Norris Too Strong, Too Fast, Too Young : Boxing: Months of weight training paid off against Leonard. Champion not sure who next opponent will be.

For weeks, Terry Norris’ people told him the following about his Saturday night fight against Sugar Ray Leonard in Madison Square Garden:

--Terry, Ray is just another opponent.

--Terry, Madison Square Garden is just another building.

--Terry, it’s just another fight.

Shameless lies all, of course. And Terry Norris didn’t buy any of it. Not for a minute. But on the morning after his one-sided decision victory over Leonard, Norris did indicate there might have been some truth hidden in the first lie, that Leonard was just another opponent . . . a 34-year-old opponent, that is.

“I was stronger than he was and my foot speed was better than his,” said Norris, the 23-year-old junior-middleweight World Boxing Council champion from Alpine, Calif.

Some believed that Norris would give up significant strength to the more heavily muscled Leonard, particularly after Norris weighed 152 1/2 pounds at the Friday weigh-in while Leonard came in at the maximum, 154.

“I’ve been on a weight-training program for a year and a half and I felt going into the fight I would be stronger, and in the second round I knew I was stronger than Ray,” Norris said.

On his way to a unanimous decision, Norris knocked Leonard down in the second and seventh rounds. Afterward, Leonard announced his retirement.

“We were pushing each other around on the ropes before I knocked him down in the second and I could feel Ray wasn’t as strong as me. And when I needed to get away from him, my foot speed was such that he couldn’t catch up to me.”

What happens now to Norris, who before Saturday was one of boxing’s most obscure champions?

“We’re going to kick back and wait for the phone to ring,” said Joe Sayatovich, the San Diego County contractor who manages Norris and his brother, heavyweight Orlin Norris, who stopped Jamie Howe on Saturday’s undercard.

Sayatovich and Norris hope welterweight Meldrick Taylor can be induced to move up to junior-middleweight, and challenge Norris. Or maybe Simon Brown.

“There aren’t any great names in the junior-middle class, so we think Taylor or Brown moving up would be a good fight for us,” Sayatovich said.

“We could challenge the International Boxing Federation champion, Gianfranco Rossi, but I don’t want Terry to fight him. Rossi belongs in the World Wrestling Federation. When you hurt him, he stomps on your feet and uses his elbows.

“Terry definitely won’t move up to middleweight, at least not now. We had him stop training three days before the fight and he still weighed only 152 1/2.”

Said Norris about moving up to middleweight: “My walking around weight (between fights) is only 158. My body will tell me when it’s time to move up.”

Norris’ trainer, Abel Sanchez, also said it was evident early Norris’ strength work had paid a huge dividend. Sanchez also took a shot at Leonard’s cornermen for not stopping the fight.

“By the end of the second round, I was fairly sure Terry would wear Ray out. And Ray’s corner should have stopped it. Those last two rounds weren’t necessary. Ray was taking a lot of punishment and not punching back.”

Norris, Sanchez and Sayatovich all saluted Rocky Winer, the strength coach hired 18 months ago to work with Norris. Until a month before the Leonard fight, Norris said, he worked 90 minutes three times a week on free weights and weight machines.

“I was against it at first,” Norris said. “I always felt I was stronger than my opponents. But Joe convinced me there was nothing wrong with being much stronger.”

Sayatovich says Norris is gifted with a form of slow-motion vision.

“Remember when they said Mickey Mantle had the ability to slow down a pitch when it got near the plate? Well, Terry can do that with punches. He can often see a punch coming before it’s thrown. Ray missed a lot last night. Every important fight Terry has had, he’s told me afterward the other guy’s punches seemed slow to him.”

Norris’ manager said he also felt vindicated by his policy of not avoiding tough opponents for his fighters.

“I don’t believe in a succession of tomato cans for a good fighter,” he said. “Look at what happened to John Mugabi and Alex Stewart, to name two. They knock over 25 tomato cans, then the first time they’re in tough . . . boom, they’re gone. They never learned what to do against a good fighter.”

Norris, unflappable before and after the greatest night of his career, described a moment in Leonard’s dressing room, immediately after the fight but before the postfight news conference.

“I walked up to Ray and he just hugged me,” he said. “I congratulated him. I told him he’s still a great fighter to me, and that my respect for him would never change. He only said one thing to me: ‘Never lose control.’ I’m not sure what he meant.

“I’d like to remain his friend. I’m sure I’ll want to ask him for advice about things in the future.”

Norris said he would take two weeks off and catch up on lost time with his wife, Kelly, and infant son Terry II. Norris lives in Alpine in eastern San Diego County and trains at Sayatovich’s nearby high-desert ranch at Campo.

Asked Sunday if the victory parade had been mapped out in downtown Campo, Sayatovich cracked: “I understand it’ll be a ticker-tape parade--one ticker and two tapes.”

Norris said after a brief rest in Alpine, a triumphant return to Lubbock, Tex., will be in order. Five years ago, Norris was a star center fielder for Dunbar High in Lubbock. He was hitting .417 and was thought to be a pro baseball prospect.

But he was involved in a brawl in a game one day (he says an opposing player directed a racial epithet at him) and was kicked off the baseball team.

“I had one teacher who stuck by me during that tough time, Miss Lupia,” he said.

“She was my speech teacher. She always took time to talk to me, when I was feeling bad. People called me a misguided kid sometimes, but she never did. She had faith in me. She kept telling me I’d get everything together in my life.

“Well, when I married Kelly and we had our son, that made her real happy. She said to me: ‘See, you’re getting yourself together, everything’s starting to fall in place for you.’ ”