Duran Title Not on Line, WBC Chief Decides

Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran both made the middleweight limit of 160 pounds, but Duran’s World Boxing Council middleweight title apparently will not be at stake tonight.

Jose Sulaiman, WBC president, said Tuesday that if Duran and Leonard made the middleweight limit, that title would be at stake as well as Leonard’s WBC super middleweight title.

Sulaiman changed his mind, however, during the mass confusion that followed today’s weigh-in, at which Leonard scaled 160 and Duran weighed 158.

Mike Acri and Tom Mara, representatives for Duran, became upset when promoter Bob Arum announced that both titles would be on the line. They did not want the middleweight title to be at stake.

“I don’t give a damn about that title,” Mike Trainer, Leonard’s attorney, told Acri and Mara. “Duran can keep the belt.”