BOXING

Sugar Ray

Although no single boxing champion dominated the 1980s as Muhammad Ali did the 1970s, the era witnessed the emergence of several extraordinarily talented and charismatic fighters and many noteworthy bouts. In retrospect, professional boxing in the decade appears to have experienced one of its periodic heroic cycles. Larry Holmes, Roberto Duran, Thomas "Hit Man" Hearns, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, and Mike Tyson provided fight fans with many inspired and courageous displays of boxing prowess. Yet in surveying the boxing world of the 1980s, one fighter stands apart for his skill, style, and longevity: Sugar Ray Leonard. Three years after winning a gold medal at the 1976 Olympics, the twenty-three-year-old Leonard relieved Wilfred Benkez of the World Boxing Council (WBC) welter-weight title. On 20 June 1980, however, Leonard lost a fifteen-round decision and his title to the hard-hitting Duran in Montreal. It would be Leonard's only defeat in the decade. Five months later, on 25 November, Leonard avenged his loss to Duran with "flashing combinations, glorious boxing skills and audacious courage," in Thomas Boswell's words. With sixteen seconds left in the eighth round, Duran gave up his hard-won title when he turned his back on Leonard and said, "No mas." In June of the following year Leonard temporarily moved up a weight class, and knocked out Ayub Kalule in the ninth round, thus earning the World Boxing Association (WBA) junior middleweight title. Three months later, on 16 September 1981, Leonard and Hearns fought for the undisputed welterweight crown since Leonard held the WBC title and Hearns the WBA version of the championship. After fourteen tough, mostly evenly fought rounds, Leonard was awarded a technical knockout over the previously undefeated Hearns, improving his record to 33-1. In recognition of his accomplishments, Sports Illustrated named Leonard its Sportsman of the Year for 1981, declaring that he "has gained a nearly unanimous affection that not even AH could claim." Following one successful title defense in 1982, Leonard announced he was retiring from boxing because of a medically repaired detached retina. His retirement, however, was short-lived. In 1984 Leonard returned to the ring, beat Kevin Howard unconvincingly, and again retired. Three years later, though, Leonard signed on to fight WBC middleweight champion Hagler. On 6 April 1987, despite having fought only once in the previous five years, Leonard beat the rugged Hagler, winning a split decision in one of the richest bouts in boxing history: it reportedly grossed over $100 million. Nineteen months later, on 7 November 1988, Leonard beat Donny Lalonde in nine rounds to claim the WBC light-heavyweight and super-middleweight titles. Finally, in 1989 the thirty-three-year-old Leonard again took on Hearns and Duran: on 12 June he fought Hearns to a draw to retain the title, and on 7 December he outpointed Duran. Thus by the end of the 1980s, Leonard was 36-1-1, had held world championship titles at five different weights, and had earned in excess of $100 million from fight purses, television contracts, and endorsements. He had also won a great deal of praise as a boxer of rare artistry, grace, intelligence, and surprising toughness. According to Boswell and others, Leonard was simply "the greatest fighter of his generation."

Holmes

WBC heavyweight champion Larry Holmes essentially ended a boxing era on 2 October 1980 when he thoroughly defeated former three-time champion Muhammad Ali in ten rounds. It was a bittersweet victory for Holmes, for Ali had been his boyhood hero. After the fight Holmes said, "I love that man and didn't want to see him getting hurt." Although he held the heavyweight crown from 1978 to 1985 and defended his title an impressive twenty times, Holmes was never a truly popular champion; for all his success he never captured the public's imagination the way Sugar Ray Leonard did, to say nothing of AH. Often noted for his defensiveness and his belief that he was underappreciated, Holmes lashed out at the media after one title defense: "I'm sorry I'm not what all you guys want me to be. I'm not Muhammad Ali, I'm not Joe Louis, I'm not Leon Spinks. I can't continue to prove myself again and again." Nevertheless Holmes certainly proved himself in one of the decade's most publicized and richest fights. On 11 June 1982 the thirtytwo-year-old Holmes met twenty-five-year-old challenger Gerry Cooney in Las Vegas before 32,500 fans. The fight garnered tremendous national publicity for a variety of reasons. "One is a boxer and one is a puncher, one a mover and the other a plodder," wrote William Nack in Sports Illustrated before the fight, "but that is only the beginning of the difference between them. Rarely in the history of heavyweight championship competition have two men who contrast more sharply—both in and out of the ring—been brought together." The fight's racial politics—Holmes was black, Cooney was white—also made the bout interesting for many people. At one point in the months leading up to the fight Holmes referred to Cooney as the "Great White Hoax" and suggested that the only reason the he had been given a title shot was because he was white in a weight division where the majority of the fighters were black. Holmes dominated the fight from the opening bell. He knocked Cooney down with an overhand right late in the second round and took charge in the middle rounds on the strength of his stinging left jab and swift combinations. The fight was stopped with less than twenty seconds left in the thirteenth round when Cooney's trainer jumped into the ring and signaled that Cooney had had enough, thus earning Holmes a TKO and improving his record to 40-0. Though Cooney proved to be a courageous challenger, the champion's performance lent credence to the claim that Holmes was the best heavyweight of his era. Late in his career Holmes offered the following self-appraisal: "As a boxer, you got to put me up there with all the top three…[Rocky] Marciano, [Joe] Louis, and Muhammad Ali. I just didn't have the charisma." After a lengthy feud with the WBC Holmes relinquished his title in 1983 and became the heavyweight champion of the newly formed International Boxing Federation (IBF). In his fourth defense of his new crown in September 1985, Holmes lost a unanimous decision to light-heavyweight champion Michael Spinks, the brother of former heavyweight champ Leon Spinks. Less than a year later Holmes again lost on points to Spinks. Finally, after a two-year layoff, Holmes was enticed to fight heavy-weight titlist Mike Tyson for $2 million in 1988. Tyson dispatched the thirty-eight-year-old Holmes in the fourth round.

The Mouth That Roared

In early December 1982, six days after heavyweight champion Larry Holmes brutally punished the badly mismatched Randall "Tex" Cobb for fifteen rounds, controversial sportscaster Howard Cosell declared that he would no longer announce professional boxing matches for ABC television. "The Cobb fight did it for me," said Cosell. "I don't want to be a party to the sleaziness. I'm worn out by it all." Noted for his recognizable voice, presence, and intelligence—as well as for his arrogance and self-righteousness—Cosell was boxing's only nationally known television commentator; he had earned the respect of many by championing Muhammad Ali's cause during the heavyweight champ's three-year exile from boxing in the 1960s. Though Cosell significantly contributed to the popularity of the sport and was made famous in return, he nonetheless expressed the view that if professional boxing could not be cleaned up and regulated, then it should not be permitted to exist. Later Cosell would go even further in his denunciation of the sport, declaring that "professional boxing is no longer worthy of civilized society. It's run by self-serving crooks, who are called promoters. They are buttressed with the look of nicety about them by the television networks, which are in fact corrupt and unprincipled in putting up the front money that continues boxing in its present form. Quite frankly, I now find the whole subject of professional boxing disgusting. Except for the fighters, you're talking about human scum, nothing more. Professional boxing is utterly immoral. It's not capable of reformation. I now favor the abolition of professional boxing. You'll never clean it up. Mud can never be clean."

The AMA on Boxing

While boxing and the medical profession had been at odds for years, the American Medical Association (AMA) in the early 1980s intensified calls for tighter medical supervision of the sport. Responding in part to the highly publicized death of South Korean fighter Duk Koo Kim, who suffered irreversible brain damage in a 1982 fight with Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, and in part to new medical studies suggesting that 87 percent of boxers suffer some degree of brain damage in their lifetimes, the AMA's Council on Scientific Affairs commissioned a study on the death and injury rates in various high-risk sports. Surprisingly, boxing ranked relatively low, seventh overall, with a fatality rate per 1,000 participants of 0.13. According to the AMA study, college football (0.3), scuba diving (1.1), and skydiving (12.3), were more life-threatening activities than boxing. Still, in the January 1983 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. George Lundberg editorialized that prizefighters pay too heavy a price for occasional success and that boxing should be abolished since it is the only sport where the objective is to cause injury. Following Lundberg's lead, the AMA in 1984 passed a resolution calling for the abolition of amateur and professional boxing. Historian Jeffrey Sammons observed, "the AMA renewed its call for a ban on professional boxing amid evidence that serious eye injuries occurred far more frequently than boxers, officials, promoters, or even doctors admitted." The AMA's position probably contributed to the reduction of title fights from fifteen to twelve rounds and the imposition of a standing eight-count when a boxer appears defenseless. Despite these and other reforms, opinion in the medical community remained divided on the boxing issue, both on scientific and ethical grounds.

Hagler versus Hearns

Without a doubt, one of the most exciting fights of the decade, if not of all time, was between undisputed middleweight champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler and WBC junior-middleweight champion Thomas Hearns on 15 April 1985 in Las Vegas. The bout "lasted only a second longer than eight minutes," wrote Pat Putnam, "but for those who saw it, the memory of its nonstop savagery will remain forever." The powerful Hagler was the aggressor throughout the fight, but the tall and muscular Hearns gave nearly as good as he got in the ferocious first round, opening a cut above and below Hagler's right eye. The pace of the second round was nearly as frenzied with Hagler continuing to pressure Hearns. In the third Hagler unleashed a devastating combination and Hearns went down. Though Hearns managed to get to his feet by the count of nine, the referee wisely ended the contest. Novelist Joyce Carol Oates came away from the "fight with the vision of the dazed Hearns, on his feet but not fully conscious, saved by referee Richard Steele from what would have been serious injury, if not deatn—considering the extraordinary ferocity of Hagler's fighting that night, and the personal rage he seems to have brought to it." According to Phil Berger, "The hellbent way in which he [Hagler] demolished Hearns in three rounds instantly upgraded his standing among fight fans and among the advertising wizards who decide which athletes get the commercials." From the fight alone Hagler reportedly earned at least $7.5 million, while Hearns collected approximately $7 million.

The King

Perhaps more than any prizefighter, controversial promoter Don King dominated the boxing world in the 1980s. Yet even before the decade began, the colorful King had become one of the two most powerful promoters in boxing (Bob Arum was the other) and one of the most successful black businessmen in America, and he had done a tremendous amount to popularize the sport and to make his fighters wealthy. At the same time, King's business methods, connections, and personal style came under unrelenting criticism and led many to question whether King was good for the sport. "Don King is certainly not a saint," wrote Sammons. "Like all promoters his overriding aim has been to profit from boxing, and to that end he could employ charm, devious persuasion, and outright coercion." Or as Larry Holmes once put it, King "looks black, lives white, and thinks green." In his own defense King said, "People don't like me for the same reason they didn't like Muhammad Ali. We're the wrong kind of nigger. We're not quiet. We stand up to be counted. We're the best, and we're heard." Over the course of the decade King's stable included such fighters as Holmes, Greg Page, Tim Weatherspoon, James "Bonecrusher" Smith, Trevor Berbick, Julio Cesar Chavez, and Mike Tyson. Several of these men filed civil suits against King alleging that he exploited them in one way or another. "You can't believe anything anybody tells you in boxing," King reportedly said in response to those critical of him. "The business is predicated on lies. You are dealing with people who very rarely tell the truth."

Tyson

By winning a twelve-round unanimous decision against IBF heavyweight titlist Tony Tucker on 1 August 1987, WBC/WBA champ Mike Tyson became the first undisputed heavyweight world champion since Leon Spinks defeated Muhammad Ali in 1978. Although the twenty-one-year-old Tyson was heralded before beating Tucker, he could now legitimately claim to be boxing's most exciting, popular, and dominating performer. Beginning his career in 1980 under the tutelage of Cus D'Amato, who had trained and managed world champions Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres in the 1950s and 1960s and who ran an informal boxing camp in Cats kill, New York, Tyson quickly became D'Amato's protege. After a brief but highly successful amateur career, he turned professional in 1985. In his first two years as a pro Tyson won all of his twenty-eight fights; on 22 November 1986 he knocked out Trevor Berbick in the second round to win the WBC heavyweight crown, becoming the youngest heavyweight champion in history. A talented and ferocious boxer, Tyson took on mythic proportions as his opponents continued to fall; many believed that he could develop into the greatest heavy-weight of all time. Unfortunately, Tyson's personal life was unstable due to the death of D'Amato in 1985 and trusted manager Jim Jacobs in 1988, and it further deteriorated after his disastrous marriage to actress Robin Givens and (according to some) his alliance with promoter Don King. At the end of the 1980s Tyson remained undefeated, running his record to 37-0, but his aura of invincibility was forever shattered by an ignominious loss to James "Buster" Douglas early in 1990. In July of that year, while attending the Miss Black America pageant in Indianapolis, Tyson allegedly raped a beauty contestant named Desiree Washington. The ensuing trial began in February 1991, lasted two weeks, and garnered tremendous national media attention. After his conviction Tyson began serving his six-year sentence at the Indiana Youth Center in Plainfield, Indiana. He was released on 25 March 1995.

Foreman's Return

On 9 March 1987 thirty-eight-year-old former heavyweight champion George Foreman began an improbable comeback by knocking out unheralded Steve Zouski. It was Foreman's first fight in over ten years. While the 6-foot 4-inch, approximately 250-pound Foreman was ponderously slow, he possessed powerful punching ability. As he continued his quest to regain the heavyweight crown, Foreman won eighteen of nineteen consecutive fights by knockout. Nevertheless, he was the subject of much derision, with critics pointing to his opponents' lack of experience and skill, Foreman's advanced age, and his apparent lack of conditioning. Foreman, a self-ordained evangelical preacher, combated such criticism with self-deprecating humor and knock-outs. In 1990 he stopped Gerry Cooney in the second round to position himself for a title shot. Although he lost to then-champion Evander Holyfield in their 19 April 1991 title bout, Foreman's performance was impressive and he continued to fight. Remarkably, on 6 November 1994, twenty years after he lost the title to Muhammad Ali in Zaire, Foreman at the age of forty-five won the heavyweight championship of the world by knocking out Michael Moorer in the tenth round, thus becoming an inspiration for millions of aging baby boomers.

Sources:

Phil Berger, Punch Lines: Berger on Boxing (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993);

Nigel Collins, Boxing Babylon: Behind the Shadowy World of the Prize Ring (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990);

Thomas Hauser, The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986);

Joyce Carol Oates, On Boxing (New York: Kensington, 1987);

Jeffery T. Sammons, Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society (Urbana 6c Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988).