Advertisement

Leonard vs. Kickboxer: A ‘Silly’ Fight That Never Was

Share
<i> Times Staff Writer </i>

The long-awaited fight between ring legend Sugar Ray Leonard and kickboxer Benny (The Jet) Urquidez is finally, undeniably, definitely . . . pretty unlikely.

A lavish press conference conducted by Urquidez’s manager and the owner of a local public-relations firm was held in Van Nuys on Thursday to announce the upcoming match. Urquidez was there, too, explaining how he was going to land so many kicks to the head that Leonard’s ears were going to look like Leonard Nimoy’s ears. Let’s see Leonard dance and jab with my left foot lodged in his windpipe, Urquidez said.

But wait.

Urquidez’s manager said that no date has been set for the fight.

And there’s a very good reason for that.

Leonard and his manager say that there will never be a fight between the five-time boxing champion and Urquidez, a virtual no-name outside kickboxing.

Advertisement

The fight has been proposed for several years by Stuart Sobel, Urquidez’s manager. With the cooperation of the Bruce Merrin Public Relations agency in Calabasas, he mailed out dozens of news releases earlier this week announcing the fight.

The release trumpeted the bout as the “Fight of the Century.” It also referred to the fight as “The Dream Match,” and it’s hard to argue with that assessment. The press release beseeched local news agencies to “attend this special news conference to learn all of the details.”

Just a few did. And there were no details. There was, however, lots and lots of food and drink and guys in linen suits who couldn’t help smacking the heavy bags with their shoes as they walked by in the Benny The Jet Center gymnasium.

A few of the details, though, about the proposed bout between Leonard and The Jet, were provided in a telephone call a day earlier to Leonard’s manager, Mike Trainer, in Silver Spring, Md.

“Who is this guy, something like Benny The Airplane or something?” Trainer asked. “The whole thing is silly. I can’t say silly enough times.”

Sobel admitted that he has never actually spoken to Leonard or Trainer about the proposal but did offer that he has left many messages for Trainer with a secretary in Maryland. And he also admitted to having received replies to some of his letters to Trainer.

Advertisement

“Basically, he said he was not interested at the present time,” Sobel said.

Well, that wasn’t exactly what the letters said, according to Trainer.

“I told him in two or three letters that Sugar Ray Leonard is not interested now, would not be interested later and would never be interested in such a thing,” Trainer said. “Under any circumstances. Ever. Ray is a boxer. He is not a kicker, or a kickboxer or a sumo wrestler.”

Oh, sure, Sobel thought. They’re just playing hard to get. Trying to get a bigger percentage of the purse. So he wrote Trainer another letter last month.

“I hadn’t heard from this guy in a few years, so I figured he had had his fun,” Trainer said. “Then I get another letter from him a few weeks ago, telling me I probably hadn’t even mentioned the proposal to Ray. Believe me, I had.”

“Benny The Jet is the best in the world in his sport,” Sobel said, “and Sugar Ray Leonard is the best in the world in his sport. I would think the challenge for Sugar Ray would be very attractive to him.”

He would think wrong, Trainer said.

“I showed him (Leonard) the letters several years ago because I have an obligation to do that,” Trainer said. “Ray read a few sentences and shoved them back across the desk at me. He was laughing. Then he got up and walked out. The subject hasn’t come up again since between us.

“This Sobel guy sure is persistent. But the whole idea is so silly that I almost can’t believe it. In all my years with Ray, we’ve never had such a silly proposal. And I’ve tried to tell this gentleman that in my letters, but I wanted to be tactful. Apparently I have been a bit too tactful.”

Advertisement

Urquidez, it should be noted, is no punching bag. He is a crushing fighter who has won several world kickboxing titles while piling up a 57-0 record. In parts of the Orient, where the sport is taken most seriously, he is famous. And he could, in all likelihood, give any professional boxer a tough time with a combination of punching and kicking.

But that, as Trainer said he has tried to tell Sobel, is a moot point.

A man swinging an ax could probably beat Sugar Ray Leonard, too, if ax-boxing was a sport. So could Richard Petty, if stock car-boxing was a sport.

“Ray is a boxer,” Trainer said. “That’s what he does. He does not kick people.

“The whole thing is just silly.”

Not at the Jet Center, however.

“People have asked me how serious I am about this,” Urquidez said. “And I’ve told them it’s as serious as a heart attack.”

What it really is, it seems, is an old-fashioned publicity stunt to drum up interest in Urquidez and a sport that, in the United States, ranks somewhere between the heptathlon and sandblasting.

“What we really want from the media,” Merrin said, “is for you guys to get ahold of Leonard and Trainer in Maryland. We want to hear what they have to say.”

“It’s silly,” Trainer said. “Just plain silly. I can’t say that enough. I’m sure they are very nice people. But it’s just silly.”

Advertisement
Advertisement