THE SHOWDOWN: LEONARD VS. HAGLER : For the Sugarman, Return to the Ring Allows the Showman in Him to Come Out

The fighters, holed up in their resort retreats, create mythologies for their opponents. Though highly delusional, this is nevertheless useful to the fighters. Perhaps even necessary.

--Marvelous Marvin Hagler, sweating in the Palm Springs sun, imagines a certain “Mr. HBO,” a cummerbund-cinched dandy of some privilege, mocking his blue-collar career and his hard-won riches and repute. It makes him furious.

--Sugar Ray Leonard, padding along the sandy beach here, sees a most-reluctant champion, not fierce at all, but a man painfully hamstrung by his own bitterness and fear. Hagler’s shaven head, which appears before him wherever he goes, seems softened by age and hard use, one very concerned cantaloupe. It makes Leonard confident.

Without these fictions, neither fighter might have been persuaded to step into the ring next Monday, millions aside. Do you think the eight-minute dismantling of Thomas Hearns, boxing’s version of a major malfunction, unreels in Leonard’s head as he plods beside the surf? Do you think Hagler recalls the circuit-popping second fight Leonard threw at Roberto Duran as he spars in the desert?

No, neither does that. And so the fighters create cardboard caricatures, as easily knocked over as set up. And so a fight that would have been important to boxing five years ago is finally made. Somehow, only now, has it become important to the fighters. Maybe, the fictions having taken hold over the years, the fight has only now become possible for the fighters.

Suddenly, in a small white tent on the hotel grounds, Leonard materializes. He has been driven 100 yards or so in a van. A curtain is parted and he appears. It is theatrical enough, everything but “Pomp and Circumstance” to announce his arrival. Attendants scurry. Leonard has come to work out.

By now, of course, the real work has been done. By now Leonard, at least to his satisfaction, has reclaimed the mental set and middleweight “seat” to make this fight fair. That work was largely done in secret, at home in Maryland.

The body is now bigger, no longer welterweight. “Look at his fanny,” says Mike Trainer, his attorney. “That’s how we knew he was big enough.”

And the mind is toughened. “I just got that feeling again, like a promissory note in my head.” Leonard says.

But this is showtime. With Charlie Brotman, longtime Leonard publicist, working the microphone, Leonard goes through some paces, more for the benefit of the crowd, it seems, than his own. Some sparring is done, sure, but the memorable ring images are of Leonard bringing his 2-year-old son Jarrel (Bobo) into the ring and the kid grinning for photographers.

Photo opportunity: Leonard stoops to the canvas to tie the kid’s shoe.

The drama is calculated, all right. Leonard is stagy, an acknowledged ham. His rope skipping is done to the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and is no less impressive than the Globetrotters’ toss-around to the same tune.

It is important to note also that the rope-skipping is just about as essential to Leonard’s fight with Hagler as the Globetrotters’ flamboyant toss-around is to their games with the Generals.

Leonard basks in the crowd’s appreciation. He never made any bones about his ego or vanity, give him that. “The more you win,” he once said, “the bigger you are.”

He liked being bigger. He was surprised and disappointed at how he withered at ringside all those years, his retirement at 26 a very public one as he continued to broadcast fights for CBS and HBO. Watching all those fighters, even Hagler, in the ring seemed to be cutting him down to size, fight by fight.

“You want people to say, ‘Hey, champ, way to go,’ ” he said in a Sports Illustrated interview. “You can sit there and listen to it over and over again. But it’s always good to hear a different person tell you--that’s why you walk across the street to another hotel.”

This is part, maybe most, of the fighter’s complex. Do not discount courage rewarded or recognized as an important motivation. There has to be something that puts these men alone in a ring. Not even a promised purse of $12 million, which Leonard does not need, or a victory over today’s dominant ring personality, which Leonard does not need, can compel someone who has already undergone eye surgery and whose legacy is otherwise intact to risk his body and reputation--not to mention everything that was once right about boxing--in the ring.

It is a curious vanity that demands that someone risk all this for those few moments in training camp, when the cameras click and the crowd gasps. “Did you ever see anybody skip rope like that?” somebody asks. That seems a curious satisfaction as well.

“Ray vain?” asks Trainer, the man who helped establish one of the most charismatic and financially independent boxers of all time. He laughs.

“Let me tell you something. We’re in my office, well after he retired, and he’s looking over his mail. You know how it is, people send in pictures, asking for his autograph. I pick up one, shows him with this great muscle definition, stomach flat, his biceps big. I say, ‘Remember when you looked like that, Ray? Been awhile, huh?’

“Then, all of a sudden, I notice he’s getting back in shape. Don’t ask me what he’s doing but soon he’s wearing these Polo shirts again, showing off his arms. Ray vain?”

Leonard never lost that vanity, not even in retirement. When he came into demand as a former champion, appearing at celebrity tennis tournaments, he decided to have Brotman tutor him in the game. He always likes to look good. “He never wants to be embarrassed,” Brotman says.

In the tent, the crowd follows every move, as choreographed by Brotman. The rhythm of the speed bag, the thud of the heavy bag, the pit-a-pat of the rope--all sound track to his own little movie. He mugs some more for the cameras--he spars with Jarrel--and then, apparently satisfied with the attention, he’s gone.

The comeback kind of crept up on Leonard. There was, to be sure, some regret, some second-guessing after he had announced he was through with boxing three years ago. That was when a journeyman named Kevin Howard put Leonard on his welterweight seat and extended him nine desultory rounds.

Leonard finally knocked Howard out but was so disgusted by the performance that he announced his retirement that night.

Looking back, Trainer wonders if that wasn’t a little premature. Leonard, who had undergone surgery for a detached retina in his left eye in 1982, hadn’t fought in two years before meeting Howard.

What did he expect? He admittedly didn’t expect too much of Howard, why so much of himself? A chance to put that fight, as depressing as it might have been, into perspective and Leonard might have remained on the scene and fought Hagler then, both in their prime, as the logical next bout.

Instead, he firmed up retirement plans. This time it seemed final, much more so than the previous retirement after the eye surgery, when he staged his own going-away party.

Unlike most of Leonard’s career, that was done in dubious taste. Howard Cosell was an emcee. Some second-rate celebs made ring appearances in the Baltimore arena. Hagler was advised to be on hand, although he didn’t know the purpose. He sort of thought--had been led to believe--that Leonard was going to make public his plans to fight him.

But Leonard pointed to Hagler, identified him as boxing’s Fort Knox and said: “Unfortunately, that fight will never happen.”

Hagler, who felt the fool at being twice denied the bout, has smoldered ever since. But Leonard and his fans seemed to exult in the prospects of a happy retirement. After glorifying boxing with some of the sport’s most electric fights--Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, twice--Leonard was now getting out rich and healthy. He had had it both ways. He went out untouched.

So these last three years, Leonard has dignified the sport at ringside, ring warrior made good. Bright teeth, big wink--it had turned out pretty well. His income from investments--he had made $48 million--gives him a six-figure income easy, no blood, no sweat. In addition, the ring lights sometimes spilled over the canvas to illuminate him at ringside. It had turned out about as well as it can in this game.

Who knows what exactly aborted this happy story. Certainly Leonard began to wonder when he watched Hagler struggle with Duran for a decision. Certainly he began to wonder when, helping Shawn O’Sullivan train, he began to find some of those little moves. But he was never that far away from it to begin with. Even on the road he carried his own gloves. “Whether I used them or not, that’s another story,” Leonard says. “But I always had them.”

Then some things happened in boxing that created this little void, one only Leonard could fill. Hagler visited a train wreck upon Hearns in their showdown, making a rematch less than automatic or, worse, profitable. Then Hagler struggled with John Mugabi. Then Donald Curry, who was projected to be the next middleweight threat, got unseated. Where was the next fight of the century?

“I knew a fight with Hagler was suddenly tangible,” Leonard says. “The economics, the timing. Hearns did not look impressive. Then Duran was not impressive against (Robbie) Sims. I knew this was possible.”

Amazingly, though, Hagler did not respond immediately to the challenge, the next obvious superfight. It was 109 days before Hagler, the Superman, decided that, yes, the Sugarman could come out of retirement. Or rather, it was 109 days until Hagler could be persuaded to take the fight.

Because of the delay, the Leonard camp has the impression Leonard’s challenge was the last thing Hagler wanted to hear. “He’s waiting for his friends to laugh it off,” Trainer says. “Only they don’t. We had to shame him into taking the fight.”

This is the Hagler that Leonard sees as he plods along the beach. Also this one:

“He’s old, he’s been through wars. He’s afraid of cuts.”

Remember, though Leonard is 30, Hagler is at least 32. And Leonard believes Hagler is as old as 36. Leonard sees an old man, as infected with ring rust as himself. True, Leonard has fought nine rounds in five years. But Hagler hasn’t fought in a year. And every time he fights, he bleeds. Even in the destruction of Hearns, Hagler bled. The tissue above his brows has been pounded paper thin.

If Leonard truly sees Hagler’s head in front of him as he does his roadwork, it appears less as a fearsome visage than as the soft cantaloupe. Ripe.

Leonard is sitting at a table in a small room with several reporters. Away from the lights he is subdued, speaking matter-of-factly about the fight in front of him. As he talks, he doodles on a large pad.

“Duran, even Mugabi gave Hagler upper body movement,” he is saying. “But you’ve got to be careful with that long right jab, he jumps with that baby. The key is, you’ve got to stay low. He thinks if you stay low, he’ll be butted. He’s afraid of cuts.”

He goes on, all cool analysis: “Everybody asks me about rust. But rust will affect Hagler, too. He’s older, he’s been through wars. And he’s said, ‘If I lost, I’d have to fight again.’

“That’s what I want to hear. Just by saying that, he’s thinking about it. I’ll throw punches and tie him up. If I see him frustrated, the fight is mine.”

Leonard continues to doodle. It is a thoughtful appraisal of Hagler, but then the real question is not Hagler but Leonard.

“Rust, I can’t argue that down. Kevin Howard, I can’t argue that down. But I didn’t have it then. But I do now, I’ve got that feeling again, just got it. How do I explain that feeling. It’s like a promissory note, what I have upstairs.” He points to his head.

Doodling, he explains how he nearly despaired of recovering that feeling, which he hadn’t experienced since 1981 when he stopped Hearns in 14 rounds, his last important fight.

“I knew it would be tough, that I’d have to bite the bullet. And it was tough, at times discouraging. I’d work out and say, ‘It’s just not there, it’s not there.’ ”

Leonard did everything he knew to reclaim it. “First it was my legs, I need my legs to beat Hagler. Then my face. You know, women ask me, how do you get used to getting hit. Simple, no headgear.”

In fact, he brought sparring partners in to simulate real fights. No headgear, 10-ounce gloves.

Still, no feeling. He was as mentally prepared as he was for Kevin Howard. “And there’s nothing scarier than returning to the ring when the feeling’s not there.

“Then two-three months ago, I must have gone about 12 rounds with four guys. The instinct was there. It was ecstasy, deja vu. I didn’t have doubts anymore. It’s like doing a story. You scribble, you look at it. ‘Damn, no content. Let me have another 15 minutes.’ Then it becomes a story.”

Leonard continues to doodle. He talks of Hagler as the ultimate matchup, “my mountain,” how this is “only one fight, not a comeback,” and how this is “now or never.” It’s the only possible way to retire, he says, the dream match finally made, however late, on a warm desert night. Both men meeting inevitable destinies.

Finally Brotman calls time for the fighter and Leonard is escorted, uncomplaining, from the room. He has disappeared again, leaving, what?

Somebody picks up the piece of paper Leonard was doodling on. It is covered with question marks.