Leonard Deserves ‘Fighter of the Decade’ Award

Ten years of Sugar.

Depending on your point of view, that is either too much sweetness to stomach, or just the right amount. The Boxing Writers Association of America, holding its 65th annual awards dinner Friday night in New York, opted for the latter. The BWAA will present Leonard with its first ever “Fighter of the Decade” award, named for the original Sugar Ray -- Robinson, to you youngsters.

The vote was hardly unanimous. One or two went for Mike Tyson, and another couple picked Marvin Hagler. But by consensus, Leonard was deemed the best fighter of the past 10 years, and with good reason: The man did everything he set out to do, and he did it with a flourish that few fighters in history could match.

Check the record: Leonard beat Roberto Duran twice, Thomas Hearns and Hagler once each. He won titles in five weight classes and earned close to $100 million. He made the difficult transition from the ring to the broadcast booth gracefully, and vice versa. Several times. He was a champion on Jan. 1, 1980, and on Jan. 1, 1990. Love him or hate him outside the ring -- and there are members of both camps -- you must admire His Sugarship inside the ropes.

Unfortunately, like many fighters, Leonard does not know when to quit. He will fight again, almost definitely in November, and it probably will be a rubber match against Hearns. While the world remembers the knockdowns by Hearns in June, 1989, and Donny Lalonde in November, 1987, and Leonard’s sluggish and bloody performance against Duran last December, Leonard prefers to remember the brilliant nights of the early ‘80s. He has earned that right, and he has earned this award.

Congratulations, Ray.

Around the ring: Mike Tyson certainly took care of business against Henry Tillman last Saturday, but one disturbing question remains: What if a legitimate right-hand puncher, like George Foreman, or Renaldo Snipes, or Razor Ruddock, or Alex Stewart -- Tyson’s probable Sept. 8 opponent -- had landed the shot that Tyson ran into in the opening seconds of the bout? The former champ might be on a two-fight losing streak right now.

Afterward, Richie Giachetti was gloating about what a great job he did with Tyson, but this should bring him down to earth: At least Kevin Rooney never had to deliver Don King’s mail. Giachetti was used as a messenger boy by King to deliver a “final offer” to Buster Douglas for an Evander Holyfield fight, King’s last-ditch effort to avoid the June 10 purse bid, won by King’s blood enemy, Steve Wynn.

It wasn’t bad enough that Adilson Rodrigues got starched by Foreman. He also took a shellacking from the IRS. The morning of the fight, revenue agents called Top Rank’s Jay Edson for credentials to the fight, so they could scoop up 33 percent of Rodrigues’ net purse right after the bout. Rodrigues, who started out with a $175,000 payday, went home with about $66,000 after trainer-manager Angelo Dundee ($75,000) and Uncle Sam ($33,000) took their cuts.

If the proposed Foreman-Francesco Damiani fight falls apart, Foreman is prepared to take on Cameroon.

King had a good line to explain his “Odd Couple” alliance with former arch-enemy Bob Arum against hotel owner Wynn, who wants to stamp out both of them and promote his own fights: “The things Wynn is trying to do are more despicable than anything we could do to one another.”

Not even Wynn’s Mirage Hotel, which signed Michael Nunn to an exclusive contract before his April snooze with Marlon Starling, is interested in Nunn’s defense against Donald Curry, so Top Rank is shopping it in Europe.

Legendary boxing broadcaster Don Dunphy, eighty-something, will present the James J. Walker Award for long and meritorious service to boxing to ninety-something Marty Cohen at Friday night’s boxing writers dinner. Interesting twist is that in 1940, when Dunphy, himself a former Walker winner, broadcast his first pro fight from the defunct Queensboro Arena in Long Island City, the promoter was none other than Marty Cohen.

Other award winners Friday night: Michael Carbajal, prospect of the year; Sam Rosen, excellence in boxing broadcasting; Emanuel Steward, manager of the year; George Benton, trainer of the year; Pernell Whitaker, fighter of the year, and most important, Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times for excellence in boxing journalism.

Unswerving Irving Rudd, on the DL for a couple of months after bypass surgery, is back at work at the Garden City, N.Y., offices of Top Rank. Unswerving’s autobiography, “The Sporting Life,” is set for official publication next week, but is already on the shelves in a lot of bookstores.

Bobby Czyz takes his last roll of the dice Sunday against Andrew Maynard in a 10-round bout in Atlantic City that will put the winner in line for a shot at WBC light-heavyweight champ Jeff Harding.

Caesars World and HBO, who collaborated on last week’s breathtaking doubleheader, will go themselves one better on Aug. 11. The triple mismatches, tentatively, are: Pernell Whitaker-Juan Nazario; Hector Camacho-Tony Baltazar, and Meldrick Taylor-Senor TBA, at Caesars Tahoe.

Great Britain will not sanction Nigel Benn’s middleweight title bout against Iran Barkley, because of Barkley’s recent detached retina surgery, so that one is probably headed to Reno on Aug. 18.

Another recent retina surgery victim, Tyrone Frazier, is fully recovered and will fight Virgil Hill for the light-heavyweight title in Bismarck, N.D., on July 7.

Hard-hitting Razor Ruddock, frozen out by the top heavyweights, fights Kimmuel Odom July 1 on CBS.

John Johnson, the gung-ho alter ego of Woody Hayes who manages Douglas, is putting his man through football-type workouts in preparation for Douglas’ first defense, against Holyfield, tentatively set for Sept. 21.

Sources say Holyfield had his craw full of ex-manager Ken Sanders at the June 10 purse bid, after which Sanders made an Alexander Haig-like “I’m in charge here” proclamation. He also hinted he might not pay Main Events, which had promoted all of Holyfield’s fights. At that, the ever-loyal Holyfield told Sanders to take a walk. All Holyfield would say was, “When I first started, Ken was nice and laid-back, but once we got into the money, he changed.”

Does this mean Holyfield’s scenes will be edited out of “Blood Salvage,” the independent film produced by Ken Sanders Jr. and bankrolled by Holyfield?

Tyson gets wail call: Tyson, on the problems of being an absentee father training to fight Tillman in Vegas while his six-week-old son, Damato Kilrain, was in Cleveland with his mother: “I listen to him cry over the phone. If he’s not crying, I tell his mother to jiggle him up and down so he’ll start. He’s too quiet. He doesn’t cry enough.”