Little Man May Want a Big Bout

When someone asked Sugar Ray Leonard, just after he had disposed of Donny Lalonde for the light-heavyweight championship of the world, if he were going to fight Mike Tyson next, the tip-off was, no one laughed.

The reporter who asked the question looked around with a “Hey, guys! These are the jokes!” look, but everyone stared straight ahead.

Will Sugar Ray Leonard, 160 pounds in shoes, socks and overcoat--just a kind of overblown welterweight, to tell you the truth--want to take on Mike Tyson, 220 pounds of hard-muscled malevolence?

Well, let me put it this way: I’m not laughing.

Sugar Ray Leonard is a great fighter. And he’s got the ego to match.

He has already disproved one of the great shibboleths of the fight game, “They never come back.” Sugar Ray came back. Sugar Ray didn’t even have a fight with his wife for 3 years and came out of retirement to give the fearsome Marvin Hagler a sound thrashing for his title in 12 taunting rounds.

So, maybe now he’ll take dead aim on that other ancient maxim of Tin Ear Alley, “A good big man will always beat a good little man.”

The truth of the matter is, good little men always hanker to beat good big men. David always wants Goliath. It’s why Napoleon wanted Europe.

It obviously rankles smaller, lighter fighters that the big boys get all the glory, all the attention, most of the money. There’s never yet been a fighter with a sizable ego who was content with that “pound-for-pound” designation. He wants it all. There’s another hoary axiom of the prize ring, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” This one, the little guys like.

It should be remembered the original Sugar Ray made a foray into the upper classes when, as middleweight champion in June 1952, he took on Joey Maxim, the light-heavyweight champion, with a view to moving up to the heavyweight title, then held by the slow, aging Jersey Joe Walcott. Unfortunately, Sugar Ray I was undone by 100-degree heat and humidity and collapsed from heat prostration in round 14 of a fight where the referee had to be carried out 3 rounds earlier.

It is said that Bob Fitzsimmons won the heavyweight title weighing 165 pounds. But if Sugar Ray Leonard does throw custom--and common sense--out the window, he will not be the first welterweight and middleweight champion to go in search of bigger things.

Edward Michael (Mickey) Walker was so small, his nickname even in his own weight class was “the Toy Bulldog.” There was nothing toy about this Mick. A rough, tough, swarming brawler who could also box and slug, he was a willing mixer. Two of the things he liked to mix were rum and Coke. He had 163 fights in his gaudy career, several of them sober. Mickey liked to even things up, to give his opponent a sporting chance, by showing up direct from the nearest nightclub. Nevertheless, he won the welterweight title from the classy Jack Britton, in 1922, and the middleweight from the nifty Tiger Flowers, one of the best of the early black champions, in 1926.

By 1930, the bar bills and alimony payments had gotten so demanding that Walker, all 158 pounds of him, set out to become heavyweight champion of the world. He fought bigger, tougher, stronger but not faster guys, such as Johnny Risko, who was so indestructible his nickname was “the Cleveland Rubber Man.” He fought Bearcat Wright, who outweighed him by 100 pounds, he fought Paul Swiderski, who weighed 220. He found heavyweights almost easier to beat than middleweights. He was to beat Paulino Uzcudun, King Levinsky, top contenders both.

In 1931, he was matched with Jack Sharkey, then recognized as the heavyweight champion in New York although he had lost on a foul to Max Schmeling the year before. The press was outraged, inveighed against the bout as a mismatch that should not be allowed. Sharkey outweighed Walker by 30 pounds, was 6 inches taller and was a clean liver whose recreations were hunting and fishing, which he got in the New Hampshire woods (Mickey’s were booze and women, which he got in Texas Guinan’s speak-easy.)

Actually, Sharkey outweighed Walker by 36 pounds. Mickey’s actual weight of 162 was given as 168 to forestall further criticism.

The bout was called a draw, but the referee had voted for Walker 11 rounds to 4, and a contrite press fell all over itself apologizing to Walker who, it felt, had won the fight.

Walker was supposed to get the title shot against Max Schmeling, but Sharkey got it instead. When Sharkey defeated Schmeling to regain the title, he refused Walker a rematch. Walker, instead, fought Schmeling, who knocked him out. Walker was never the same again although he fought heavyweights creditably enough to be in line for a match with Joe Louis, no less, 3 years later. It went glimmering when Mickey lost on a head butt to the European heavyweight champion, Eric Seelig, in a fight Walker was well ahead in at the time.

Does Sugar Ray Leonard want to be the new Mickey Walker? Is it even conscionable? Mike Tyson is no Jack Sharkey. Paulino Uzcudun. He may not even be a Max Schmeling. He’s more terrifying than that.

Still, boxing is a speed sport. It is part of boxing lore that Billy Conn, a natural 168-pounder, very nearly defeated Joe Louis in his prime.

Conn was light-heavyweight champion. So is Leonard. But Sugar Ray may be a natural 150-pounder. Will blinding speed be enough against that pull in the weights?

It’s an audacious idea. Sugar Ray specializes in those. It may be too terrible to contemplate. But, you can bet me, Sugar Ray Leonard is contemplating it. And if you think Sugar Ray Leonard will get knocked out in 10 seconds or less, for heaven’s sake, don’t tell him. That’s the quickest way to get him to do it. Sugar Ray is probably just sorry Muhammad Ali got old. Or Jack Dempsey, for all of that. Sugar Ray thinks he’s the greatest fighter there ever was. Or will be. Not pound for pound. Period for period. Or, even, exclamation point.