Sugar Knows How to Hit, Man

By B.J. Phillips

The Hit Man looks sweet too--until the 14th round

It was a classic confrontation between a man who had it all and a man who felt he had too little: Sugar Ray Leonard, 25, the polite, boyishly handsome star of soft-drink commercials who had burst onto the boxing scene at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and then vaulted with seeming ease to fame, $25 million in purses and a professional record of 30 wins (21 by knockouts) and one loss; and Thomas Hearns, 22, the "Hit Man," mean-looking and lean as a snake, who climbed from poverty and anonymity in his home town of Detroit to--well, surprisingly modest fortune and fame for a man of his accomplishments (32-0, with 30 knockouts).

It was also a classic match-up of dissimilar fighting styles: Leonard the boxer, elegant, fast, an artist who can devise dazzling combinations for every contingency; and Hearns the slugger, a tall (6 ft. 1 in., vs. Leonard's 5 ft. 10 in.) and haughty hitter who uses a preternatural 78-in. reach to keep trouble at bay until he can lower the boom. Each man had earned a welterweight (141 to 147 Ibs.) championship belt: Leonard from the World Boxing Council (WBC), Hearns from the World Boxing Association (WBA). So when it was over, halfway through the 14th round at the special 25,000-seat arena constructed on the grounds of Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas, the man who had it all had one thing more: Sugar Ray Leonard became the undisputed, unified welterweight champion of the world. He also took home a record $10 million (vs. $5 million for Hearns). The fight grossed at least $36 million, making it the richest single sporting event in history.

For Leonard, victory was not easy. As the desert evening fell, the temperature subsided from the day's high of 96DEG, but in the ring, television lights raised it to an energy-sapping 97DEG. In this crucible, the fighters bobbed and weaved, Hearns stalking while Leonard danced sideways, trying to stay out of reach of Hearns' terrible right hand. As an amateur, Hearns was known as a boxer, not a slugger. He lowered his hand position after turning pro, and the extra leverage he acquired gave him a ferocious punch. Hearns used the advantage of his reach to flick jabs into Leonard's face, while Leonard, trying to get inside those long arms, was forced to bend until his torso was almost parallel to the canvas, then reach up to keep his punches above the belt. Looking like a man who was stooping down to stick his chewing gum under a table, Leonard took repeated short rights under his left eye. By the third round the eye had begun to swell.

Hearns won those early rounds, but nearly as much fighting took place after the bell as before. Hearns exorcised his anger by refusing to be separated, and Leonard obliged him in those brief exchanges. But if Hearns' potential knockout punch was a bomb ticking, so was Leonard's blinding hand speed and his capacity to exploit an opening. In the sixth round, Hearns dropped his right hand too far, and Leonard swooped into the opening with a savage left hook. Hearns was rocked back on his heels and, suddenly wobbly, retreated to the ropes. While Hearns reeled, Leonard swarmed over him, throwing dozens of punches. Hearns absorbed the blows to his body, but then, as soon as he dropped his arms to cover his midsection, Leonard showered combinations on his head. Through more than a full minute of remorseless attack, Hearns miraculously stayed on his feet.

Though Hearns took another terrible beating in the next round, he returned for the eighth not merely a survivor but a boxer. Now the roles were reversed: Hearns was dancing, trying to stay out of Leonard's reach, while the smaller man turned stalker. Slowly, however, Hearns regained his momentum and once again started to carry the judges' cards. At the same time, enmity turned to respect: when the bell rang, the two men no longer tossed late punches and insults but instead saluted each other's courage and skill, tapping gloves fraternally.

Leonard's left eye had become a serious problem for him by the start of the eleventh round. It was swollen almost shut, virtually blinding him on the side where Hearns' right hand waited. Hearns tattooed the eye, trying to close it completely in hopes of setting Leonard up. Sugar Ray, with his head cocked oddly to the side to improve his vision, was steadily losing points--and the time in which to redeem them--as his injury worsened.

In the 13th round, Leonard somehow managed to see an opening when Hearns again dropped his hands. After throwing a right lead, he pounded home another left hook that buckled Hearns. Leonard bore in now with furious uppercuts that set Hearns' head up as a target for withering combinations. Chased to the ropes, Hearns finally went down and out onto the apron of the ring, climbing back in to stand for the next assault. Once more--he was knocked into the ropes, but the round ended as Referee Davey Pearl reached the eight count.

When the bell rang for the 14th round, Leonard came out of his corner like a shot, racing over to tag Hearns with a huge left hook before the Hit Man could step out of his path. After 1 min. 45 sec. of blows that Hearns was powerless to return, Referee Pearl stopped the fight. Hearns, who had been ahead on points with all three judges at that moment, looked on incredulously. "I thought I was in pretty much control," he protested later. Said Angelo Dundee, Leonard's manager: "Tommy Hearns was out of it. He didn't know where he was." Hearns' trainer and manager, Emanuel Steward, acknowledged that the referee had made the right decision.

Appearing together after the fight, Leonard and Hearns sounded downright affectionate. Said Leonard: "There was room for only one of us. We both stood our ground. In my book, we both are still champions. He's a superior athlete." Added Hearns: "I gave my best. I just made a couple of mistakes, and you can't afford to make mistakes against a fighter of Ray's caliber."

Leonard's victory now confirms him as a remarkable champion. He is a strange mix for a fighter, a combination of peerless skills and yearnings to transcend the brutal arena in which he displays them. When he returned from Montreal in 1976, he vowed not to be a professional fighter, preferring to go to college. But the endorsements that he had hoped would support him after his ballyhooed triumph never materialized--white athletes end up on Wheaties boxes, he bitterly asserted, blacks do not. So he took to the ring. For years, he counted his money and waited for the day when he could quit, telling his advisers that each fight finished meant one less to be fought. He was truly horrified by the thought of injuring someone in the ring, and in one of his early knockouts almost leaped forward to catch his falling opponent.

Yet Leonard is also an awesome finisher, a man who exploits without compunction an opponent's weakness, punches mercilessly when he sees an opportunity to put his foe down, and turns loose a remorseless killer instinct. That seriousness of purpose seemed to deepen last year after Leonard suffered the only loss of his professional career, to Roberto Duran. At their rematch five months later, Leonard was a study in cold fury.

Despite his seeming distaste for the bloodier aspects of his sport and his original reluctance to pursue it, Leonard has come to care deeply about his place in its history. Though Hearns last week said he is eager for a rematch, Leonard's ambitions are focused on seeking a further title. In addition to his welterweight crown, he recently won the WBA junior middleweight (148 to 154 Ibs.) championship, and his advisers expect him to seek Marvin Hagler's middleweight (155 to 160 Ibs.) title next. Talk of retirement is scarcely heard in the Leonard camp any more. Says Attorney Mike Trainer, who has handled Leonard's financial affairs since he turned pro: "He does look too cute, too sweet, too nice, but that's not the person in the ring. We can't even put him in with disc jockeys for publicity shadow boxes. You just couldn't trust Ray in the ring."

Manager Dundee likewise sees two men in his fighter. Says he: "The people who think he's a nice guy don't know how nice he is. The people who think he's a tough fighter don't know how tough a fighter he is. He's a nicer guy and a tougher fighter than people know." Perhaps even Leonard does not know. But at the postfight press conference, he rather brusquely pushed aside the ice pack his wife was holding to the back of his neck--so that he could hug Ray Jr., his seven-year-old son. --By B.J. Phillips/Las Vegas

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