Fight of Vintage That’s Hard to Swallow

No mas, please.

Let’s leave the seniors tour to golfers. Or even baseball players. But not to Roberto Duran.

Duran, 38, waited nine years for a rematch with Ray Leonard, a kid at 33, but after Thursday night, it was clear he waited either too long or not long enough. Roberto, go back to the conga. That’s something you can beat.

Leonard won the fight in a unanimous decision that was no closer than Reagan-Mondale I. Is anybody looking forward to that rematch? In this one, people actually walked out midfight, voting with their feet.

And so, the stain on Duran’s reputation remains in place. Put vengeance on hold forever. The “no mas” fight nine years ago in New Orleans is the only one anyone will remember. The mystery of why he quit that night remains unsolved, but it was almost certainly not to preserve his energy for Leonard-Duran III.

Leonard danced. Duran watched. Leonard mugged. Duran watched. Once, they called Duran Manos de Piedra - hands of stone. But now he’s taken the concept a little too far. Legs of stone. Arms of stone. Roman statuary moves better.

The fans booed the lack of action. When the two fighters hugged in a post-fight news conference, that was the closest they came all night. That was the only time it got feisty, too, Leonard eventually walking out after hearing too often the suggestion that it was a bad fight.

“I tried to accommodate the audience,” Leonard said of an 11th-round exchange with Duran that was the fight’s only highlight. “They pretty much wanted to see a Hagler-Hearns type fight, which is not my forte.

“I’m not Hagler. I’m not Hearns. I’m not Duran. That was a great strategic fight. I’m very proud of my performance.”

One judge gave Leonard 10 rounds and called two others even. Another gave him every round but the 12th, when Leonard looked like he wanted to dance the night away. Duran scored twice - once with a head butt and once with that exchange of rights in the 11th.

It was a shame. Before the fight, they showed clips from the first two fights, when these guys were both great, both young and quick and powerful. They were something to watch then. This was a fight that made you want to turn your head.

There had been questions about Leonard after his draw with Tommy Hearns, a fight most people figured Hearns probably won. What do you do when you start to slow down? The easy answer: schedule a guy five years older than you who has to lose 40 pounds to make weight. It works.

Leonard looked good. Who wouldn’t have?

Duran has always been slightly larger than life, and, in fact, before his recent weight loss, was much bigger than life. He’s the guy who had the pet lion and who once knocked a horse out with a punch. His ferocity is legend. Before the first Leonard fight, he flipped an obscene gesture to Leonard’s wife, presumably before he put on his gloves.

The look is part of it. When Duran enters the ring, his eyes are black coal ablaze with what seems to be pure hatred. You don’t invite this guy to dinner unless the food is still alive. When people call him an animal, he smiles.

That was then. This is now. The fight is winding down, the man he hates most of all is humiliating him, and he can’t even mount a charge.

History has never been kind to Duran, at least in his view. He has never felt sufficiently appreciated by the American public, a slight he blames on his Latin heritage. There is more to it, of course, as Marvin Hagler or Thomas Hearns might well explain. This much is certainly true: All those in the middle weights have been greater or lesser planets revolving around Leonard’s star.

It has been Leonard’s decade, one that began with the first Leonard-Duran fight and now is ending with the last. When Muhammad Ali left the stage in 1981, Leonard ably filled the vacuum. Even during his various retirements -- and Leonard is strongly hinting at another as we enter the ‘90s; maybe he just wants another party -- he remained a focal point. Updates on Leonard’s eye injury were always more compelling than any injury Marvin Hagler was inflicting.

Hagler, of course, wanted Leonard. Hearns wanted Leonard again. Duran has been wanting “uno mas” for nine years.

There was more than pride at stake. Leonard, who has earned more than $100 million in his career, is where the money is. He has the power to make you solvent, as apparently he has done for Duran, whose most important recent fights had been with the IRS.

In any case, Duran had other problems, most of them to do with credibility. When he walked out of the ring that night in New Orleans, he did what no fighter is ever supposed to do. If you’re going to dump a fight, have the decency to fall down. Give the fans some violence to remember you by. He has never been completely forgiven for it, and you wonder if he has ever forgiven himself.

But Duran, who came out of retirement and won a title last year by defeating Iran Barkley, gave the fans nothing more Thursday night. This time he must retire for good.

Of course, there are those who will say it was a vintage Leonard performance. Perhaps. But the fight was of a vintage no one should be asked to swallow.