Too Moving to Be Mayhem

By Tom Callahan

A fight that argued for fighting took place last week beside a casino in Las Vegas, a reasonable facsimile of the ends of the earth. It was not one of the greatest fights anyone had ever seen, just one of the greatest performances everyone will forever recall. A bold little man with a beatific smile, who is almost everything except a middleweight, won the championship of the world by a decision, actually a lot of them.

Sixty-two months between real fights, five years since retinal surgery, ; three years after his first melancholy comeback, Sugar Ray Leonard returned to boxing at 30 for the simple reason that he does it better and enjoys it more than anything else in life. Without a tune-up he challenged Marvin Hagler, an apocalyptic figure of undetermined age, unbeaten for more than a decade. Hagler warned, "If he's foolish enough to step in the ring with me, I'm foolish enough to rip his eye out." Bystanders who adopted Leonard in the 1976 Olympics and cheered him to the welterweight title over Wilfred Benitez, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns were a bit let down by his reappearance, and more than a little concerned.

In the pathetic annals of comebacks, unretiring champions from Jim Jeffries to Muhammad Ali had made sad endings appear inevitable. And the gym reports were not good. In his last showing before the fight, Leonard looked dull against Sparring Plodder Quincy Taylor, a light-heavy. But Taylor's function had been misunderstood. He was there to drum in the virtues of gliding over brawling. "You can't tell Ray," says Mike Trainer, his lawyer. "You have to show him."

So everything was in place, including Trainer's deal with Promoter Bob Arum, whose offer of a percentage was declined. Perfectly describing boxing and himself, Arum said, "I wouldn't trust me either." But in a way, Trainer took all the percentages. Leonard stood to earn $11 million to $12 million, compared with Hagler's $13 million to $14 million, but the gloves that could have weighed 8 oz. were a softer 10; the ring that might have been 16 ft. by 16 ft. was 20 by 20; and the distance was twelve rounds instead of 15. Leonard danced into the light with tassels on his shoes.

The monster started out stalking and talking but flinched at the merest feint. Leonard lowered his hands, shook his head and winked. Hagler was human. For four rounds the ambidextrous champion wavered between orthodox and southpaw, while the challenger hit, held and ran. Irksomely, Leonard refused to wait in his corner for rounds to begin and paid almost no attention to closing bells. If he was the miniature Ali, then Hagler was the microcosmic George Foreman, and the pale press had forgotten Ali's Zaire wisdom: "Black men scare white men lots more than black men scare black men."

One blow in the fourth round was telling. As Leonard wound up a right-hand bolo, Hagler remembered Duran's embarrassment and awaited a left jab. Sugar Ray punched him right in the stomach. More than pained, Hagler looked insulted and came on fiercely in the fifth round. Still lunging and mostly missing, he was starting to connect at least. Not for the last time, Leonard felt the indentation of the ropes in his back. The battle seemed about to turn.

Hagler hit him less but hurt him more. Leonard had weighed in that morning at 158, just half a pound lighter than the natural middleweight he was fighting, and after a day's sustenance had entered the ring at 163. But he would leave it weighing 150. The bulk he had added, more to withstand power than dispense it, melted as he went until Leonard was himself again -- tough and quick fisted, bright and quick witted but as small as a child. Sometimes he feigned exhaustion, keeping a right-hand lead at the ready, and other times he truly sagged. Hagler almost never guessed right.

Guile, however, had no role in the ninth round, when Leonard finished winning the crowd and started finishing the fight. In terrible peril on the ropes, he twice flurried his way out and left Hagler shaking apart and griping aloud for a different kind of fight. Somewhere Leonard found the legs to obey his corner elf Angelo Dundee, who set him to dancing like Ali, complete with funny faces and windmills. Hagler smiled sadly. Before the last round began, Leonard raised a beckoning glove to the crowd, and by following suit Hagler only confirmed whose game they had been playing. Two of the three judges saw it that way. Leonard waited until their pencils stopped and then collapsed.

He told Hagler, "You're still champion." Hagler thought he heard, "You beat me, man." Having first blurted, "Twelve rounds isn't a championship distance," Manager Pat Petronelli was unconvincing in the next instant when he claimed that his man won them anyway. "Sugar Ray Leonard," the ex-champ said miserably, "of all people." To himself as much as anyone else, Leonard exulted, "I saw every punch coming," and no one should expect him to quit now. Maybe he will next try the light-heavyweight champion, his old friend Hearns. In a way, Leonard has beaten a heavyweight already. He knocked Mike Tyson clear off the stage.

Flying home, Leonard turned to his parents in a quiet moment and said, "Dad, do you know I'm the middleweight champion of the world?" It may be the least of what he is.