Hands of Stone

by Christian Giudice

  Palomino claims he hurt his opponent several times. “One of my sparring partners told me later that Benitez said he was going to quit in the third round, that Benitez went back to his corner and said, ‘This guy hits too hard.’” Minutes later, trainer Gregorio Benitez slapped his son’s face as he sent him out at the start of a round. It might have won him the title. “I guess it woke him up because Benitez jabbed and stayed alive for the rest of the fight,” said Palomino. “Benitez had no real punching power, but he was the best defensive fighter I ever fought. It was like he had a sixth sense. He knew every punch I would throw before I threw it.”

  As Palomino sat disconsolately in his dressing room after the bout, promoter Bob Arum came in and promised him a return bout. But the WBC would never honor his rematch clause. Instead, Palomino was offered $250,000 to fight an elimination bout with Duran, with the victor to face Benitez. “I was psyched for Duran and I prepared for a twelve-rounder,” said Palomino. “At the time, people were saying that he didn’t hit as hard as a welterweight. I knew it would be difficult but I thought I could overcome it with my punching power.” In the run-up to the Duran bout, however, Palomino learned that Wilfred Benitez signed to defend his title against Sugar Ray Leonard rather than give him a rematch. “That took the wind out of my sails,” said Palomino. “I didn’t want to wait around and win a non-title bout.”

  Ready for the charades Duran often played at press conferences, Palomino was surprised when they actually met. “I told my manager that if Duran tried to start anything at the weigh-in, I was going balls-out on the spot. I was not going to take anything. Before the bout, he comes up to me and shakes my hand. He tells me how much respect he has for me as a fighter. Then he asked me for an autograph for his son. To this day we hug when we see each other.”

  Asking another boxer for his autograph may have seemed out of character for the Chorrillo wildman, but warmth and generosity were as much a part of him as the myopic brutality he employed in the ring. His close friends were more familiar with the playful Roberto than the beast that surfaced at fight time. Duran’s training sessions weren’t without the occasional flashes of his darker side, however. Journalist John Garfield was watching in the Howard Albert Gym in the Garment Center when, with admirers crowding into the training area, Duran went into the ring to shadowbox. “Somebody in the back kept yelling in Spanish, ‘Pipino Cuevas will kill you.’ Duran paid him no mind and continued to shadowbox,” wrote Garfield. “But the heckler was relentless. Finally, Duran whirled on the heckler and leaned over the top strand of the ropes, right above where the mothers and children were worshiping him, and he pulled down his trunks and grabbed his nuts and yelled at the heckler in Spanish, ‘Pipino Cuevas can suck my cock.’”

  Palomino, who was 27-2-3 coming into the bout, doubted that Duran would be as effective at the higher weight and thought he would lose both power and speed. Duran, however, was the 7–5 favourite. The bill-topper was Larry Holmes’s heavyweight title defense against Mike Weaver, which would provide its own drama, but for most of the 14,136 crowd Duran was the attraction. As the Garden faithful took their seats on 22 June 1979 and the boxers met in ring center for their instructions, Duran rocked back and forth on his feet while Palomino stood immobile. Duran stared hard at his opponent and received no response. The fighters listened to referee Carlos Padilla’s instructions, touched gloves and headed back to their corners.

  Duran had come to fight, which had not always been the case in recent contests. Those in attendance could see the difference in the way he moved, as if to the addictively sassy rhythm of a salsa. He knew Palomino was good and that he was a barrier to the millions of dollars with Leonard, and that meant he needed to find his groove straight from the bell. And he did. “Although he didn’t have devastating punching power, his quickness really surprised me,” said Palomino. “I never really got hurt but he was so shifty, used angles and was in such a defensive mode that it took away from my offensive mode.”

  Duran deliberately stood with his back to the ropes in the second round. He turned his man into his punches, rested his head beside Palomino’s ear to gain leverage, scraped his skull along Palomino’s brows, shortened his blows to make maximum use of the space and doubled up with hooks to the head and body – all against the ropes. It was a superb display of in-fighting, and it was only the beginning. One second Palomino had the man ripe for an uppercut, then he was gone. In contrast Duran would lock his opponent’s left arm and follow with a right uppercut, an old trick, or truco in Spanish, that worked for him thoughout the fight.

  Duran struck with such speed and power that at times Palomino bent over, wincing in pain. He faked the right hand to set up other punches and had Palomino flinching from these feints like a boy reflexively jumping back from the strength of an older brother. Yet, with his right hand up by his face, he remained both conscious and respectful of Palomino’s left hook. In other fights, Duran would hold his guard low, showing contempt.

  In the fourth round, the salsa continued. Duran landed a right uppercut, which turned into a left hook, straight right combination, and jolted back Palomino’s head. He survived another big right in the middle of the ring in the next round, and in the sixth was set up beautifully when Duran again faked the right, causing him to jerk back his head. When the punch didn’t come, Palomino straightened up, only to find the right hand coming now. It laid him on his back with a thud.

  Palomino quickly pushed himself up. He was stunned but not hurt, and took the mandatory eight-count. While chasing Palomino around the ring, Duran planted a right to the liver, but couldn’t stop the former champ. After the bell sounded for the sixth to end the onslaught, a weary Palomino headed to his corner. A broadcaster compared Duran to “Krakatoa about to explode,” but Palomino shook off the knockdown and came back strong the next round.

  Nobody hid in the final round. It wasn’t in either man’s nature. Latin fighters fought in a culture where reputation meant everything. “It was a ten-round war,” said Palomino. “I came back to my corner in the ninth round and they told me that I had to go out and take it to him. So I went right after Duran in the tenth.”

  As the final bell sounded, Palomino put his glove into Duran’s midsection as a gesture of respect, but Duran was too busy raising his hands to notice. Then he fell to his knees, and still not noticing Palomino’s extended glove, turned to the crowd for the acclaim he deserved. The referee and two judges all scored 99-90 to Duran, meaning he had won nine rounds and shared one. It was an utterly comprehensive victory over one of the finest welterweights in the world.

  “I was a big Palomino fan and … he just made Palomino look like a novice,” said boxing writer Steve Farhood. “Palomino was flinching when Duran would fake a punch. I had never seen that before. Palomino was never in the fight and maybe he won one round. I don’t want to call Palomino a great fighter, but he was almost on that level.”

  By the end, Duran had Palomino’s full respect. “He outboxed me every round and outhustled me the entire fight,” said the Mexican. “It was the only fight that I didn’t feel mentally or physically ready for. Duran and Benitez were the best defensive fighters I faced. They were notches above anyone else. After that fight, I told them that Duran would be champ of the world again, if he fights Leonard like he did against me. I had respect for him before the bout but so much more after.”

  It had been a great fight, lacking the changes of fortune of the very best but providing a masterclass in in-fighting, punching and conditioning. Boxing News called it “a wonderful fight, a fight of a life-time.”

  Celebrations were muted, however, when Duran was told the bad news about a friend. He was told in a New York hotel lobby of the death of Chaflan, his gypsy Svengali from the old days, killed by a car. One reporter remembered seeing Chaflan at a store opening in Caledonia. “Candido Diaz was Chaflan, not Superman,” remarked one paper. “Because of this he was unable to resist the impact of the vehicle that hit him.”

  D
uran broke down and cried. “They wouldn’t tell me until after the Palomino fight,” he said. “They said that Chaflan was killed by a car. I cried a lot. He knew me since I was around seven or eight years old. Chaflan built a tree house and we would all sleep up there until four a.m. and then go get a ticket for the newspapers. He was never a mean person to children. With a dollar he would take you to eat or to the movies. Later he was accused of being a pervert and that he would corrupt children but I never saw that and I don’t believe it.”

  Many newspapers now carried planted publicity about Duran challenging the winner of the Wilfred Benitez-Ray Leonard WBC title bout. WBA champ Pipino Cuevas, who many believed was the most dangerous welterweight around, was also heavily touted as a Duran target and reportedly wanted a guarantee of half a million dollars. Don King, who promoted the Palomino fight, sided with the WBC while Bob Arum lined up with the WBA.

  Palomino retired from the sport on his thirtieth birthday. He would make an improbable comeback almost eighteen years later, at the age of forty-eight, and won four bouts before losing for the last time in 1998. By then, his father had succumbed to cancer, unleashing emotions he had kept bottled for years. “Everybody was telling me that, back when I had the world title, my father was so proud of me and that he was always telling everybody about me,” said Palomino in a 1997 interview. “But he never said any of that to me.” Unlike the open relationship Palomino had with his mother Maria, his father wasn’t one to express his inner feelings.

  Duran’s status as an honorary New Yorker was confirmed by his fabulous performance. He often hung out in the city with another Panamanian icon, Ruben Blades, the salsa king. “I knew Ruben Blades when he was nobody. I stayed in the Hotel Mayflower in New York and he used to go there every day to play soccer. After the game, he used to go back to my room and there he stayed playing dominoes. After that we would go eat. He would always come looking for me when he moved to New York and knew I had a fight coming up.” A salsa fanatic, Duran was also friends with Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Hector Lavoe.

  After training, Duran would often sit in Central Park, where he liked to watch the people and cars go by. One day he was there when he saw his friend Flacco Bala talking to a man with a child on the shoulders. Duran ran over and was introduced to the man – Robert De Niro, the hottest male lead in Hollywood. They shook hands.

  “Robert invited me to go to his room. He lived in the same hotel where I was staying. He said, ‘I want you to come to my room. I am going to hold a party so that you meet my friends. You are my favorite.’ Twenty-five minutes later, the telephone rang. It was Robert De Niro, but he talked in English, and I do not talk English. So I called Bala and asked him to come with me. And we went there and started talking. Robert De Niro loves boxing. Then came a little guy, one who liked to make fun. We went on talking and then came a tall, thin woman. He asked me if I wanted champagne or wine but when I trained, I never drank. I would only drink after the fights. So I told him that and he said, ‘Sure, sure.’”

  Duran invited De Niro and his film friends to play football the next day, and then they went on to a meal at Victor’s Café. “Roberto De Niro wanted to pay but we had drunk champagne, so I told him that was not OK. Victor was very happy that De Niro and all the artists were there. And you know what? That little guy who jumped and made fun was and is Roberto De Niro’s best friend, Joe Pesci. All the artists that appear in the movie are the ones that were playing football with us. The following day we all got together again and I learned Roberto De Niro was filming a movie at that time.” The movie was Raging Bull, the story of former boxer Jake LaMotta, which would become one of the most critically acclaimed films of the century.

  When he wasn’t hanging out in the Big Apple, Duran could go home and choose one of his five cars or three maids. His private cook could put together something to eat. All Duran had to do was call his chauffeur to pick him up at his estimated $250,000 apartment complex in Paitilla and take him to a local club. Duran was finally living the lifestyle that he had dreamt of – but you couldn’t take Chorrillo out of the man.

  ON 28 SEPTEMBER 1979, a spectacular fight bill began in Las Vegas. The venue was Caesar’s Palace and the main event saw undefeated heavyweight champion Larry Holmes against the awesome-punching Earnie Shavers. The undercard featured not only Duran but also Sugar Ray Leonard and the brilliant little Puerto Rican Wilfredo Gomez. One writer called it “a program of boxing that may be more representative of great talent than any other in the modern era of the game.”

  Sugar Ray Leonard was a star for the armchair generation. “He’s made for television,” said his trainer, Angelo Dundee. “He’s got personality, charisma, good lucks. He projects himself right out of the screen.” For this reason he could command up to $250,000 a time for even routine learning fights as he rose through the ranks. The influential presenter Howard Cosell had championed Leonard above all the others from the successful U.S. Olympic team of 1976 and helped build him into a star and national television broadcast most of his bouts. He couldn’t have looked more devastating as he unleashed a dazzling barrage of punches to flatten seasoned campaigner Andy “The Hawk” Price in the first round. It took several minutes for Price to recover enough to leave the ring.

  Leonard then watched from ringside as Duran faced the lightly regarded, six-foot-tall southpaw Zeferino “Speedy” Gonzalez, a former Golden Gloves champion who had nineteen wins, two losses and a draw in twenty-two bouts. Gonzalez, from San Jose, California, had worked with a hypnotherapist before the fight to eradicate fear, memorizing “protective suggestions.” His boxing plan was cautious and he would later rue not going toe-to-toe with the smaller man.

  Duran appeared rusty and out of sorts, reaching and missing with right-hand leads against an opponent five inches taller and not cutting off the ring. On several occasions he even got nailed with a left hand. His body was smooth and fleshy at 149½ pounds, not honed and hard as it had been against Palomino. Occasionally he dropped his hands and mocked his opponent but if nothing else Gonzalez was quick – “He moves faster than a beef stew in a boarding house,” said one writer – and the crowd cheered when Duran was caught with a left hook while arrogantly hitching up his shorts. In the eighth the fighters banged heads, and Duran acknowledged it was an accident by touching gloves with his opponent, but soon blood was running down his face. Gonzalez’s trainer exhorted his fighter to take advantage of the cut, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t. Duran won the unanimous decision by a mile but left the ring with a cut over the left eye, to the sound of booing.

  Ray Leonard had clearly made the greater impression. Things would have to change.

  ON NOVEMBER 30, 1979, a television audience of millions watched two undefeated prodigies meet in a battle for the WBC welterweight crown and to decide, in effect, who would be Duran’s next great challenge. The preparations of unpredictable genius Wilfred Benitez had hardly been helped when his fiery father, Gregorio, no longer his manager but still his trainer, gave an interview to Ring En Espanol before the bout, saying, “He can’t win this fight … has not listened to anything I have told him and meanwhile Leonard has fought a lot. But Wilfred is a boy who just refuses to listen.” His mother, Clara, also chipped in. “Look at how my son has turned out,” she bewailed. “All he thinks about now are women. And this is no good during fights.”

  Some say Benitez had put in only nine full days of preparation before he lost his title to Sugar Ray Leonard when the referee stopped their fifteen-round bout with just six seconds remaining at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. Leonard had been ahead on all of the judges’ cards, his harder hitting giving him the edge in a tense battle.

  Two months later, twenty-four-year Josef Nsubuga, trained by the veteran Eddie Futch, met the serious version of Duran in Las Vegas. A Ugandan fighting out of Norway, Nsubuga was ranked ninth by the WBC and was considered a dangerous left-hooker. He was announced as the “Ugandan Powerhouse” but later admitted making a major error when he tried to b
rawl with Duran.

  Nsubuga kept cool under pressure in the first round, jabbing and moving, and at one point a frustrated Duran pushed him to the canvas. But by the third the shorter, stockier Hands of Stone was taking charge and rocking back Nsubuga’s head with hooks and uppercuts. The referee took a close look at the inexperienced Ugandan, but he showed grit and composure to fight back in the closing stages of the round.

  In the next round Duran simply walked through his opponent’s fading resistance, sometimes grunting as he slammed in shots. With seconds remaining in the fourth round, Duran caught Nsubuga down with a short right hook, and as the Ugandan sagged, Duran shouldered him over, causing him to fall heavily on his back. Nsubuga managed to rise at “eight” and was saved by the bell. He stumbled back to his corner, where the compassionate Eddie Futch pleaded with the fighter’s Norwegian manager to retire his man. After consultation with referee Richard Greene, Nsubuga retired on his stool. “I’m the real world champ,” Duran told reporters afterwards in his Spanish-accented English. “I want Leonard now, and I’ll knock him out.”

  It was reported shortly afterwards that Bob Arum had offered Duran $1 million to challenge Ray Leonard that summer. Leonard was said to lean towards Arum while Duran was in the camp of his promotional arch-rival Don King. One magazine reported that an Arum acolyte made a secret mission to Carlos Eleta in Panama City to woo Duran away from Don King to face the winner of Benitez-Leonard. King was tipped off and dispatched his own emissary from JFK Airport to make a counter offer. Leonard, never one to undersell himself, wanted $5 million. “That’s a bad joke,” remarked Don King. “You scare people with talk like that.”