Duran was noted for sparring hard, and he broke the nose of sparring partner Mike “Youngblood” Williams, the undefeated middleweight from Philadelphia. He then decided to break in another young prospect, Jorge “Kid Dynamite” Morales, a DeJesus acolyte. What started out as a training session quickly turned into fisticuffs.
“Well, Dinamita Morales is Puerto Rican,” said Plomo. “We started training in Los Angeles, and while we were there at the gym, Dinamita always wanted to train with Duran. He would ask him to fight against him every day, provoking him. One day, when there was no one who could train with Duran, Dinamita was there and started to provoke him again. Dinamita’s father was also there and he started saying, ‘Can you see, Dinamita, he is afraid, because he knows Puerto Ricans are stronger than Panamanians.’ So Duran told me he was going to train with him, if that was okay with me, and I agreed.
“He hit Dinamita so strongly that one felt sorry for him. Even his father came up to the ring, trying to stop the fight. I told him to go away, but since he refused I kicked him and hurt his eyebrow. They claimed it was Duran who had hit him, and put him to trial. In the end, he was made to pay thirty thousand dollars, despite the fact that I had been the one who had injured him. I always take good care of my boxers. If anyone wants to start a problem with one of them, I am ready to defend him.”
Promoter Don Chargin had walked into the gym moments after the incident. “They had known each other before and there was a problem with the workouts and there was an argument in the gym. You know how everybody, when they boxed with Duran, would try to work a little harder because he was a mean guy. Even in the gym he was like that. One thing led to another and I think they threw a couple punches after that. His father came up to the ring too, but it wasn’t anything real bad,” said Chargin.
Though promoting the fight as the “Combat Zone,” Don King was not pleased at Duran’s involvement in the unscripted spat. “He could have been injured seriously,” King told Sports Illustrated. “What else can happen before this fight? It was a job just to get the managers of the fighters to even think about a match. They had fought twice and neither wanted to fight a third time. First, I convinced DeJesus. But the hard part was convincing Eleta. Then, when we did agree, trying to find a site that pleased him was impossible. One place was too cold; the next was too hot. A third place, somewhere in Africa, was okay, but then Eleta didn’t think he could get Duran’s money out. He finally said yes to Las Vegas.”
The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner profiled Duran the week before the bout. The report would not have made pleasant reading for DeJesus and his camp:
A speed bag in the Main Street gym, shattered by the lightweight champion’s brutality, had to be replaced. So did a sparring partner for much the same reason.
Sylvester Stallone, the Oscar winner who is filming across the street, spends most every lunch break at 318½ So. Main. So do scores of others. Some bring cameras. They have been drawn to the gymnasium by a Panamanian prizefighter who took the nickname of Rocky because guys named Graziano and Marciano made it fashionable.
He is Roberto Duran, the WBA lightweight title holder of five and a half years, who exudes a sort of animalism like perhaps no other fighter. You get an insight into Duran’s feral ring style while watching him in the gym. He remains a destroyer because he works at it. Savagery is his business.
The reporter interviewed sparring partner Youngblood, who had been sent for because “he can’t hurt me”; Youngblood was two stones heavier than Duran. “The man is one of a kind,” he said. “If he sparred with anybody his own size in the gym, he would knock ’em dead. Duran is a nice person outside the ring. But when you work with him, it’s like working with an animal. I think one reason he’s so vicious in the ring is because he takes fighting so seriously. He’s not like any American fighter I’ve seen. His work is like a crusade.”
Duran clearly enjoyed his training sessions and played to the crowd, pummeling Youngblood, cursing and growling at the heavy bag, then punching the speed bag into a blur before battering it with his head – an exercise, he claimed, to strengthen his neck muscles. “He concludes his routine with rope jumping,” said the Examiner. “It, too, is accentuated by savage sounds. He has the rope going so swiftly at one point it seems he is only rocking back and forth on his feet. The rope somehow passes under.”
Duran’s friend and longtime aide-de-camp Luis Henriquez related the story of a meeting Duran had had a couple of years before with General Torrijos. The Central American strongman wanted Duran to pose for a joke photograph while stretched on the floor, to look as though the general had kayoed him. Duran politely refused. Lying down was one thing he wouldn’t do in jest, even for the dictator. “He seems to look on the arena as a place to kill or be killed,” added Henriquez, “and he is not about to get killed.” Life had made Duran that way. In classic Duran style, he told a reporter that if DeJesus got up this time, he would send him right back down. He meant it.
First, though, he had to deal with the brujos again. Duran’s fear of witches and wizards had been instilled by his mother, who would suggest her own counter-measures to evil spells. “We’re standing in the ring before the fight trying to choose a corner,” said Eleta. “There were lights in the one corner and it would have made Roberto too hot during the fight, so we picked the other one. But that was not good for Roberto because ‘the brujos told him to change corners.’ I told him that I talked with the witches and they said it was okay. He believed in that stuff. That was Roberto.”
The Caesar’s Palace Sports Pavilion sold out for the fight, which was telecast by CBS. On January 21, 1978, the Hollywood stars came out. In one ringside seat was Sylvester Stallone, while not far away was the Chairman of the Board himself, Frank Sinatra. “Sinatra used to invite him to his suite at the end of the matches,” said Plomo. “There were many movie actors that used to invite him. Had Duran been a North American boxer, he would still be a rich man. Americans know how to value what is worth giving value.” Sinatra wasn’t a Duran favorite; he once gave the legendary crooner a pair of gloves and Sinatra looked at them and just threw them to one side. Olympic gold medalist Sugar Ray Leonard was also at ringside, already assessing Duran as a future opponent.
DeJesus trained until the final day before the fight due to weight problems. Duran made $250,000 to DeJesus’s $150,000. For bettors, Duran went from a 2-1 to a 7-5 favorite before the fight. Both fighters struggled to make the lightweight limit, though DeJesus finally came in a full pound under it. They clashed at the weigh-in, with DeJesus jibing in Spanish, “You’re too weak at that weight. I’m going to murder you.” Scuffling broke out between their handlers and Don King’s frustrations rose to his hair’s height.
“With the Puerto Ricans we started a great fight,” said Plomo. “An uncle of Duran’s, a very heavy man, a logger [fought]. It was a very big fight, and four Puerto Ricans fell down. Esteban tried to deceive Duran, but Duran reacted at once and only touched him, and Esteban fell on a chair. Duran told him he’d rather restrain them, for he was going to get him that night during the fight. The only person who got hurt was Duran’s uncle, who was beaten by four of them. Duran told him that he was going to beat him badly that night, and it was not a lie.”
In the six years since he lost that first fight to DeJesus, Duran had convinced himself that no one would beat him. Consequently, no one did. “I didn’t respect anybody,” Duran said. “Boxing to me was a joke, I didn’t give a damn about boxing. The third time I fought with DeJesus, I caught him and began to understand his style. I learned it when DeJesus fought Antonio Cervantes. When Pambele boxed DeJesus he didn’t know what to do. A lot of Panamanians were in favor of DeJesus and I was even in his corner. When I saw that Pambele started to box him, I said, ‘Look, there is DeJesus’ defect.’ He lost, time goes by and then he wins the title from Ishimatsu.
“I find him in Miami training for a fight and he is putting wraps on his hand. You could tell he was having trouble with the weigh
t, to the point where he didn’t even want to talk. He was having a terrible time. When a man’s hungry he doesn’t have any strength. I tell Plomo that this guy is passing Cain and Abel. When I get the third fight I knew I had to box him. DeJesus gets these witches and they come up to me and ask, ‘What’s going to happen when DeJesus knocks you out?’ I tell the woman that I’m going to knock the hell out of DeJesus. He’s not man enough to knock me out. I’m going to knock him out with all of his witchcraft. I told him that I could even knock him out if I was drunk.”
They stood across from each other for the last time. They had shared an ongoing dialogue in the argot of the streets but now it was no longer about Puerto Rico and Panama anymore, just two fabulous boxers who dominated a division they were both outgrowing. Duran kept his distance at the opening bell, jabbing and moving away from that familiar left hook. DeJesus also hesitated to engage. Neither fighter wanted to rush to battle.
The fight erupted in round three. Duran pounded DeJesus with his signature right hand to the head, followed him to the ropes but let him off. DeJesus returned fire and pasted Duran with a right of his own. Still, the men couldn’t equal the pace of the rematch.
Snarling and sneering, Duran barged DeJesus around and shook him again in the sixth with a barrage of thudding hooks. DeJesus fell into Duran’s waiting arms from the force of the punches, the weary look on his face was unforgettable. Bruises loomed on his cheek and on his eye. Duran refused to let up, but DeJesus took his best punches and danced away from any serious damage.
The most telling punch of the night landed in round ten, a magnificent right that sent DeJesus and his brujos back into a corner. It was only a matter of time before Duran caught up with his opponent. Going into the eleventh, the judges – one from the WBA, one from the WBC and one from the Nevada commission – had Duran comfortably ahead. DeJesus, however, was brave, and landed his best punch of the night, a left uppercut to the jaw that unbalanced Duran.
The Puerto Rican tried to follow up in the twelfth but a right to the chin – thrown seconds before his own right hand – sent DeJesus down. He began to paw helplessly, trying to grasp a rope, anything. In Panama people would refer to it as puso a gatear, pawing like a cat. It seemed DeJesus did not want to go on, but referee Buddy Basilico stared hard at him and felt he could continue.
These two fearless men had engaged in a boxing trilogy so macho and yet so cerebral that it touched the highest peak of the Noble Art. Now the end was nearing. DeJesus regained his feet and seconds later walked into another right hand. Duran’s next eleven punches connected as DeJesus lay expressionless along the ropes, as if praying that Basilico would step in. After the first nine punches connected, DeJesus lazily slumped into the ropes. Duran landed two more vicious shots before DeJesus handler Manny Sciaca entered the ring. Surprisingly, Basilico, with back turned, had still not stopped the slaughter. The fight was stopped at 2:32 of the twelfth round. “I cannot erase the loss,” said Duran. “But tonight I erased DeJesus.”
He was, finally, the undisputed lightweight champion of the world. He had also equalled the record of twelve successful defenses set by the Joe Brown. His jubilation did not stop him engaging in a brief brawl in the ring with DeJesus’ brother, which was quickly broken up. “I knew I had the fight in the seventh round when I punched him in the throat,” said Duran later. “I could have knocked him out earlier, but I felt that I must fight cautiously because I had not fought for a long time. DeJesus was best in the early rounds but after that I was able to make him miss a lot.”
It marked the end of a three-fight feud steeped in Latin lore, where two men forged mutual respect through bitter conflict. It is the nature for boxers to fight, hug and forget. In forgiveness they form a brotherhood. Though not ranked among the very greatest Puerto Rican fighters, DeJesus was well respected in boxing. “He had a lot of fans,” said Jose Torres, the former world champion from Puerto Rico who became a journalist in the USA. “In Puerto Rico, they love all the champions. But when you lose, you also lose that popularity.”
Esteban DeJesus’ last fight was a losing bid for the junior welterweight title in July 1980. By then, he was in the grip of drug addiction, having graduated from marijuana to shooting up speedballs of cocaine and heroin, sharing needles with his older brother Enrique and friends. “In general, you start first with friends and you get so wrapped up with the drugs that before you know it you’re hooked,” he later told Puerto Rican TV. “They take you to parties and you start using the stuff. The worst part is when you open your eyes. It’s too late. You’re already addicted.”
On November 27, 1980, DeJesus mainlined coke before getting in his car to drive to a family celebration. On the way, he became embroiled in a traffic dispute with eighteen-year-old Robert Cintron Gonzalez, and leapt from his car brandishing a .25 caliber pistol. DeJesus shot the teenager in the head. He died four days later. DeJesus was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder and jailed for life.
In 1985, his brother Enrique died of AIDS. Having shared needles with him, Esteban took a test and found that he, too, had the dreaded disease. His brujos could not save him now; nothing could. As his health deteriorated, his jail sentence was commuted to allow him to receive treatment at the House for the Re-education of Addicts, an old milk factory. There he lay on a bed in a room with eighteen men, all former addicts dying from AIDS. Prayer was their only hope.
Days from the end, DeJesus fell to skin and bone. But before his body and will gave way, DeJesus had one last, face-to-face meeting with his old foe. Duran, who had regularly disparaged – and beaten – Puerto Ricans, was not a popular figure in the country, but when a call came that Esteban was dying, the instinctive generosity of spirit that was as much a part of him as macho bluster quickly emerged.
“There was a man who was always around DeJesus who told me that he was dying of AIDS,” said Duran. “He said, ‘I need you to go see him because he could pass away any minute.’ We go to a place, the jail is here and DeJesus is staying across the street from it. When I see him there so thin, my tears run out because he used to be a pretty formed, muscular guy. I start crying and I hug him, and I kiss him and I tell my daughter to kiss him. That was when I won over the Puerto Rican public.”
Duran did more than win over Puerto Rico with the gesture: a love for Duran was culled through his fearless response to this mysterious disease. Jose Torres used to run into Duran at Victor’s Café, a popular Cuban restaurant and Duran’s favorite hangout, on fight weekends in New York City. Torres knew firsthand about death in the ring. He was there to see Benny “Kid” Paret when the beating he suffered against Emile Griffith in March 1962 left him in a coma from which he would never awake. Torres would drive Paret’s wife back and forth from the hospital to see the fallen fighter before his death ten days after the fight.
Almost two decades on, Torres was caught in death’s web again. “When DeJesus was dying in Puerto Rico, I went to see him,” Torres recalled. “Duran went that same day. Duran walked to the bed and embraced him in the bed. He was dying and he embraced the man. You knew he was dying of AIDS, so I would not get that close because we didn’t know that much about AIDS at the time. We knew that you could get it from anybody. I was very concerned about that. He just walked over to him and just lifted him out of the bed. I will never forget that. That made Duran for me as one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met. That attitude there, that move.
“I wrote about DeJesus for the New York Post, a piece about that experience. This is the first time I talk about it since then. It’s funny because every fighter has that compassion. I think that anybody can be that way; you don’t have to be a fighter.”
Fight promoter Butch Lewis added, “He went to the hospital and visited the guy when nobody knew about AIDS. At this time it was like the polio scare in the nineteen-fifties. Everyone was like, ‘What is AIDS?’ He went to the hospital, held his hand and everything. I’ll always remember that. I thought, who would be brave enough? As
tough as he was, deep down he had an affectionate side to him. It seems all guys who are so violent in the ring have that side to them.”
DeJesus succumbed on 13 March 1987. His death was reported briefly in the London Times: “Esteban DeJesus, the former world-class boxer, who has died at the age of 37 of AIDS, contracting the disease by using an infected needle to support his drug habit in prison, was the only man to beat Roberto Duran in the 70s.”
Even in death, they were linked.
ON 27 APRIL 1978, Duran faced Adolpho Viruet, brother of Edwin, at Madison Square Garden. It was stipulated that Adolpho had to weigh under the agreed 143-pound limit. Duran, at 142, was at his heaviest since Javier Muniz in May 1977. He had not fought at the Garden for almost five and a half years and 17,125 fans, the largest crowd there since Ali beat Frazier in 1974, paid $275,366 to see him. Duran would take home a tax-free purse of $100,000 while Viruet managed $15,000. Viruet, a southpaw, told a New York reporter, “We both came from the same place, the streets. The Bronx, Panama, it’s the same thing. You still have to rumble with your hands.”
It was Duran who came to rumble. Referee Arthur Mercante warned him for being dangerous with his head and instructed the judges to take the seventh round away from him for hitting low. It made no difference in the result as Duran attacked his southpaw opponent from the opening bell and stayed on top of him for the whole fight, his feet flat on the canvas so he was always set to punch behind his full weight. After avoiding Duran for the first five rounds, Viruet became more aggressive but didn’t have the firepower to keep him off. He did land a cracking left to the Panamanian’s jaw in the seventh, and made him miss hugely with a right uppercut, while Edwin Viruet at ringside led a large Puerto Rican contingent in cheering his brother and abusing Duran in Spanish, but neither Adolpho nor his voluble older sibling could punch hard enough to defeat a fighter of Duran’s caliber. The decision was unanimous in Duran’s favour. Afterwards Edwin climbed into the ring and Duran calmly walked over and gave him a heavy shove. Edwin squared up before the cornermen intervened and blue-shirted security police got between the two camps.
Hands of Stone Page 19
