The Big Fight

The plane ride from New Orleans to Washington was similar to the trip in the van after winning the gold medal. I could not wait to get home to be with my family and closest friends. The only blemish on my record was avenged, seen for what it really was, an aberration, an off night in a magnificient career, with more heroic conquests to come. I vanquished the great Duran. I was the champ again, not the “former” champ.

At home, once I took my cape off, I was Ray, a father and a husband, my priorities in the right order. I was the same innocent kid from Palmer Park, except with money and fame. Time came to a halt. I was in no rush to go anywhere or do anything.

Away from home, Sugar Ray took over, as always. Wherever I went, whether in public appearances or intimate gatherings, Sugar Ray was the main event. He never shared top billing with anybody. He would not stand for it. In looking back, I could do what I did for many years, and that is to blame my boys for putting me on a pedestal. The truth is that I was the one to blame. I wanted to hear how special I was all the time and that’s why I surrounded myself with the people I knew would tell me just that. Between fights, with no spectators to cheer me on, and no reporters to write flattering columns, the boys were where I went for applause, for validation. They never let me down.

On March 28, 1981, I took on a fighter named Larry Bonds. Bonds was put out there as an easy payday before my next major challenge, in the fall, presumably against Tommy “the Hitman” Hearns.

I deserved a breather. All fighters do after waging war, as I did against Duran—two wars, to be precise. With the belt in my possession, I could afford to gather my senses, and dollars, and face an overmatched adversary such as Bonds. It was also reasonable to assume that the fans need breathers, too. Give them too many so-called Fights of the Year in, well, a matter of months, and you’d dilute the impact of each one. Sooner or later, they would feel cheated, and wouldn’t pay to watch the contest on closed circuit. I wouldn’t blame them. It is better to stretch these history-making events out as far as possible, slowly building the level of anticipation until it reaches a feverish pitch, to where people feel they can’t miss out.

The fight was arranged in a hurry, my opponent apparently not finding out until about a month before. For Bonds, fighting was almost a hobby, his last ring appearance coming in April 1980 when he knocked out Costello (no relation to Don) King. Prior to that, his most recent bout was in September 1979. Bonds drifted from one menial job to another, working in construction, as a bouncer, and collecting rubbish. In the newspaper stories before our bout, he was described as “the Fighting Garbage Man.”

Bonds, however, was no bum. Ranked fifteenth by The Ring, he was a respectable 29-3. He possessed long arms, covered himself extremely well in the trenches, and blocked a lot of shots. He was a southpaw, which required me to make some adjustments, as lefties present the exact reverse angles on where to attack and defend. I sure couldn’t take Bonds lightly, not with the Hearns match on the horizon. Bonds, though, wasn’t ready for his close-up. During a prefight press conference, he asked me to sign some of my glossy eight-by-ten photographs. Can you imagine Duran, Hearns, or Hagler ever requesting my John Hancock? The only souvenir they would want was my scalp.

The fight itself, staged before twenty thousand at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York, was no contest from the opening bell. I backed Bonds against the ropes and he had nowhere to go. Late in the fourth round, I sent him to the canvas with a right uppercut. Game, set, and match, I assumed, as did the crowd. But Bonds bravely hung around until the tenth, when he became a little cocky for his own good, reminiscent of Davey Boy Green in Maryland. I nailed him with five straight punches to put him back on the floor. Bonds foolishly rose at the count of six. Here was a case where the fighter should perhaps have shown less heart.

Unlike Bonds, Kalule was no breather. A converted southpaw born in Uganda, he was the World Boxing Association’s junior middleweight champion, undefeated in thirty-six bouts, and had never been knocked down.

I was motivated, and not just because I could add another title. Tommy Hearns was on the undercard, taking on Pablo Baez. Being in the same building offered Tommy and me the chance to build the interest for our fight, set for September 16, at a site yet to be determined. As long as we both took care of business, nothing would get in our way. Tommy did his part first, staggering Baez with his signature right midway in round four. The referee stopped the bout thirty seconds later. Tommy used very little energy. I would not be as fortunate.

The cobra wasn’t for Tommy, who was also known as “the Motor City Cobra.” The cobra was for a Ugandan witch doctor who had been flown to Houston as a publicity stunt. Ugandan witch doctors are not too thrilled with the color black or snakes. Only in boxing.

I looked good in the fight as well, landing one jab after another in the first two rounds. I hoped to end the bout as convincingly as Tommy did and let the hype begin for September.

In the third, however, I bruised a knuckle in the middle finger of my hand when I struck Kalule with a left to the head, forcing me to rely more on the right. Still, I kept scoring well with both hands, mostly hits to the midsection. Somehow Kalule survived solid rights in the fourth and fifth and scored decently himself over the next several rounds. Maybe the witch doctor had put a spell on me after all. Late in the ninth round, I finally got to Kalule with two hard rights, a short left, and another right. Timbbberrr!

Kalule rose but was in a daze. With the round about to end, the bell would have saved him. Only, he didn’t know it. After taking the mandatory eight-count from the referee, Carlos Berrocal, Kalule indicated he had enough. It was a smart move. I would have gone right after him in the tenth and might have hurt him badly. He could now safely return to his home in Denmark with an extra $150,000 in the bank.

I wish I had been as bright as he was. When the fight was over, I pretended I was Olga Korbut, launching a front flip near my corner. If the jump had been spontaneous, that would be one thing, but I had actually thought of the stunt the night before in my suite, figuring I would need an encore after another stellar performance in the ring.

Needless to say, I should have spent more time contemplating what to do during the fight. What I came up with turned out to be dramatic, all right—more than the audience ever knew.

The moment my feet were off the ground, I realized the degree of difficulty was higher than I had anticipated, and that’s because I wore a protective cup, which restricted my ability to bend in the air and execute the necessary turn. I landed awkwardly, and was lucky I didn’t hurt myself. I can’t begin to imagine how embarrassed I would have been: “Leonard knocks out Kalule . . . then himself.” I think the East German judge got it right when he gave me a 3.5.

With Kalule out of the way, the conversation at the press conference in Houston shifted, naturally, to the upcoming duel with Tommy. I started to wage the fight before the fight, the one to seize the mental edge. There was no time to waste. I hoped to avoid a repeat of what occurred when Duran gained the upper hand at the Waldorf.

The reporters jumped on that comment, as I knew they would. Only years later, long after I retired for the last time, did I recognize its sheer cruelty. It was comparable to the nastiest things Ali said about his opponents, primarily Frazier, whom he portrayed as an Uncle Tom before their first fight, and a gorilla before their third.

It would be easy to say that I was merely trying to pump up interest in the fight. Easy and wrong. The truth is that there were times, and that was clearly one of them, when I was simply sick of having to live up to the image of the smiling, charming, safe Sugar Ray. It took too much energy. Everyone wants to be a smart-ass at one point or another. I was no exception.

I took several weeks off before I began to prepare for Tommy. The crack I made about his intelligence was not only mean, it was inaccurate. Tommy was very smart where it mattered most, in the ring, and he teamed with one of the craftiest trainers in boxing, Emanuel Steward. I knew Manny well from the days I spent as an amateur working out at his Kronk Gym in Detroit. Referring to me as “Superbad” for my speed and combinations, the other fighters treated me as if I were one of their own, and I was always grateful. This also meant Manny understood my strengths and weaknesses as well as anyone, and that included Angelo and Janks. He would have his fighter fully prepared for any game plan my team might devise.

I first realized how tough Tommy would be when I attended his fight against Cuevas at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit in August 1980. Tommy belted Cuevas, a monster puncher in his own right, at will, feeding off the excitement of his beloved fans. The bout was over in just under six minutes. I knew Tommy was good. I didn’t know he was that good.

The people in the nearby rows said the same thing. All I could do was smile and wave. I couldn’t make any promises until I avenged my loss to Duran, and that was far from automatic.

In my opinion, and I wasn’t alone, there were doubts about his stamina. Of his thirty-two fights, thirty ended by a knockout, the first fourteen, from November 1977 until January 1979, decided before the fifth round. Conversely, ten of my first fourteen went past the fourth, five lasting the distance. If I had beaten my opponents as swiftly as Tommy did, I could have spared myself a lot of sleepless nights. The next ten were no less taxing, six going at least seven rounds.

In retrospect, though, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. With every strong test against accomplished foes such as Marcos Geraldo, Adolfo Viruet, and Ayub Kalule, I learned to be a better fighter. I learned to dig deeper when I thought there might be nothing left. If the path had been too easy, I might not have gained the confidence to win the title on my first shot, knocking out Benitez in the final round when the outcome was still very much in doubt. I proved I could cope with any predicament. In my lone setback, I battled Duran to the end, growing stronger as the night wore on. No one doubted my stamina.

I was rusty in the beginning of camp, my sparring partners repeatedly connecting with lefts and rights to the head and body. I wasn’t worried. As usual, it took a week or two for me to develop my rhythm.

Though Tommy looked like an ice cream cone at six feet one with only a thirty-inch waist, nobody in the welterweight division, or perhaps the entire sport, possessed a right like his. It made no difference that many of his opponents were not big-name fighters. They were professionals, each one punch away from pulling off the upset. At the same time, he wasn’t as one-dimensional as it was assumed from the destruction he caused. His remarkable seventy-eight-inch reach, longer than some of the premier heavyweights in history, allowed Tommy to keep other men at bay. Just as the press failed to respect Duran’s boxing abilities, they made the same error with Tommy. Of his 155 amateur victories, nearly all were by decision. The Hitman did not become the Hitman until he turned pro.

Once he acquired his reputation as a knockout artist, the adulation was not far behind. Boxing fans have forever been infatuated with fighters who could annihilate the opposition with a single blow. Many live vicariously through their heroes in the ring, and nothing is as heroic as one human being sending another to the floor, the bloodier the better. On many occasions, after my own battles and the ones I did commentary for on television, I’d scan the crowd and catch people attempting to copy the shots they just saw. A young fighter such as Tommy, only twenty-two, was most appealing. His followers could climb on board early, and hold on for what they believed would be a long ride. The fact that he lived in Detroit, the home of Joe Louis, might have also contributed to his swift rise.

One was that he didn’t know how to force a clinch. He never needed to; his fights were over too fast and he was always on the offense. Being aware of when and how to stop the action, if briefly, during crucial moments of a bout can’t be overstated. The extra three seconds can be just enough time to clear the senses. That’s why trainer Ray Arcel had been concerned with referee Carlos Padilla in the first Duran fight. Any clinches would be to my benefit. They would disrupt the mauling tactics Duran thrived on.

Tommy was also susceptible to body shots. The way to beat him, I deduced from the films, was to chop him down like a tree by going to the midsection as often as possible. He, like Benitez, would become increasingly frustrated with the fact that he was forced to respond to the action instead of dictating it, and the left hand would get lower and lower. Before he knew it, the fight would be well into the late rounds, and he would be running out of answers. It took him twelve rounds in April to beat Randy Shields, and Shields was not in the division’s upper echelon. Another disadvantage would be that the pressure on fight night would be unlike anything Tommy had ever faced. There is no way to know what that pressure will feel like until you walk down the aisle, and by then there is nothing you can do about it.

Everything was proceeding according to plan until, about two weeks before the bout, one of my sparring partners, Odell Hadley, accidentally struck me on my left eye with his elbow. Odell was a lanky, six-feet-two middleweight who would go on to compile a fairly decent record during the eighties. He was brought into camp, like several others who were tall, because his style and build resembled Tommy’s, especially in how he threw his left jab. The objective, with daily repetition, was to develop the muscle memory so that I would instinctively avoid Tommy’s jab, which was like a twelve-gauge shotgun that never stopped firing. It was a shot that blinded you for an instant, setting up his money punch, the right, though with Tommy, the left was a potent weapon on its own.

I didn’t blame Odell. He was doing his job. By the next morning, my eye started to swell, and there was talk about possibly postponing the fight. Trying to beat Tommy Hearns would be hard enough, let alone with an eye that was less than 100 percent.

There would be no postponement. I was determined to fight on September 16 as long as I could breathe. To be ready for battle is not simply a matter of running five miles a day, hitting the bags, jumping rope, and sparring. It is about transporting one’s mind to a place in which no thoughts except those related to winning the fight must be allowed to enter. Going to that place, as painful as it is, is necessary, and the thought of leaving it and trying to pick up a few weeks, or perhaps months, later where I had left off was out of the question. That was why I was always opposed to any postponements, even in the twilight of my career, when the injuries were more severe. By early September, in preparing for Tommy, I was there, whatever there meant. I couldn’t start over.

My feelings toward Tommy were nothing like the animosity I felt toward Duran, which was to my advantage. With Duran, my emotions steered me to a fight strategy doomed from the beginning. There was no chance of that happening against Tommy. My motivation came more from a desire to elevate my standing in the sport, in the era that I occupied, and in history, than to bring down another man. I respected and liked Tommy. That didn’t mean I would take it easy on him if the opportunity presented itself. I didn’t take it easy on anyone. The beast in me, never far below the surface, would emerge at the appropriate times. It meant I wasn’t consumed with anger, as many fighters feel they need to be, no matter whom they face.

Jake and I had not spoken since he told me the system would prevent me from avenging the loss to Duran. I could forgive him for that. What I could not forgive him for was lending his support to Tommy.

What kind of man could do that? How could it be that everything Jake and I went through over the years—the sparring and strategy sessions, the hours of watching films, the pep talks over the phone, etc.—now meant so little to him? I was sure of one thing: If Emanuel Steward believed that putting Jake on the payroll might give Tommy an edge, he did not know me as well as he thought. Jake joining Tommy’s camp only made me more determined.

While I watched him clown around, as only he could, it hit me: Muhammad Ali is at my camp! I have made it now! All the money and fame in the world could not provide the validation I received from his presence. Looking back, it was almost as if the torch were being officially passed, with Ali’s last fight, against Trevor Berbick in the Bahamas, only three months away. I don’t believe we spoke that day. There was no need. He was there for me and that was enough.

On the evening of September 15, with the fight less than twenty-four hours away, I went to sleep confident that I had done everything in my power to be ready for Tommy Hearns. But did I? And, if not, what did I miss and would it cost me the crown?

As usual, there was only one way to find out. I got up and went into the bathroom to look in the mirror. I checked the muscles in my arms and legs. They were bulging. I checked the speed of my flurries. They were fast. I began the final check, the one to tell me if I would be Sugar Ray or Ray.

When Tommy took off his robe and stepped onto the scale at Caesars for the weigh-in on the morning of the fight, I was stunned. He looked like a famine victim from Africa. Officially, he came in at 145, two full pounds under the welterweight limit. I felt the difference against Duran in Montreal, and I was convinced the lesser weight would make Tommy weaker as well.

I did a lot of thinking in those hours. The fight was billed in the press as “the showdown,” which made sense given that Tommy, who held the WBA crown, and I, the WBC belt, were each attempting to become the undisputed welterweight champion of the world. But when I considered what the confrontation truly symbolized for me, I came up with another word, and had it stitched on the back of the robe I would wear into the ring. The word was deliverance. In the dictionary, the definition is “liberation, salvation, rescue.” That summed it up.

Taking on Tommy Hearns was my chance to acquire the respect that I was being denied by a number of the veteran boxing writers who still saw me as a fighter created by television who had yet to defeat a star opponent. In their view, Benitez was not in that class. Duran was, but they argued that the outcome in New Orleans was more about him surrendering than my causing him to surrender. Conversely, they saw Tommy, with his devastating power, as a legitimate fighter who earned his way to the top without being coddled by Cosell. The commercials I appeared in reinforced this point of view. I sold soda. Real fighters didn’t sell soda.

Some even framed the duel as a clash between the boxer who abandoned his roots to prosper in the white culture (me) and the one who stayed true to his heritage (Tommy). I didn’t get riled up at the time, recognizing that these reporters were no different from the promoters, manufacturing a conflict to drum up more interest in an event. Years later, I came to realize how absurd their argument was, and how much it disturbed me. It wasn’t just during the buildup for the Hearns bout when I heard such nonsense. At various times in my career, I was criticized for trying to act white, for “selling out.”

What was my crime? It was that I had the nerve to be well-spoken, which went against the perception of the illiterate black fighter. The fact is that I never thought of trying to act white, whatever that meant. I was simply interested in bettering myself, inside as well as outside the ropes. A boxer’s career is not long, and I wanted to be certain I’d still make a decent living when I put the gloves away for good. Besides, I grew up in Palmer Park, trained in Watts and Detroit, and spent plenty of time in Harlem. I felt as comfortable in the projects as I did in the boardrooms. I cared about the injustices committed against my race, even if I did not speak out publicly, as Ali and football star Jim Brown did. I donated my share to black causes. I just didn’t need to have my picture in the paper to prove it.

The Tommy Hearns I saw when I entered the ring around 7:30 P.M. was not the same fighter from the morning. He looked as if somebody had pumped him up with air. He clearly had spent the whole afternoon hydrating himself. Any illusions of an early knockout on my part were put aside. Caught off guard, I needed to do something, and quickly. Tommy was on his way toward the center of the ring. It came to me just in time.

I bounced up and down as the ref, Davey Pearl, issued his instructions. By not staying flat on my feet, Tommy was unable to fully appreciate the height difference between us, which was at least three inches. It was no secret that he was taller, but I hoped to put a little doubt in his mind. Despite our God-given talents, we were also human, and that meant being prone to insecurities like anybody else, especially as we prepared to enter a place in which there would be no escape from the opponent, and ourselves. I retreated to my corner, confident that I’d gotten inside Tommy’s head once more.

Another thought occurred to me during those final critical seconds. It came as I scanned the seats at ringside. I noticed the usual entertainment stars who loved the fights, as well as other high rollers, among the nearly twenty-four thousand spectators squeezed into a temporary outdoor stadium adjacent to the hotel’s parking lot. With the revenue from pay-per-view television and the closed-circuit distribution, the fight would gross more than $35 million, a record at the time for a sporting event.

The person, however, who captured my attention was Muhammad Ali, wearing a tie and jacket, in the third row. I decided that, for this one night, I would be Ali—at least, a facsimile of Ali. There could be only one Ali. Why Ali? With his bravado and footwork, he blended the ideal skills to outfox Tommy Hearns. If I could channel “the Greatest” for the next hour or maybe less, I would be the undisputed champ.

During the opening three minutes, the “showdown” was a standoff, both of us getting acclimated to the opponent and the surroundings. The temperature in Vegas was a serious factor, having been in the 100s all week long and still in the low 90s when the fight got under way, which made pacing oneself more crucial than usual. No matter how good the shape Tommy and I were in, neither of us could sustain a maximum effort under these conditions for the whole night.

Speaking of hot, that’s what Tommy was because of what I did after I heard the bell ending round one. I told myself I was going to be Ali and I meant it. I touched Tommy lightly on the side of the head with my right hand.

He responded with his own right, which was quite a bit harder than mine. It was the exact reaction I was aiming for. Tommy deserved the round. He landed more punches. Yet sometimes you don’t need to capture a round to advance your cause. This was one of those times. When a fighter is angry, and Tommy was no exception, he doesn’t think clearly, as I learned the hard way in Montreal. The more I could take him out of his rhythm, the more he might leave himself open to my attacks.

Tommy was not the only one who was upset. So was Roger, who began to shout from the corner after Tommy’s retaliatory strike. I love Roger with all my heart, and I know he was only trying to stick up for his “little” brother, but he was also high as a kite.

Round two was similar to the first, with no serious blows exchanged. While Tommy landed his jab effectively, I was trying to figure out how to penetrate his defenses to operate on his body, and to do it from close range. If I tried to attack consistently from a long distance, I might wind up like Pipino Cuevas. Exploiting his four-inch reach advantage, Tommy would be able to throw lefts from his favorite angles, and those jabs, besides scoring points, would do damage. He was awarded the second round as well, which meant I faced another early deficit, as I did in the first Duran fight. I was also worried about my eye, still not healed from the errant Odell Hadley elbow. The belts from Tommy weren’t helping.

Easy for Angelo to say. Trying to get close to Tommy Hearns carried its own risks. I wasn’t fighting Davey Boy Green or Larry Bonds or Ayub Kalule. I was fighting the Hitman, and he wasn’t called the Hitman for nothing. I had no choice. Either I hit him or I’d return to Palmer Park with another defeat. The first few days after losing to Duran were perhaps the worst days of my life, and I’d die before I went through that again.

While I was more aggressive over the next couple of rounds, I didn’t come close to putting Tommy in trouble. On the other hand, although he landed plenty of good shots, he didn’t come close, either. Seeing my head snap back on several occasions, many of the fans at Caesars, and no doubt on the closed-circuit telecast, thought he had scored more frequently, but some of the blows were glancing, not direct. Either way, the judges were impressed, giving Tommy valuable points.

I went for the kill, firing lefts and rights to the head and rib cage as fast as possible. I wanted the fight to be over. My eye was not getting any better, and sooner or later he might land that devastating right of his.

I could not wait for round seven. I was sure Tommy had not yet recovered. I was right. He wasn’t the same fighter from the first five rounds. Working inside repeatedly, I threw more left hooks to his defenseless jaw. My arms were weary, yet I told myself to keep punching no matter how exhausted I got. Tommy was ready to fall. Maybe so, but I couldn’t finish him off. He staggered back to his corner, but had survived.

In the eighth, Tommy regained his footing, and by the ninth he was all over the ring, keeping me off balance with his flickering jab and remarkable reach. In a reversal of roles, I was stalking him as he conducted a boxing clinic, reverting back to his days as an amateur. When I saw this pattern develop, I should have resorted more to my own jab. I had a pretty good one. But I didn’t. Instead, spoiled by my success in rounds six and seven, I kept waiting for the decisive blow to put him down. I kept waiting . . . and waiting.

His strategy paid off. Though he wasn’t inflicting much punishment, he was winning rounds and the rounds were winding down. My eye was getting worse, and by the eleventh or twelfth, my vision was down to 50 percent of normal, perhaps less. Given my inability to clearly see every punch he threw, I was risking a heck of a lot more than a belt. But I’d never quit before in the ring and I wasn’t about to start now. I saw what quitting did to Duran’s reputation. The fight was slipping away and I had no answers. My mind told me: You need to throw more punches! My body didn’t listen. People admire our bulging muscles and lean waistlines and automatically assume that we have superhuman powers. We don’t. We break down like everyone else. Our bodies can’t always do whatever our minds command.

As the twelfth round got under way, the doubts about Tommy’s stamina seemed laughable. He couldn’t have looked any fresher. All he had to do was keep boxing for another twelve minutes, and the WBA and WBC crowns would be his. While I got in the best licks, primarily in rounds six and seven, it didn’t matter.

Then it came, the spark I needed, from the voice of Angelo Dundee. Angelo did not make the contribution we assumed he would after coming aboard in 1976, leading to the bitter run-ins with Mike Trainer and the restructuring of his contract a few years later. But, at roughly 8:30 P.M. on Wednesday, September 16, 1981, Angelo came to my rescue, just as he had saved Ali against Cooper and Liston in the early 1960s, and for that I will always be grateful.

The way Angelo said it was as important as what he said, with the perfect mixture of urgency, encouragement, and affection. Angelo was no Knute Rockne, but, with the exception of the Dick Eklund fight, he knew precisely how to get through to me at the most pivotal moments, and no moment in the fight, or in my career, was more pivotal than this.

As I relaxed on the stool, my eye nearly closed, I realized how right he was. I was blowing it. A punch or two away from putting Tommy out in the sixth or seventh rounds, I was on the verge of losing my crown, of being what some of the writers said I still was, a made-for-TV fighter who was no match for the real thing, Tommy Hearns. I decided to attack Tommy with everything I had no matter how close I might get to his right hand. If I was going down, I was going down as a warrior.

Midway through the thirteenth round, I got my chance, unleashing a right that hit him squarely in the head. His head snapped back as it had in the sixth, Tommy staggering along the ropes. He was hurt worse than before. I proceeded to throw about twenty-five punches in a row, hitting Tommy everywhere, and hard. I couldn’t have stopped even if I had wanted to, the exhilaration as each shot met its target the most wonderful feeling in the world. I fed off the roar of the fans, and the sight of my opponent in trouble, ready to be destroyed. And to think there were people who had questioned if I could be ferocious enough when it was necessary. How wrong they were. I loved to hit other men. I loved to see them crumble.

Tommy fell into the ropes and was practically on the canvas, though referee Davey Pearl did not rule it a knockdown, and then told Tommy to “get up” instead of asking him if he could get up. Pearl’s response was a prime example of how the men wearing trunks are not the only ones in the ring who can let the pressure of a championship fight cloud their judgment.

This time, the countdown began. After getting up, Tommy was ready to go again, but was saved by the bell. He might have bought himself a chance to regroup over those last thirty seconds if he had known how to clinch. That’s what I would have done.

I nearly ran from my corner for the start of round fourteen. Tommy escaped in rounds six and seven from a certain knockout, in part due to my negligence. He wasn’t going to escape this time.

I wasn’t much better off than Tommy was. When Janks and my brothers lifted me in the air, I slumped into their arms and almost collapsed onto the canvas. I had nothing left. Everything went into those last two rounds. Everything and more.

About an hour later, in meeting with the reporters, we came across as the best of friends, and why wouldn’t we be? We gave the world quite a show, and made millions doing it. No matter who prevailed, we were both set for life, and, still in our twenties, there was every reason to think he and I would soon see each other again in the ring to make more history, and money. The public would demand a rematch, and we would be happy to give it to them.

For me, the satisfaction was not just beating Tommy and winning the crown. It was the way I beat him. The experts said I could win only by decision. Knocking him out, with my eye nearly shut and after my opponent, by all accounts, had been in control of the fight, proved I was truly one of the greats. Hearns was a giant, and I slayed him.

Thirty years later, the fight remains my defining moment as a fighter. I was at the peak of my abilities, and so was Tommy. I’ve run into him many times over the years, usually at a fight in Vegas, and the affection between us remains genuine. Which is why it deeply saddens me to see him go through rough financial times and it is painful when I have to tell him that we’re not living in the 1980s anymore.

“The people love us, Tommy,” I said, “but they don’t want to see two old guys in the ring with gloves and headgear on. I don’t want to get hit by you and I don’t think you want to get hit by me. Let’s leave the past where it belongs.”