Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

The impressive victory removed some of the taint of the Laing loss and as a result Duran was given a shot at the WBA junior-middleweight title held by Davey Moore. Moore, a good fighter with impeccable amateur credentials, was one of Boxing’s rising young stars having won his title in just his ninth professional fight and having made three defenses, two of which were highly impressive knockouts of very good fighters. He was far bigger than Duran with a sculpted body and legitimate punching power and he was favored by a clear most. The fight was held on June 16 in Madison Square Garden before a decidedly pro-Duran crowd.

The stage was set for the young champion to finish what Laing had started by convincingly defeating Duran and thereby hastening the end of his career. Of course by the time the fight was stopped by his corner in the eighth round, Moore had lost every round, his eye was grotesquely swollen, he had visited the canvas ass first, his mother had fainted in the audience, and he lay against the ropes with seemingly little clue to where he was or what he should do next. Improbably, Roberto Duran was again a Champion of the World. The arrogant Duran surveyed the boxing landscape and saw no one he wouldn’t fight.

That included Undisputed Middleweight Champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler who had gone to court to make the part starting with Marvelous his legal name. Hagler had all the looks of a dominant champion and I’m not just referring to the bald head, chiseled body, and menacing beard. During his three year reign he had made seven successful defenses all by impressive knockout and overall he hadn’t lost a fight in eight years. As a natural middleweight he was another opponent who was considerably bigger than the five-foot-seven Duran and, unlike Duran, he was in his prime as a fighter. Duran signed to fight him on November 10, 1983, in Vegas, in what would be Hagler’s first superfight. Given the extreme unlikelihood that Duran would fight cautiously by either grabbing or moving and Hagler’s obvious punching power, the potential for Duran’s first conclusive knockout loss loomed large.

But once again the greatness of Duran was undeniable. Although he lost a close decision there was no question who the more impressive fighter in that ring was. Against a far bigger and stronger opponent who many suspected, correctly it turns out, would ultimately prove to be one of the greatest middleweights in history, Duran, years removed from his prime and fighting a full twenty-five pounds higher than his ideal weight, was very effective, as expected rarely taking a backwards step but more importantly also boxing brilliantly at times and never really being in trouble. In many ways the loss was his most impressive fight. Throughout the Hispanic community Duran was back, the disgrace against Leonard forgotten based on the way he had engaged and defanged the perceived monster Hagler. Everywhere, that community’s Boxing-mad fathers bought their sons a papa rellena and told them Roberto Duran was our greatest fighter and again a true Man.

Boxing being a zero-sum deal, Duran’s gain in prestige was Hagler’s loss. For all the reasons stated, his failure to stop the older, smaller man reflected poorly on him. While Hagler waited for his chance at redemption, Duran decided to keep making big money and signed to fight Thomas Hearns for his WBC junior-middleweight title.

Meanwhile Sugar Ray Leonard watched the Duran/Hagler fight, saw Hagler’s apparent vulnerability, and decided he should unretire and fight Hagler after all, despite the risk to his eye. The plan called for him to first fight a tuneup bout against someone named Kevin Howard. On May 11,1984, Leonard fought Howard and he didn’t look good, even hitting the canvas for the first time in his career before winning by ninth-round knockout. Discouraged by his performance and what it seemingly bode for a fight against Hagler, Leonard immediately retired again.

The Hearns/Duran fight took place about one month later on June 15, 1984 and it was one of those rare boxing events that actually inspires nothing short of awe-filled fear. With thirty seconds left in the first round Hearns landed a clean right cross (what else?) to Duran’s jaw and Duran went straight down. He got up, not overly well, and survived the following flurry as the bell sounded. This is where the fear part came in because between rounds Duran, who had over seventy professional fights at the time, mistakenly went to a neutral corner where his trainers had to go and fetch him. In other words, this was a punch he wouldn’t be recovering from but you also knew his corner wouldn’t stop the fight. At the start of the second Hearns swarmed Duran against the ropes, mostly missing, until he seemed to step back to give himself room to throw his signature punch. The right landed squarely to the side of Duran’s face and his reaction was instantaneous. His gloved hands dropped like an abandoned marionette’s and he slowly crashed face-first to the canvas, unable to break his fall in any way. The referee immediately stopped the fight, probably thinking a casket needed to be ordered. Duran’s cornermen rushed into the ring to stand him up. After some time Duran pushed them away and seemed to ask what was happening.

Hearns’s scary victory and Leonard’s latest retirement made the next big fight an obvious one. After posting two more knockout victories each, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas “Hitman” Hearns fought on April 15, 1985. It was one of the greatest, most violent fights in boxing history and it lasted only three rounds.

The first round, which usually involves little action and is almost always characterized by a cautious feeling out process, was especially extreme. Hagler, perhaps still stinging from criticism that he was too passive against Duran and probably also realizing that, despite his considerable boxing skills, he could not outbox from a distance the man who had outboxed Leonard and Benitez, came out intent on creating the kind of war that would negate Hearns’s height and reach advantage. Hearns reacted to Hagler’s aggressive bombs in the only manner befitting his greatness. He didn’t hold Hagler or move away in the hopes of weathering the early storm until he could follow his gameplan that called for sticking and moving. No, he planted his feet and unleashed hell right back on Hagler. One of the very greatest offensive fighters ever let loose with everything at his disposal in service of attempted murder.

The first savage right cross went practically through Hagler’s hairless pate. The same punch that had iced so many, that had paralyzed Cuevas and Duran, now tested one of history’s greatest shock-absorbing chins. Hagler was hurt like never before or since but he didn’t go down. The force of the punch went through to his legs and straightened them but he took it and covered up. He recovered and started throwing again prompting a still more furious response from Hearns and so on. They traded punches like in no first round ever seen and somewhere in there Hagler adjusted to the inhuman power of Hearns, Hearns broke his right hand on Hagler’s head, and Hagler’s punches started to increasingly affect Hearns. At the end of the round the crowd seemed to be in a state of delirious exhaustion.

In the second round, Hearns began to box from the outside at his corner’s urging but now his legs didn’t look so great and despite guarded success in that round the option of doing that for an entire fight seemed irretrievably lost. In the third, Hearns cut Hagler above the eye, an angry cut that the ref had the ring doctor look at. A desperate Hagler, fearful that the fight would be stopped on cuts, began waging full-scale war again. Shortly thereafter he landed a looping right that wasn’t particularly vicious but that functioned like the final drop of water that causes a flood. Hearns’s legs were now completely gone. He stumbled across the ring with Hagler in pursuit. The ensuing punches from Hagler were really window dressing and Hearns slumped to the canvas giving Hagler his greatest victory and leaving Hearns to rebuild from another devastating defeat.