He was never one to say “No Más.” The pandemonium that erupted at the Superdome in New Orleans when Roberto Durán quit, surrendering his welterweight title belt to Sugar Ray Leonard, was nothing compared to the chaos that was his life outside the ring.
The pandemonium that erupted at the Superdome in New Orleans when Roberto Durán quit, surrendering his welterweight title belt to Sugar Ray Leonard, was nothing compared to the chaos that was his life outside the ring.
Sure, the explosive fighter won championships across four different weight classes and was victorious in an incredible 70 fights by knockout.
Yet his career imploded more than once, knocked to the mat by alcohol, greed and an ego bigger than most of his opponents.
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Durán, 65, never known to be humble, details his life in the spotlight and the ring in a new book titled “I Am Durán.”
Much like the infamous “No Mas” fight with Leonard, Durán life is steeped in myth and mayhem.
Like the night in 1984 a guy handed him $250,000 in a Miami nightclub to set up a fight with Tommy “Hitman” Hearns.
Durántook the money and partied with two women who told him they were lesbians. They said they were up for a threesome until Durán got on top of the wrong woman.
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“She got all angry with me and spoiled what should have been a great way to end the night,” he writes.
The party raged on for two and a half weeks as Durán burned through the cash going from one club to another.
“I had the best time of my life,” he wrote. “It went on so long that, by the end of it, I’d almost forgotten about the Hearns fight.”
The younger, faster Hearns beat Durán into such a daze he couldn’t find his own corner of the ring. Hearns then delivered the knockout blow, the first Durán had ever taken.
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“When I hit the canvas in the middle of that first round, what came into my mind was those two lesbians in Miami. I don’t know why but it made me laugh,” he wrote.
Durán fought his way back to the top, of course, and then did it again, taking the middleweight crown from Iran Barkley in 1989 when he was 37.
He was still in the ring at 50, not retiring until 2001.
Panama’s favorite son packed a lot of partying into his five decades as one of the most famed boxers in the world.
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Durán’s glory days kicked off when he beat Ken Buchanan to win the world lightweight championship at Madison Square Garden in 1972.
General Omar Torrijos, Panama’s military ruler, sent a plane stocked with champagne and caviar to the freshly minted 21-year-old champion.
Durán’s taste for the high life after rising out of the Panama City slum of El Chorrillo never wavered.
Time and again, he recounts being drunk in this club or that club, often with different mistresses.
At home he strolled around with his pet lion, Walla. In New York, Durán didn’t need the lion to run with the big cats.
Sylvester Stallone wanted him for a bit part in Rocky II and got a bit cocky in their sparring sessions. So Durán tagged him a good one.
The movie “Hands of Stone,” currently in theaters starring Edgar Ramirez and Robert De Niro, presents a fictionalized version of Durán’s rise and fall.
“I Am Durán” tells the fighter’s fabled drama from his own corner.
Durán confesses to the bevy of women that he, a married man, enjoyed throughout his life. He boasts of the parties in Panama where 200 people packed his house.
Durán gave away money to anyone who asked. As much as $5,000 an hour, by his count.
A party with Robert De Niro and some guys from the movie he was making, “Raging Bull,” racked up a $7,000 tab at Victor’s Café downtown. De Niro paid.
For once, Durán was the first to quit the festivities. He had to train early the next morning.
Durán hated training, never really accepting it as the price he had to pay to take home the purse.
Still, he got himself into shape to get into the ring with the boxer described to him as a “sensation among all the gringos.”
That first fight with Sugar Ray Leonard in 1980 was known as the “Brawl in Montreal.”
Leonard had an $8 million guarantee compared to Durán’s paltry $1.5 million payday.
“All I wanted to do was defeat the pinup boy of the United States,” he wrote.
Durán punished Leonard through 15 rounds, decisively winning the welterweight title in a stunning upset.
After the fight, Durán refused a ride in President Aristides Sanchez’s plane home to Panama.
Instead, he beat it to New York.
“I hung out with my low-life friends, who never had any money, as well as the millionaires,” he wrote. “Night after night, we partied until everything was just one big haze.
“It got to the point where I weighed 200 pounds! But I didn’t care — there weren’t anymore fights to worry about.”
But then the bloated fighter got bad news.
If Durán wanted his own $8 million payday, he would have to show up at the Superdome for a rematch with Leonard only five months after their first fight.
Grossly out of shape and overweight, Durán kept partying. Back in Panama, he’d train by day, hit the clubs by night.
That November night in the Superdome, Leonard danced around an ever-weakening Durán, owning the fight.
By the seventh round he was taunting Durán, sticking out his chin inviting a hit.
Durán was taking punches, one flush in the face at the end of the seventh.
A round later, he signaled to the ref he wanted out. The fight was over.
Durán vehemently denies he called quits by saying “No más.” He claims that was Howard Cosell’s invention.
Regardless, the night of his shame went down in history, and will forever be known as the “No Más” fight.
Ray Arcel, Durán’s widely respected trainer, quit in disgust. His manager, Carlos Eleta, left him with no money to fly home.
Durán was shocked and unprepared for the disdain that met him everywhere. In Panama, they threw rocks at his house.
“What was I suppose to do after beating Leonard in the first fight? Stay at home, go to church everyday, not screw around and not drink?” he wrote.
“That’s not who I am.”
Durán fought his way back, of course, then did it again.
After the boxing world, and all of Panama, turned their backs on him following the debacle of the Leonard rematch in 1980, there should have been no coming back.
But Durán did, which is one of the reasons he’s lionized as one of the all-time greats.
He took the WBA light middleweight title from Davey Moore in 1983.
Later that year, he became the rare fighter to last a competitive 15 rounds with middleweight champ Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
The rankings vary but Durán is widely considered among the top 10 greatest boxers of all time.
Durán, now living modestly in Panama having lost his fortune, has his own words for it.
“There is only one legend and that’s me,” he wrote.
“I Am Durán” hits the shelves on Sept. 20.