RAY LEONARD: I was lost.
My world was crumbling.
But in the ring,
the ring always was always a safe haven.
(CROWD CHEERING)
COMMENTATOR 1: Oh, suddenly from nowhere,
the courage that is Sugar Ray Leonard.
COMMENTATOR 2: And a left hand by Hagler.
MARVIN HAGLER: Boxing, that's my life, you know.
I walk it, talk it, sleep it, act it.
(CROWD CHEERING)
COMMENTATOR 3: Tremendous right hand by Duran.
TEDDY ATLAS: I just keep coming back.
Too many times, sometimes.
COMMENTATOR 4: Look at that crowd
chanting, "Tommy, Tommy."
ATLAS: You don't know how to turn boxing off.
Some people feel lost without it.
Wanting to hear the roar of the crowd.
Gets very quiet when you're used to hearing that.
Sometimes quietness can be deafening
and it could be maddening.
And the only way a boxer exists is in the arena.
With the lights, and the roar
and the canvas, and the ropes.
REPORTER: That's lift off
of the 25th space shuttle mission
and it has cleared the tower.
ATLAS: But times change,
and you lose the magnificence...
MAN 1: Challenger now heading down range.
...and all those privileges, that are gifted to Gods,
are taken away.
MAN 2: Challenger, go with throttle up.
DICK SCOBEE: Roger, go with throttle up.
(EXPLODING)
RONALD REAGAN: Ladies and gentlemen,
today is a day for mourning and remembering.
We mourn seven heroes. We will never forget them,
nor the last time we saw them.
ATLAS: But in this crazy, great world
that can be so weak at times, too,
it was the closing of a show,
it was the closing of an era.
These fighters made the world come out and watch.
But what is success in an unsafe business?
It's getting out on the other side clean.
At the end of the day, not all of them got out clean.
ANNOUNCER: He is the undisputed
middle-weight champion of the world,
Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
-You ready? Rolling. Action. -MAN: Yeah.
(ROCK MUSIC PLAYING)
(IMPERCEPTIBLE)
ALL: Hello, Mr. Marvelous.
HAGLER: I can be the meanest guy
in the training ring, you know.
But, uh, some of the kids say,
"Mr. Hagler, can I get your autograph?"
I mean, that kind of breaks you down a little bit.
AL BERNSTEIN: Now, Marvin was a superstar,
and he was the middle-weight champion.
This was his moment.
He was consistent, kept winning.
But nonetheless, he never quite was
the darling of the boxing intelligentsia.
(LAUGHS) Where you go? To the rock!
LARRY MERCHANT: Hagler finally made it
to the pedestal,
but his story got more complicated and thrilling.
(CROWD CHEERING)
BOB ARUM: Hagler after he beat Tommy Hearns,
he wanted to retire. He had enough,
but somehow I talked him into fighting Mugabi.
ATLAS: Marvin Hagler was a great fighter,
one of the great fighters of all time.
But the problem was
Hagler not only beat these guys, he decimated them.
He beat them so thoroughly
that you forgot that he was beating pretty good guys.
TIM RYAN: Hagler with target practice now, and he goes.
TONY PAIGE: Mugabi was a hellacious puncher.
I mean, he flattened guys.
And he gave Hagler a tough time.
RYAN: That swept past his arm.
(CROWD CHEERING)
RYAN: There's Sugar Ray Leonard...
ATLAS: Leonard, being the great fighter that he is,
he can see things that other people can't see.
LEONARD: I remember when I saw
Marvin Hagler fight Johnny Beast Mugabi.
GIL CLANCY: Mugabi's landing a lot of quick punches now.
LEONARD: And, I was like, "Hagler was a chump."
I said, "I can beat him."
RYAN: He's done him out. Mugabi finally falls down.
Marvin Hagler maintains
his undisputed middle-weight championship of the world.
CHARLES FARRELL: Marvin, generally speaking,
didn't win his fights early
and he's faced one after another after another.
That's a lot of rounds of getting hit.
Marvin was going through
this incredible wear and tear.
But seemingly nobody was noticing.
Leonard did.
But then he had already retired.
MAN: Now you're actually through fighting?
I mean, you've hung up your gloves for good?
Absolutely, positively,
and as the Russians say, irrevocably.
Ray, you know, but not fighting me
is costing me millions.
(LAUGHING)
You know, Marvin, I feel really bad about that.
So if you ever need any money,
just feel free to call me.
And when I turned you down, call Bob.
(CROWD LAUGHING)
THOMAS HAUSER: Marvin very, very badly
wanted to fight Ray Leonard.
However, Ray had a detached retina,
retired, shouldn't be fighting.
But, it's not a clean business.
Professional boxing has certainly had its share
of scandals over the years, and now there's talk
of a new multi million dollar scandal.
DON KING: This is a very serious charge.
However, this is the price you pay for liberty.
If I was in Russia, the KGB would have swooped me up.
And only in America could a Don King happen.
This is America, baby!
REPORTER: What do you mean by that?
FLOYD PATTERSON: Boxing has always been
the red light district of professional sports.
I would not like to see boxing abolished.
STEVE FARHOOD: But having that history,
corruption in boxing changed from being
mob corruption to more white-collar corruption.
REPORTER: US committee hearings
are calling in expert testimony
from the medical and sports professions.
There has been inner resistance,
decade, upon decade,
to every single constructive measure.
BONNIE GREER Nobody knows who's lying,
who's telling the truth and at the same time,
the hope and glamor of the eighties,
that started to fade.
Hello, Reagan. How are you?
-Thank you very much. -Yeah. My pleasure.
GREER: Reagan's slogan was Morning In America.
But it turned out to be
m-o-u-r-n-i-n-g for a lot of people.
REAGAN: This country remains a country
where someone can always get rich.
REPORTER: Good morning.
Ohio savings institutions will remain closed
this morning on orders from the governor,
late last night.
GREER: That was the second term of Reagan
and we watched his administration deteriorate.
REAGAN: A charge has been made that the United States
has shipped weapons to Iran.
Those charges are utterly false.
REPORTER: Why not dispel the speculation
by telling us exactly what happened, sir?
REAGAN: My fellow Americans,
a few months ago I told the American people
I did not trade arms for hostages.
My heart and my best intentions
still tell me that's true.
But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.
MICHAEL EZRA: His administration
had gone rogue
and Iran Contra meant that Ronald Reagan was
willing to break the rules
if he could get away with it.
Reagan himself was known as the Teflon President,
nothing seemed to stick to him,
but times have changed now.
REPORTER: Marvin Hagler's oblique actions yesterday
deeply please his friends,
who have been waiting anxiously
for him to say this.
I'm very seriously thinking
about retiring from the boxing game.
Some cynics are already suggesting
that it's a ploy to jack up the ante
for a bogus mega-buck opus with Sugar Ray Leonard.
But that has never been Marvin's style.
In a dirty business,
he has always been forthright,
a man of character in a dodge
full of jackals.
LEONARD: All along I wanted to fight Hagler,
and I just didn't know
how to break the news to the media,
because they're saying what they're saying now,
"You're crazy."
People ask me, "Are you coming back?"
I say "No, I'm not coming back.
But if Marvin Hagler called me,
I'd consider something like that.
Ray, wait a minute--
I'm not... See, now, JB, listen, we are talking here.
I'm not saying I'm coming back.
I said if he should call me,
it's something I could really consider.
I hear there's some talk.
I mentioned Sugar Ray Leonard.
You might...
Well, the way that I feel about it, I'm just gonna
sit back and I'm just gonna lick my chops.
Like that.
LEONARD: I'm gonna fight Hagler.
Hagler always wanted to fight me.
He claimed that I was egotistical,
and that I miss the limelight.
Those things are not true.
Sounds, Ray, like you're trying
to bait Marvin, and I don't think
you're serious about that.
NEWS ANCHOR: Boxer, Sugar Ray Leonard,
hasn't fought in years.
But he's getting a shot
at the middleweight title tomorrow night,
against Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
MERCHANT: I was stunned.
It was a good test for you, coming off to your...
MERCHANT: We were colleagues.
We lived near each other,
and I went to see him about it.
MAN: You wanna now go in the ring
and get hit by Marvin Hagler?
MERCHANT: I thought Ray
was on a suicide mission of some sort.
I mean, who would you bet on?
And I remember, I leaned over to wish him good luck,
and he said, "Larry, who you got?"
And I said, "I have to go with Hagler,
"but I hope I'm wrong."
And I'd like to take this time
to wish Marvin and Bertha,
and their family Godspeed, and all of that good stuff,
because they are truly wonderful people.
What about his eye?
I'm not concerned,
because I believe that if he's stupid enough
to get in there with me with a bad eye,
I'm stupid enough to rip his eye out.
I really do like them. They're nice people.
This man wants to knock my head off, Juanita.
Well, that doesn't take away the fact
that they're nice people, honey.
I like them.
He wants to hurt me bad.
(CHUCKLES)
FARHOOD: Given that Ray was jumping up in weight
and hadn't fought in almost three years,
no one picked him to win.
MAN: Marvin Hagler was so sure he'd win
that he negotiated all the financial advantages,
and Leonard negotiated all the competitive advantages.
Size of ring, etcetera.
REPORTER: When marvelous Marvin Hagler
faces Sugar Ray Leonard
next April 6th in Las Vegas,
it will be for the biggest purse in boxing history.
I'm reminded of an old Hebrew prayer,
which, I think goes,
"Blessed art Thou, oh, Lord our God,
"who allowed us to see this day."
ARUM: I paid Ray $11 million. Fortune then.
And Marvin fought,
on a smaller guarantee,
and Marvin made $19 million on the fight.
ATLAS: Marvin felt that he earned the right
to have what guys like Leonard had.
And now this was a way of making things even.
STEVE MARANTZ: The first time
Leonard got in Marvin's head
was probably the retirement announcement in 1982.
To Marvin Hagler.
A fight with this great champion
could be one of the greatest fights
in the history of boxing.
MARANTZ: Marvin was a prop for this whole show.
But unfortunately, it'll never happen.
MARANTZ: Of course,
a week before the event, Leonard had already told
Sports Illustrated, he was gonna retire.
Roll it back further, 1979,
they're both fighting for
their first title in Las Vegas.
Leonard's fighting Wilfred Benitez,
and Marvin is fighting Vito Antuofermo,
and Marvin's pay day is
forty thousand bucks.
And Leonard's, I believe, was one million.
If you wanna roll it back even further,
Marvin didn't have the luxury of staying amateur
and trying to get an Olympic pedigree.
He had to earn a living for his family.
REPORTER: Sugar Ray Leonard pulling into town yesterday
and scoffing at reports that he could reinjure his eye.
LEONARD: Marvin feels that he had to go the long way.
He feels that I took a shortcut.
Bro, I didn't take a shortcut.
Damn it, I worked as hard as he did.
He's in my time.
You know? His time was when he first won
at the Olympics, before he retired.
He should've stayed out of the game.
MERCHANT: Marvin Hagler is one of
the most admirable athletes of his time.
Is he risking it all?
Now, I have the opportunity
to finally show the world that I am the best fighter.
FARHOOD: Even if Marvin, in the back of his mind,
kinda knew he was a little bit past his prime,
he didn't think he was going to have any problem at all
with Ray Leonard.
LEONARD: It was five days
before my fight against Marvin Hagler.
One of my sparring partners hit me
and nearly knocked me out.
And I remember, vividly,
getting in the car to go back to the hotel.
The car was quiet.
No one said a word.
I knew what they were thinking.
"So, what would Marvin Hagler do to him?"
They thought I was crazy.
But I had that edge.
I didn't know exactly what was pushing me.
My life just, you know, took a lot of turns.
It was boxing that saved me from...
From day one.
ATLAS: People say, "You're born to be a champion."
But, no. You're born to circumstances
that can make you a champion.
See, I happen to believe that it's not your DNA.
There's something else.
For Leonard,
there's something ignited there as a kid.
A drive. A will.
Where the hell do you think that came from?
Poverty. Anger.
You know, it could be abuse.
Somebody that was
significant in your young life
that impacted you, maybe scarred you.
LEONARD: I had things happen to me
that I had to deal with.
Thing I would never tell,
because I was Sugar Ray Leonard.
I was the best.
And I was strong, I was invulnerable.
(SIGHS)
I was sexually abused as a young kid.
By a coach, who I believed in,
who I trusted.
ANNOUNCER: Sugar Ray!
LEONARD: I would shed tears. I would cry.
I mean, I couldn't talk about this.
(BELL RINGS)
GREER: Imagine the confusion
he must've walked around with.
"If I call this guy out, my career's over.
"What am I gonna do?"
LEONARD: You don't want people to know,
because people assume that you're weak.
And I was strong, I was African American,
whatever that means.
GREER: There are elements
in the African American community
that are deeply homophobic.
Somebody's always gonna jump up and say,
"Yeah, brother, why didn't you, like, kill him?"
So, it's better not to say anything.
But still, you suffer.
LEONARD: I remember, vividly,
standing on that podium.
And I wanna cry,
I wanna scream,
but I wouldn't be who I am today
if those things didn't happen to me.
That allowed me
to understand that I'm a survivor.
I won't give up.
REPORTER: The fight a lot of people
have been waiting for for a long time.
Marvelous Marvin Hagler
defending his middleweight title against
Sugar Ray Leonard.
COMMENTATOR: Sugar Ray Leonard,
making his way now
out of his dressing room and toward the arena.
The crowd has not yet seen him.
What must be going through this man's mind?
LEONARD: When I stepped into the ring,
I felt I can beat him in my head,
but there still was a question, 'cause, I mean,
I'm fighting Marvin Hagler.
HAGLER: Being World Champion what you feel is that,
now, this guy is trying to take something away from you
and you can't let it happen.
ANNOUNCER: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Caesar's Courts
presents the Super Fight,
a World Championship contest!
(CROWD CHEERING)
(BELL RINGS)
COMMENTATOR 1: And I really have
the feeling the first round is gonna tell an awful lot
of the story of this fight.
Leonard, as they said he would do,
drawing largely side to side.
When I go out there to fight, I try to confuse you.
Keep you guessing, keep you guessing,
keep you guessing.
COMMENTATOR: Very clear that
Leonard is trying to fight a tactical fight.
A bit of wisdom about
Hagler is that he's a destroyer.
But in fact, Hagler's a boxing conservative.
He does not take risks.
What Hagler wants you to do
is he wants you to come at him.
If you make him come forward
he doesn't quite know what to do,
and he's suspicious.
Marvin sort of bought into the chess match
that Leonard created.
(COMMENTATOR SPEAKING)
MARANTZ: In the first couple rounds,
he fought in an orthodox stance,
even though he's a southpaw.
The interpretation was that
he just wanted to show Leonard
he could beat him at his own game.
(CROWD CHEERING)
MERCHANT: He wanted to show he was better than Ray.
He was going to out-box the best boxer of his time.
(BELL RINGS)
HAUSER: So, what happens?
COMMENTATOR 1: How do you score the fight?
COMMENTATOR 2: Larry, I've got all clear-outs
for Sugar Ray Leonard.
HAUSER: Marvin gave away
the early rounds to Ray Leonard.
That was dumb.
But it was a brilliant fight,
because it changed dramatically.
COMMENTATOR 2: Ray seems hurt.
This is what Hagler wants.
He wants a war.
Now, Hagler, being the aggressor,
has Leonard on the ropes.
Leonard trying to fight his way off the ropes.
Hagler hammers him back onto them.
We're just seeing two champions go at each other,
neither one giving an inch.
COMMENTATOR 1: That was a good left-hand by Hagler.
And that more than got Leonard's attention.
Ray Leonard is burning hard.
Leonard's left hand down at his side,
Hagler peppering him.
Leonard now tries to fight off the ropes
with combinations of punches.
And now it's time for a backlash.
(CROWD CHEERING)
Lot of action here in round nine.
Crowd collectively on its feet.
(BELL RINGS)
When Hagler trapped him in the ninth round,
Leonard found something deep.
Your body's just, like, spent.
You can't catch your breath.
And at that point, you say, "How bad do you want this?"
Hagler, he vastly underestimated Ray Leonard.
Patrick Finelli was telling me that
even as the fight's going on,
Marvin's saying,
"Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry."
He wasn't seeing what was actually going on
in a drama that he was in the middle of.
(MALE AIDE 1 SPEAKING)
Yeah!
COMMENTATOR 1: The final three minutes...
of what has been a great event.
COMMENTATOR 2: Hard to know
how this fight will be scored,
but it's closer than
Marvin Hagler thought it would be.
Now, Ray Leonard on the ropes,
took a left hand from Hagler.
Off the ropes.
(CROWD CHEERING)
Leonard, he could turn a light on
when the lights were flickering.
But I thought the fight was very close, very close,
I would've been happy with a draw.
Boxing is desperation,
Leonard had a heart that was bigger than his body.
COMMENTATOR 1: Ten seconds!
JERRY IZENBERG: And he wasn't gonna surrender.
(BELL DINGING)
COMMENTATOR 1: How do you like it?
IZENBERG: But I felt Hagler won the fight,
and I felt on the cards he should've.
COMMENTATOR: Both fighters think they won the fight.
Scoring a fight is subjective.
You can take two top judges,
they can watch the same fight
and there are gonna be ten percent,
five percent of the fights
where they see it differently.
ANNOUNCER: We have a split decision.
One hundred fifteen, Marvin Hagler.
One hundred thirteen, Ray Leonard.
Judge Jo Jo Guerra scores the bout 118, Leonard,
110, Hagler.
And judge, Dave Moretti scores 115, 130.
And the winner and new Middleweight Champion of the
world is Sugar Ray Leonard
(CROWD CHEERING)
Marvin, you thought you won the fight?
I did win the fight.
He knows he lost it.
Everybody knew he lost it.
He didn't knock me down. Didn't hurt me at all.
Come on. I just can't believe it though.
-Thank you, Marvin. -Okay.
Leonard, I thought he really won.
I think the decision was a just decision.
Boxing scoring, a lot of its optics.
Judges don't know how hard a punch lands.
You could appreciate Leonard's skills,
because he was so fast and sudden.
It was like a meteor going across the sky.
Nothing about Hagler was sudden.
Hagler was the bulldozer going across the line.
It's not as mesmerizing.
That was the thing with Hagler.
That was the greatness and the sadness attached.
It's called substance,
but it's not called a meteor.
RAY LEONARD: My tactics tonight was stick and move,
hit and run, taunt, intimidate, frustration.
It was a variation of things.
Very difficult for Marvin, I think,
after that because number one,
he felt he won the fight.
Number two, I think he understood
that he let that fight slip away from him a little bit.
He overthought it. Hagler.
Because he was trying
to capture something that was never given to him.
Acceptance.
What he thought he should've had.
And how great he was.
So maybe, in the end,
he was a co-conspirator in his own demise.
I fought my heart out out there to keep my belt,
and I did that.
I can't believe it.
I had to go to sleep, and wake up (CHUCKLES)
and believe this again.
ATLAS: If you lose,
you're not, you know, Marvin Hagler,
the middleweight champ of the world.
And when you're not
the middleweight champ of the world,
then you lost somebody.
(CROWD APPLAUDING)
ATLAS: And I know this is strong,
but, I guess, the closest thing to that would be
like losing a child.
If you lost your child, you lose yourself,
lose part of the reason why you live.
There's a grieving period.
And sometimes they never come back.
He was angry at the decision.
He didn't wanna give the boxing establishment
a chance to screw him again.
Marvin got out at the right time.
He got out financially comfortable, healthy,
and he obviously didn't need the limelight,
because he moved to Italy.
Now I'm trying to use boxing,
and not have boxing use me.
I wanna be able to have my brains,
and I think I had good looks here, you know.
Caesar's Palace did a big dinner.
A salute to boxing.
Marvin was off to the side of the room,
and I was standing talking to Ray.
And Ray said, "Go over and talk to him.
"We can make a fortune doing the rematch."
So I went to Marvin, and he says,
"Tell Ray to get a life."
I'll never forget that.
He realized that there was life after boxing.
If you look at this group
that we think of as the Four Kings,
the other three obviously fought too long.
They gonna ask me what I'mma do next.
That scratch,
that burning desire that I complain about,
I think it's been taken care.
So, I retire again.
But you guys know me.
(CROWD LAUGHING)
REPORTER: Was Hearns on your mind
when you said that?
Hearns is never on my mind.
(CROWD CHEERING)
(COMMENTATOR SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)
I wanted so badly to go back in there
to fight Ray and to redeem myself.
COMMENTATOR 1: He doesn't know where he is.
(COMMENTATOR 1 SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)
COMMENTATOR 2: He's gone. He's gone.
THOMAS HEARNS: And after Marvin Hagler won that fight
I didn't know what to do, how to think.
After the Hagler fight, I wrote him a long letter.
I said, "Everybody basks in the glory,
"but you have to shine in defeat, too.
"Losing builds character.
"It hurts like crazy,
"but it defines who you are as a man."
Thomas wanted to do
something that neither Hagler
or Leonard could accomplish.
And he couldn't get these revenge fights,
so he had to make a new plan.
Now Tommy's dream
was to win these championship belts
and four weight divisions.
HEARNS: Let the rebel hit him.
COMMENTATOR 1: Andries defenseless
against Hearns's right hand.
(CROWD CHEERING)
He's losing the fight.
And Thomas Hearns has become
the 12th man in boxing history
to win a third world title.
REPORTER: No man in the history of boxing
has ever won four world championships.
(COMMENTATOR SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)
And sends down Roldan.
Here's Emanuel Steward of the Hearns squad.
The one thing you knew
when you left a dressing room with Thomas,
he was gonna give you one hundred percent.
You were gonna see some boxing skills,
and you're gonna see punching power,
and he was gonna fight
until there was nothing left.
(COMMENTATOR SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)
COMMENTATOR: Now the right hand,
and down goes Roldan.
Thomas Hearns has made boxing history.
(CROWD CHEERING)
MAN: Thomas Hearns, after the loss of Marvin Hagler,
fought some of the greatest fights of his career.
COMMENTATOR: Thomas Hearns, the first man ever,
to win titles in four different weight divisions.
MAN: The warrior mentality of Thomas Hearns,
which many people say, possibly cost him
the fight with marvelous Marvin Hagler,
was the same mentality that endured him
into the hearts of the fans,
and made him what he was.
Thomas Hearns is a warrior.
REPORTER: And so Thomas Hearns has his own
special day in Detroit.
Four world championships, and just 29-years-old.
He's a champ, and a good champ.
Tremendous, they have a guy like Thomas Hearns
representing the city of Detroit.
Being aware I wanted to just double-quick.
Just keep forward.
Thanks for being such a beautiful mom,
and being with me in my corner all the way.
-Thank you. -Thank you so much.
(CROWD APPLAUDING)
I don't think fighters ever go to sleep at night
without hearing the roar of that crowd.
And it's always the fighter that thinks,
"I got one more fight. I still got it."
(CROWD CHEERING)
COMMENTATOR 1: Going straight to
the body by Hearns.
The crowd sensing something.
Hearns... Oh!
A right by Barkley. Hearns is down!
A lovely right--
COMMENTATOR 2: He's not going to get up now.
COMMENTATOR 1: It's over. Iran Barkley.
(COMMENTARY CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
COMMENTATOR 2: And Tommy still doesn't know
where he is.
HEARNS: You know, I gotta be a positive thinker.
It's something that happened that
probably would not happen again.
Never again in a lifetime.
It was just a freaky shot.
Tommy slowed down a little bit.
And I knew Emanuel Steward
thought that he should retire.
(CROWD CHEERING)
COMMENTATOR: He's trying something.
fancy with his hand. Kinchen knocks him down.
JACKIE KALLEN: I think a lot of people just felt
that if your legs aren't there,
and if your chin's not as good,
then no one wants to see you get hurt.
You know, it's time.
Fighters are the first to know
when it's time to retire,
and the last to admit it.
COMMENTATOR 1: This decision could really go either way.
-COMMENTATOR 2: Oh, yeah. -That was close.
(BELL DINGING)
It's all over.
We will get the decision.
Well, this is gonna be tough to call.
ANNOUNCER: The Hit Man, Thomas Hearns!
COMMENTATOR 1: Well, there you go.
Thomas Hearns.
HAUSER: Fighters want the money,
the camps want the money,
the promoters want the money.
That's very sad, but it's the reality of boxing.
And now, Tommy wanted Leonard again.
Seven and a half years ago, you may remember,
Sugar Ray Leonard stopped Thomas Hearns
in the 14th round of their welterweight title fight.
It is considered the highlight
of both mens' careers,
and one of the greatest fights of the decade.
Since that loss,
Hearns has been demanding a rematch,
and perhaps, unfortunately, he's gonna get it.
The goal for me, Thomas Hearns,
is to be ready now.
I've been in this mad show for a long time.
ANNOUNCER: We mean war.
NEWS ANCHOR: Leonard is 32 years old, Hearns is 30,
but an old 30. His skills have eroded greatly.
It's unlikely either one of them will be dancing
very well at the fight in June.
But once again, who cares? They both get rich.
LARRY KING: Sugar Ray Leonard, who will get
fourteen million for this fight,
Hearns will get 11.
What, Ray, what is your need to continue?
What is my need?
HAUSER: When you command
millions and millions of dollars
for each fight,
you don't always see things as objectively as you might.
With Tommy, he just thought it would never end.
He was very generous with his family,
and his friends.
Eventually, he bought a complex. Several acres.
It was his castle.
He had his pool, and his workout room,
and his game room, and his animal room.
One day, he says, "I think I want a monkey."
So, he had a monkey, Junior.
But Junior would be sitting there jerkin' off all day.
That was all Junior did. Jerk off all day long.
The entourage was huge.
Tommy has trouble saying no,
'cause he's got that kindness to him.
You know, if someone wanted a job,
"I'll carry your equipment,"
you know, "I'll watch the gloves."
Wanting to do anything they can for you to get a buck.
The Detroit ghetto inter-city
never entirely loosened its grip on Tommy.
KALLEN: Detroit had a lot of crime.
It was a city in turmoil.
How many of you know someone who's been shot and is dead?
REPORTER: In Detroit, 42 children under 18
were shot to death in 1986.
Another 341 were wounded.
The police believe Detroit's large juvenile drug network
accounts for many of the deaths.
Nancy's joining me,
because drugs are menacing our society.
Just say no.
REPORTER: Despite raids like this,
the crack cocaine crisis in Detroit is getting worse.
In a sense, the war on drugs is Reagan's symphony.
You see most of the gains of the Civil Rights Movement
rolled back.
What he does is criminalize addiction,
and criminalize poverty.
(IN UNISON) Team up. Say no.
In Reagan's America,
it winds up being a class and racial divide.
You just target the drug,
you know, to be more problematic in one community
over the other one.
See this cute little vial here?
It's crack. Raw cocaine.
You're under arrest for distribution of narcotics.
(CROWD LAUGHING)
In the dubbing room, they dub that.
KALLEN: Oh, there was a whole drug ring
that got arrested at Kronk.
Tommy had nothing to do with any of that,
but it was the Kronk Gym, and he was the Kronk Gym.
They'd use his name to sensationalize the story.
As Tommy Hearns prepares for his fight in Las Vegas
against Sugar Ray Leonard,
News Four's Mike Wendland reports
that the police are calling the shooting
a domestic situation.
REPORTER: The 20-year-old victim
was shot once in the head.
Her body found in a bedroom of the sprawling
Southfield house owned by Tommy Hearns.
Police sources identified her as a girlfriend
of Hearns' 22-year-old brother, Henry,
who remains under arrest on an open charge of murder.
KALLEN: That was a very tough time.
Tommy's brother, Henry, killed his girlfriend
in Tommy's house a few days prior to the fight.
REPORTER: Henry Hearns was arrested
for the killing about 1:00 a.m.
Most of the Hearns family was in Las Vegas
at the time of the shooting,
waiting for tomorrow's big fight.
KALLEN: It had happened in Tommy's house,
and with Tommy's gun.
We were trying to hide that from Tommy,
but of course, he ended up finding out anyway.
I mean, it was all over the news.
REPORTER: Family is waiting to see
whether bond will be set
by the judge at the arraignment.
KALLEN: We knew that
Henry was gonna go away for a long time.
The whole thing was really difficult.
COMMENTATOR: Here he is, deep under the stress
of the circumstances of his brother, Henry.
(HEARNS SPEAKING)
COMMENTATOR 1: Leonard in his
striped red and white trunks.
Hearns jabbing effectively.
A little short.
See, Leonard knows right now,
Tommy don't have no chin.
and I think that's he's getting ready for.
COMMENTATOR 1: Well, he may be aiming... Big right hand!
Right to the jaw. Leonard took, but it was a big shot.
And another one!
That rematch, which came
eight years after the first one,
was a tremendously exciting fight.
Why? 'Cause they're both vulnerable.
COMMENTATOR 1: That staggered Leonard,
that really hurt him,
although he's trying to show that it didn't, but it did.
FARHOOD: Tommy knocked Ray down, of course.
COMMENTATOR 1: Hearns swings a hook to the body.
There were moments in that fight,
where either man could've folded.
Leonard in those knockdowns,
Hearns was hurt, and neither one of them quit.
COMMENTATOR 1: Leonard looks good and steady.
(BELL DINGING)
End of round five!
(CROWD CHEERING)
When fighters are past their prime,
don't have the quickness, don't have the defense,
sometimes they make for the best fights.
Combination by Leonard rocked Tommy Hearns.
He's still wobbly.
Leonard to the body.
(COMMENTARY CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
COMMENTATOR 2: Big mistake that
got Ray Leonard out of his fight.
Both guys were diminished.
HAGLER: Hearns has gotta fight back.
COMMENTATOR 1: He is fighting back.
ATLAS: But it was an even diminishment.
(STEWARD SPEAKING)
COMMENTATOR 1: Hearns picking up the pace,
bangs to the body.
Hearns driving him along the ropes with combination.
ATLAS: I thought he showed more will
than he had shown many times in his career.
When a lot of things were gone,
the only thing that was left
was the chance to be remembered.
COMMENTATOR 1: Another! And a left!
Down goes Leonard with a combination from Hearns.
ATLAS: And he decided it was more important
to act stronger now than it was earlier
when he had all the skills.
When he could depend on his skills
and they could hide him away
from the necessity to have the will.
He wanted to more than
he wanted to when he was younger.
'Cause it was more important now.
COMMENTATOR 2: Leonard's firing away.
Can we see a replay of 1981?
COMMENTATOR 1: But here's Tommy Hearns holding on.
The clock's going around.
That's what he couldn't do in the first fight.
COMMENTATOR 2: Exactly.
ATLAS: He felt a difference.
He had to live with the difference.
COMMENTATOR 1: Final seconds
with Hearns still on his feet.
The crowd is on its feet.
(BELL DINGING)
What a war!
(CROWD CHEERING)
HAGLER: Very good fight.
I believe Tommy won it.
COMMENTATOR 2: Ray scored those two big knockdowns,
and that should be the difference in the fight.
COMMENTATOR 1: I would agree,
but we'll see how the officials see it.
ANNOUNCER: This bout is a draw,
ladies and gentlemen.
COMMENTATOR 1: The bout is a draw? The bout is a draw?
And to finally get a rematch eight years later,
and Thomas comes out,
once again shows he's a better fighter than Ray.
Beats him, knocks him down two times,
only to hear the officials call it a draw.
We just had to accept it, we didn't complain.
Tommy Hearns. Emanuel Steward.
But would you expect with two knockdowns
to get only a draw?
Well, I was hoping for a win,
but, you know, I had to...
REPORTER: Well, the crowd is
registering their unhappiness.
Ray Leonard, I got to put it to you this way.
Do you feel lucky to get a draw?
No, I don't, it was a close fight...
Tommy hit me and hurt me
more times than the first fight.
I thought I lost the fight. I really felt that.
REPORTER: The results stunned fight fans
watching close circuit around the world.
He literally out-fought, out-thought,
out-scored Sugar Ray Leonard.
This is a business decision more than a boxing decision.
A draw doesn't hurt Sugar Ray Leonard.
A defeat would've stopped him
from all these other fights coming up.
You can't give him the win
because he so clearly loses the fight.
If you give him a draw,
there's a plausibility factor that enters in.
And I think that the Hearns fight
was an attempt on the part of the boxing establishment
to keep this cash cow in the business.
So what are you saying? You want a rematch?
Is this like the Rocky movies again?
I was stunned, Marvin Hagler,
that Tommy Hearns did not take this harder.
Tommy, did you ever think about
your brother at any point during this fight?
I think he knew we won the fight,
but everything that had gone out
with his brother, Henry before the fight,
it was like,
"Okay, there's more important things
"right now in my life."
And Tommy was always gracious.
Not getting a victory, to me it was like a letdown.
But I knew in my heart
and people knew who won that fight.
And that meant a lot to me, too.
I answered a lot of critics' questions.
I think I answered his question tonight, too.
About the chin.
(CROWD APPLAUDING AND CHEERING)
About the old leg.
(ALL CHEERING)
They are still in working condition.
When I was growing up, boxing was the noble sport.
If you were a fighter, you were a role model.
You were noble.
In the 80's, you got four fighters
who were the sons of Ali.
And if you look at them,
there's a nobility. There's an elegance.
Then comes Mike Tyson.
BERNSTEIN: Everyone wants a ringside seat
at Mike Tyson's circus.
This man child who lives recklessly,
breaks all the rules and still comes out punching.
GREER: He becomes the antithesis of these guys.
I was gonna rip his heart out.
I'm the best ever.
I'm the most brutal and vicious
and most ruthless champion there's ever been.
There's no one to stop me, no one that can match me.
My style is impetuous.
My defense is impregnable and I'm ferocious.
I want your heart. I want to eat his children.
Mike, Why do you have to talk like that?
Well, I'm talking to you the way I want to talk to you.
Do you have a problem? Turn off your station.
Have a nice fight, Mike.
(BLEEP) off.
GREER: Tyson's basically saying,
"When I leave the ring,
"there will be scorched earth."
For me, all bets were off. That was the end.
You don't look up to a fighter anymore.
You don't look up to
the President of the United States anymore.
REAGAN: The dream we shared
was to create anew that shining city on a hill.
We made a determination that our dream
would not be built on a foundation of sand.
So...
(ALL CHEERING)
MAN: Ladies and gentleman, the Vice President...
I accept your nomination for President.
I want a drug-free America
and this will not be easy to achieve.
Thank you and God bless.
REPORTER: General Noriega, the dictator of Panama,
stands accused of selling his country
to the drug lords,
But he was also a key ally of the United States
in the Reagan Bush administration's
secret war against communism.
(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
MICHAEL DUKAKIS: I want to be
a President of the United States
who makes sure that we never again
do business with a drug running Panamanian dictator,
that we never again
funnel aid to the countries of convicted drug dealers.
Are you suggesting, sir, that President Reagan
is one of the causes
of the drug problem in this country?
Values begin at the top.
(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
ANNOUNCER: He's from Panama City in Panama.
(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
Roberto Duran has made more comebacks
probably than Frank Sinatra.
Many of them just don't know when to quit.
Duran just kept coming back
over and over and over again.
When I say break, give me a clean break.
AMY LENNARD GOENNER: He was just a warrior
and a phenomenal fighter,
but it was insane.
In 1989, long past the age when he should have retired,
he fought against Iran Barkley.
COMMENTATOR: Scheduled for 12:00,
WBC Middleweight Championship,
now rests with Iran Barkley.
What a man this Roberto Duran is.
He's in against a guy
who physically is much stronger than him.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
COMMENTATOR 1: Barkley, the 28-year-old
from the Bronx...
Oh, big right and staggers back.
COMMENTATOR 2: He's hurt. He is hurt.
No question about that.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
COMMENTATOR 1: Barkley's in trouble.
Oh, no. He's down.
COMMENTATOR 2: Right on the button.
I don't see how Barkley can recover from these shots.
The crowd starts to chant again.
This has been extraordinary.
-(BELL DINGING) -(ALL CHEERING)
Tommy Kaczmarek scores it 116 to 112
for the winner and new...
(CROWD CHEERING)
COMMENTATOR 1: One of the great fighters
of all time, ladies and gentlemen.
One of the great warriors, Roberto.
(SPEAKS OTHER LANGUAGE)
I love you, Panama.
Is he going to keep fighting now that he has the title?
Does he want Leonard again?
(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
Next time he's going to be for keep for Leonard.
He's going to be right.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
Duran's a classic example
of someone who got used by his handlers.
It was pretty well known
that Eleta had drained Duran's earnings.
Roberto Duran.
He was a fighter. But Duran fought too long.
REPORTER: Roberto Duran is acutely aware
of what people are saying.
He's broke, he owes the IRS one million dollars,
and that's why, at age 38, he's taking this fight.
But he says fighting Sugar Ray Leonard again
is simply unfinished business.
BERNSTEIN: The last major fight of the decade.
Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler,
Tommy Hearns, Roberto Duran.
The seniors tour of boxing.
Well, the only reason for the third fight.
was a kind of financial nostalgia,
(CHUCKLES)
And so it was a farewell kind of a fight.
ANNOUNCER: 33-year-old Sugar Ray Leonard.
But also they're addicted.
Every one of them is addicted
to his love of attention.
And that's why they fight.
The third Leonard-Duran fight.
Terrible fight. Should be put in a lockbox
and then dump it in a river
and let it sink to the bottom.
It was an outdoor fight, very cold.
They had blankets on in between.
It was so much a symbolic ending of the Four Kings.
COMMENTATOR 1: Duran with an extremely low
landing percentage down at 10%.
BERNSTEIN: It's like watching movie sequels
and you say,
"Okay, we've run out of steam on this one."
COMMENTATOR 1: But Ray is giving him
a boxing lesson right now. And the beating.
It was a closing of that great time,
and was a chance to find a way
for Duran to redeem himself after No Mas.
It was so important.
You know, people forget about that.
"Ah, that fight wasn't that good".
And they're right. They're right.
But what they miss is what it was for Duran.
And I think there was a part of Leonard
that gave that to him.
COMMENTATOR 1: Duran goes
back to his corner, exasperated.
Roberto, the first time we met, I didn't like him.
And he didn't like me for whatever reason.
But there was always respect for each other.
And afterwards, there was more love.
I saw him as a friend.
ATLAS: Leonard knew how important
it would have been to him if he needed it.
To get those ghosts removed.
And he had a care for Duran at that point.
(ALL CHEERING)
ATLAS: That only fighters could have
when they've gone to combat.
REAGAN: Last night,
I ordered US military forces to Panama.
ATLAS: Gone to fire like a Viking.
A gladiator, a warrior, a fighter.
NEWS ANCHOR: American troops,
backed by fighter jets
and waves of US based reinforcements
attacked Panamanian army bases today.
First pictures are in of the attack on Panama.
(MAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
The White House tonight offered a $1 million reward
for the capture of Panama's Manuel Noriega.
With respect to General Noriega,
we have not yet located the General.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY)
NEWS ANCHOR: Where is General Noriega?
The answer is, nobody knows.
We thought we had a pretty good idea where he was
last night.
We went there and he wasn't there.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
GEORGE BUSH SR: At about 8:50 this evening,
General Noriega turned himself in
to US Authorities in Panama.
Those charged with promoting the distribution of drugs
cannot escape the scrutiny of justice.
Boxing's intertwined with
the battles going on in life.
You might have countries fighting against each other.
Meanwhile, inside yourself,
you're battling to know who you are,
trying to figure out in your own little world,
how you could overcome something.
And that's the idea of what boxing is.
It's to overcome.
COMMENTATOR: And on and on and on.
Forty-seven year old Roberto Duran
is a cinch for the Boxing Hall of Fame,
but tonight, after five world titles,
will we be witnessing his last hurrah?
(ANNOUNCER SPEAKS IN OTHER LANGUAGE)
COMMENTATOR: Oh, what a right hand
and that staggers Duran.
Duran's getting destroyed.
And finally, Joe Cortez has stopped the clock.
The end for Duran.
That's the reality of boxing.
As long as the fighter has a name,
there's always a commission somewhere
that'll let him fight.
COMMENTATOR: Everybody's talking
about the final appearance
of The Hitman.
At ringside, of course,
perhaps the greatest heavyweight of all time,
Muhammad Ali.
A lot of fighters as they get older,
take tremendous amount of blows.
It's just one of the hazards
that comes along with boxing.
ANNOUNCER: Started in the ring
when he was 12 years old,
the one, the only
Thomas Hearns.
(ALL CHEERING)
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
I've seen a lot of fighters
banged up hanging in there too long,
coming back when they know they can't fight
and becoming a piece of meat.
When you get to this level, it's time to stop.
COMMENTATOR: There's definitely something wrong
with his foot or leg.
Well, the fight has been stopped
as Tommy Hearns cannot continue.
Boxing left a toll on Hearns.
You can tell it when he speaks.
He was courageous and he wasn't going to surrender.
People were his opium.
I think once you've reached the top the way
Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard,
Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran have,
you never lose that hunger to recapture that glory.
These were the kids
that came from the bad neighborhoods
from a really tough environment
where you couldn't give up.
Tommy was a little boy that didn't have anything.
And if you look in the history books,
the whole story has always been the same.
Life goes in cycles.
At one time, the fighters were Irish
and Jewish and Italian,
the immigrants that came here.
And then it changed,
and it got to be an African American dominated sport.
And that glorious era of Muhammed Ali
was followed by these Four Kings,
these four champions,
and they set things up for Tyson's time.
I was born in obscurity,
and I never wanted to deal with that again.
And they came from obscurity as well.
Once I watched these guys fight,
I just knew my time would soon come.
I didn't really know
if I was going to be a fighter and that
being poor, having nothing, being insecure.
But after watching these guys, I knew.
At the end of the day, a lot of things go away.
Money goes away. Abilities erode.
But those great fighters' reputations
last for eternity.
(INTERVIEWER SPEAKING)
To be a champion, one has to
believe in yourself when no one else will.
That's when you qualify.
You know, I look at life itself as being a fight.
My life is what it is because of boxing.
I remember those fights like it was yesterday.
This feeling of empowerment.
Boxing's been good to me since I was 16 years old.
I gained my goal in life
to become champion of the world.
Still in fact, my heart today,
I still feel as good as a champion.
Nobody can take that away from me.
Those are the Four Kings.
It was a great time.
We'll never see one like that again.
Those fights were so significant.
You know those fights were so incredible, man.
Do I miss it? Yeah.
There's no greater feeling than the heavy hands raised.
People love to follow a good story,
and they hope to get a good ending
and we had all of that in the 80s.
People came to a fight to see right there
that something could happen.
But the guy buying the ticket don't know.
They think it's just two fighters
going against each other like flesh and bone.
No, it's all the emotions.
That's what you're fighting.
In a lot of cases, you're beating parts of yourself.
Both guys know that.
Only they understand what they've been through.
And that's something that
I think makes this sport so special.
In the ring, that's the one time.
There is no prejudice.
There is no race. There is no religion.
There's no politics.
It's just two men.
Just two men trying to find themselves.
And that's why people came to watch a boxing match.
To see that miracle.
(CROWD CHEERING)
"Battle Born by the Killers
Up against the wall
There's something dying on the streets
When they knock you down
You're gonna get back on your feet
(Cause you can't stop now)