round was the round before, and then after he got hit low it was all over. Some people thought it was a knee Duran hit him with.”
Instead of utilizing Buchanan’s strengths, the idea was to wait for Duran’s weakness, one that never surfaced. The Buchanan camp thought Duran couldn’t go fifteen rounds because he’d never had to. The strategy involved risk, but they had no choice. How else could he have fended off Duran? A trainer had to work with the skills in front of him, and although Buchanan was a slick boxer, he wasn’t going to overwhelm Duran with quickness, the type of plan that occasionally gave Duran fits.
After the punch, boxing people had their opinions. Former light-heavy champ Jose Torres revealed his theory. “When you know your man is badly hurt, no matter how many punches you throw, you cannot get tired. Tiredness is mostly psychological, so when you are kicking the shit out of the guy you do not get tired. When you see a fighter get hit low and go down and start screaming, he is losing the fight. If you are winning the fight and you get hit low a hundred times, you don’t go down a hundred times. You kick the shit out the guy, but if you are losing you stay down, unconsciously. The cup protects you a hundred percent, you have to be punched from under the leg.”
Reality set in for all involved. “He did hit him low and there was no question about that, but LoBianco never called it a low blow or anything else,” said Clancy. “No time out or five-minute rest, nothing. The best they could have done, if Kenny did have a protective cup on, was give him a five-minute rest period and let the fight continue. Again, Kenny was way behind in points. The only way he could have won the fight was by a late knockout. There wasn’t a big controversy after the fight.”
Covering the fight at the time, Bert Sugar concurred with Clancy: “LoBianco caught shit, mostly from the Buchanan followers. [Buchanan] was going nowhere. He was a very slick, good fighter but he was no match for Duran. In the thirteenth round Buchanan got the shit kicked out him. LoBianco didn’t see the punch that ended the round. I can still see Buchanan melting on the
ropes. I clutched my cojones.”
For Buchanan, the pain would never subside as he was holed up in a Scotland hospital for ten days following the bout. “The referee let Duran hit me anywhere he wanted,” said Buchanan. “In the thirteenth round, LoBianco has a hold of Duran and a hold of me, and when the referee touches you, you have to stop. But Duran never did. Bang! He hit me. But he never hit me straight on … at one point his hands were like ten inches off the ground. Next thing that happens, he hits me right up there and busts a vein in my right testicle.”
LoBianco could have disqualified Duran; he could have declared Buchanan unable to continue and ruled the bout a “no contest”; he could have given the champion time to recover, warned the challenger, then allowed them to continue. Instead he declared Duran the winner because he had not seen the low blow and felt Buchanan was in too bad a state to continue. With a relatively muted protest from Buchanan’s corner, LoBianco’s ruling stood. “A lot of people who said that if Buchanan had the right corner Duran would have been disqualified,” said promoter and matchmaker Don Elbaum. “I know if I had Buchanan, I would have gone nuts. I would have been fighting that.”
Others, like Philadelphia promoter J. Russell Peltz, rubbished the various excuses. “I don’t understand all the Buchanan stuff that’s come up. He was getting his ass kicked when Duran hit him. It was a low blow, but if he got up he would have just got beaten even more.”
Most fighters lack impartiality when it comes to analyzing a poor performance. They all got screwed at one point in their careers. It is hard to deny the fact that Buchanan was in dire need of a knockout if he was keeping his crown. Even if Buchanan shook off the pain and continued, he was in there with a fighter not willing to give him a break. While fighters keep a running tab and decide when their lead is big enough to stay away from their opponent in the late rounds, Duran rarely exhibited such reticence. As “cute” as some experts felt he was as a defensive fighter, Duran came forward all the time. While other fighters used their feet to get away from danger, Duran always went toward his foe or cut off the ring, trusting his instincts to steer him clear of trouble. Often he would throw a right hand or a left hook, go with it, then force his way inside, clinching and locking his opponent’s arms. That way, nothing would come in return.
No single punch in Duran’s career would cause so much animated discussion. No previous Duran punch landed with so much on the line. In fact, the only punches that would place Duran under such scrutiny were ones he didn’t throw a decade later in New Orleans.
“We talked one night at his hotel [in England] into the small hours,” said Buchanan. “I told him that after I fought him, I became European champ and I was boxing in Italy when I got poked in the eye by the referee. Roberto started laughing. I asked him why. ‘Ken hasn’t been very lucky in boxing, between the referee sticking his finger in your eye and me punching him up the balls,’ Duran said to me.
“I told him, ‘I got you! I got you!’ Even today the liquid doesn’t get up that way and it stops and I still get a pain there every time I go to the bathroom. I’ll have that until the day I die. I told Roberto, ‘I’ll never forget you. Every time I take a piss I’ll think of you.’ Over the years you mellow, but there are times when I feel a wee bit like, what would have happened? You know, Carlos Eleta bought that fight. It never cost Madison Square Garden to pay me because Eleta put the money up. He was a millionaire. You know the old song, ‘Money talks, but it don’t sing or dance.’ He brought in the referee. I was really annoyed with Madison Square Garden and the referee because he wasn’t competent. He shouldn’t have been in there, it should have been Arthur Mercante or someone like that.”
Eleta appeared to want nothing to do with Buchanan after New York. Few believed that Duran feared any fighter, but he had little say over who his next opponent would be. “Duran never, ever wanted to fight me again,” said the Scot. “I tried to get the rematch … but there was no chance, nothing. I think Eleta knew a wee bit more and thought, this Ken Buchanan is better than we thought he was, so let’s stay away from him. For years there was an anger because I never got my shot. I would have given him a shot, why didn’t he do it for me? But I never blamed Roberto. I tend to think Duran wanted to fight me again, but Eleta didn’t want it to happen. He faced Hagler, and fought them all. I think he would have fought me anywhere, anytime.”
After the fight, Eleta told a reporter, “We would be willing to give Buchanan a return bout any time.” However, he had a way of placating people at the time, then backtracking when he felt pressured. Years later, he claimed, “Omar Torrijos wouldn’t allow the rematch with Buchanan. He told me, ‘Carlos, don’t make that fight. Don’t trust another fight with him in the States.’ He told me that the first defense had to be in Panama. Buchanan wouldn’t fight in Panama, so it was cancelled.”
Despite the recriminations and the bitterness that lingers in Buchanan, Roberto Duran no longer haunts him. Late-night pisses bring back memories, but he no longer boils over with frustration. Still, when so many people remember, it’s hard to forget. “I was no longer world champion and I was beginning to see how corrupt the sport was. It left a sour taste in my mouth,” said Buchanan. “But that was boxing and you take the good with the bad.”
New York State Athletic Commission physician Dr A. Harry Klieman reported that his examination of Buchanan showed “fluid on the testicles.” Buchanan returned to Scotland and a hospital in Edinburgh, where he was treated for swollen testicles and bruised kidneys, then flew to the Mediterranean island of Majorca for a restorative holiday with his wife and young son. At the same time, he vowed to return to New York and train harder than ever against “real rough and tumble boys” in a bid to regain his crown. “If Duran wants to repeat his kind of fight, then I too will throw the kind of punches that aren’t in the book,” he promised.
7
The Left Hook
“Violence is terribly seductive; all of us, especially males, are trained to gaze upon violence until it becomes beautiful.”
Martín Espada, Puerto Rican poet
THE LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION has a long and colorful pedigree. It can be traced back to the end of the eighteenth century, to the days of bareknuckle pugilism, when men fought to the finish in illegal or quasi-legal contests held at secret locations. Various boxers from Great Britain and the United States, the two hotbeds of the sport, claimed the “world” title after the adoption of the Queensberry Rules late in the nineteenth century, but the first man who seems to have been recognized as champion on both sides of the Atlantic was one George “Kid” Lavigne after he knocked out England’s Dick Burge in seventeen rounds at the National Sporting Club, London, in 1896. At that time the weight limit for the division was 133 pounds, but it would eventually settle at 135 pounds.
The most notable early champion was the wonderful Joe Gans, the “Old Master,” who in the pre-First World War period combined form and power, stamina and technique, in a manner rarely seen before or since. His three bouts against Battling Nelson, an imperishable Scandinavian known as the “Durable Dane,” were among the most terrible in history; one went forty-two rounds before the bloodied Nelson was disqualified for a low blow. Gans died in 1910, his slender body ravaged by tuberculosis.
The Twenties brought more gifted fighters like Freddie Welsh, Lew Tendler, Charley White and, above all, the peerless Benny Leonard, a New York Jew of matchless guile and execution. Leonard inspired a generation of boxers from the crowded tenements of America’s biggest cities and deeply influenced trainers such as Ray Arcel. The Thirties saw a great triumvirate of box-fighters, Tony Canzoneri, Barney Ross and Lou Ambers, and the relentless Henry Armstrong, a one-man army who once held world titles at three weights simultaneously, a feat unlikely to ever be repeated. Ike Williams, Jimmy Carter and Joe Brown, talented black Americans who could box and punch, ruled the Forties and Fifties. Latin fighters then became the dominant force in the division with the arrival of Carlos Ortiz in 1962.
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p; Indeed, by the time of Roberto Durán’s ascencion, non-US boxers topped not just the lightweight division. With the exception of Joe Frazier at heavyweight and Bob Foster at light-heavyweight, every single champion was from either Central or South America or the Far East. Great fighters like Argentina’s Carlos Monzon and the Cuban-Mexican Jose Napoles were regarded as the best, pound-for-pound, in the sport and, odd as it may seem to those who now look back on the Seventies as a golden time for heavyweights, the bellwether division was moribund. Champion Joe Frazier was much maligned for defending against no-hopers and only the no-longer-youthful Muhammad Ali brought color to the division.
Panamanian boxing not only benefited from this boom, but was about to become an unlikely arbiter in the sport worldwide. It now had two champions, Duran and Alfonso “Peppermint” Frazer, and would soon have two more, bantamweight Enrique Pinder and former Duran conquest Ernesto Marcel. For a country of only 1,600,000 people, fewer than most major cities, this was a remarkable achievement. The most important development had been the political takeover of Omar Herrera Torrijos, an ambitious army officer and keen advocate of the national sport, after a coup in October 1968. Torrijos ousted the right-wing nationalist president, Arnulfo Arias, won an internecine power struggle with his co-conspirators, and emerged as sole dictator. He pitched himself as the first ruler to represent the majority of the people, who were poor, Spanish-speaking and of mixed indigenous, Hispanic and African descent, as opposed to the rabiblancos or “white-tails,” the light-skinned social elite who lived in Panama City and dominated commercial and political life. He instituted wide-ranging reforms aimed at the middle and lower classes, opened schools and redistributed agricultural land. He also suspended democratic institutions and persecuted the wealthiest families, as well as independent student and labor leaders who opposed his rule. Boxing and physical fitness were encouraged and given state funding.
Hands of Stone Page 11
