ATLAS: This is a poor boy's sport.
These kids that are saved by boxing,
they learn how to be strong, not in the biceps,
not in the quadriceps,
but in the soul.
MAN: I'm Italian. You ain't nothing...
ATLAS: We grow up with these fairy tales of the wand.
You wave that wand and everything's okay.
Well, for me, boxing is that wand.
But you don't wave it. You throw it.
And they have violence in their lives.
I got one kid, his father got shot
to death in the street.
You're telling me that boxing's
more violent than that?
What's right is for people to be sustained.
Not by money. By things
that make them feel more valuable.
Things that make them whole.
That is the power of boxing when it is understood.
No matter where you've come from.
No matter who your parents are.
No matter your race, your creed.
Your religion. You can get in that ring
and with all of that in your background,
if you're determined enough,
if you're trained enough, if you care enough,
a poor kid could become a rich kid.
And on one given night,
you can become champion of the world.
Yeah!
MERCHANT: It's pretty freaking good.
LEONARD: I was a kid who was a wallflower.
Really shy and had extremely low self-esteem.
I always felt inferior.
I recall living in Washington, D.C.
And we would walk to the monument.
The tourists, they would never finish
a hamburger. And I knew that.
I would go in trash cans and get a hamburger.
That bothered me for a long time
because I knew that we didn't have anything.
And boxing for me was a way of making a statement.
A profound statement.
I had to fight for my respect.
I had to fight for my position.
COMMENTATOR: That's it. Sugar Ray Leonard has won
in the 14th round.
(CROWD CHEERING)
LEONARD: I come from nothing.
And now I'm reborn.
My life changed.
MERCHANT: Well after the Hearns fight,
Leonard was the biggest thing in the sport.
He was like a movie star.
FARHOOD: In a sense, it fueled the other three.
Their desire to fight him. Their hatred for him.
Proving to everybody that they were better.
All they saw was this guy with a smile,
making millions of dollars doing commercials.
So, you know, of the four kings,
it's good to be the number one king.
REPORTER: Sugar Ray, have you got any ideas
about how to balance the budget?
Well, not yet. All it takes a good punch.
FARHOOD: Easy to see how Ray got along with Reagan.
They had a similar world view.
Leonard was an embodiment of the Reagan era.
FARRELL: But that sense of optimism and prosperity
came at the expense
of caring a whole lot about other people.
The White House was still working
on Reaganomics today.
The new president planning tax cuts and budget cuts.
REPORTER: President Reagan, his Cabinet
and economic advisors
were completing their review
of more than 80 government programs,
deciding where to propose cuts
of up to $50 billion in government spending.
Cuts like $2.6 billion from the food stamp program.
$1.5 billion from urban development action grants.
One billion from child nutrition programs.
The President overruled recommendations
from his Treasury secretary
and budget director in deciding not to reduce
the tax rate on unearned income.
Brady said such a tax break
could be interpreted as favoring the rich.
WOLFF: The election of Reagan was the signal
that the United States government
was not going to be your friend anymore.
These folks who depend on welfare...
These people are dysfunctional human beings.
They are failures.
They are not hard-working people.
They're living off you.
And I, Reagan, am gonna stop all that.
GREER: It began an era in which
it was every woman or man for himself.
And it became about making it off your own back.
You can be self-made.
REAGAN: We can create
the incentives which take advantage
of the genius of our economic system,
which, for the first time in history,
gave men a way of producing wealth
in which the good fortune of others multiplied their own.
GREER: In the ring, you are on your own.
Boxing becomes the supreme expression
of that individuality.
Because it's about being a winner.
I help the people by being a winner.
They look at me and they help themselves.
That's the Ronald Reagan trope.
WOMAN: With the loss of his championship,
Thomas Hearns no longer
has the uncontested loyalty
of the Detroit boxing community.
(HEARNS SPEAKING)
KALLEN: So many people bet on the Leonard fight.
And somebody would come up and go,
"Hey, man. You cost me a lot of money on that one."
(HEARNS SPEAKING)
REPORTER: In 100 places, Detroit is a fire.
And as you walk through the area,
people shout from their homes,
"Watch out for the sniper."
FEMALE REPORTER: It began early Sunday morning.
Police raided an unlicensed bar
in a Black neighborhood.
Tempers flared.
This is going to happen all over America.
It's going to be a hot world. Not a hot summer.
It's a hot world.
(HEARNS SPEAKING)
O'BRIEN: That exposure to violence.
That exposure to fear. Knowing that everyday
something is gonna be there that's gonna challenge you,
that's gonna hurt you,
makes you want to find a place,
where you have a little bit of control over things.
And the boxing ring offers that.
(HEARNS SPEAKING)
-(CROWD CHEERING) -(BELL DINGING)
COMMENTATOR: Hearns is going to try to win some new respect.
Former welterweight trying
a dangerous route through the middleweight ranks
to hopefully get back to the man
who has become his obsession,
Sugar Ray Leonard.
FARHOOD: Boxing has championships
at 12 weight divisions
so that the competition in the ring is equal.
You don't want an 80-pound guy
fighting a 120-pound guy.
FARHOOD: When a fighter moves up in weight class,
all of a sudden, the guy you're hitting is bigger.
Takes a better punch.
It wasn't that way with Thomas Hearns.
He was the destroyer.
COMMENTATOR: Thomas Hearns has come to Detroit
with a one-round knock-out.
NEWSREADER: Today, Thomas Hearns
returns home to Detroit.
IZENBERG: That arena was in a terrible place.
And suburban whites
came back to Detroit to see the "Hit Man."
(HEARNS SPEAKING)
COMMENTATOR: He is certainly
the most popular boxer.
IZENBERG: Detroit was going through such a bad time.
NEWSREADER: At soup kitchens here,
long lines of people down on their luck
and out of work waited for a hot meal.
NEWSREADER: Now they have another problem
to contend with, the Reagan budget cuts.
At a time when benefits ought to be increasing.
KIRSCHENBAUM: They were knocking down buildings.
Tommy was knocking down opponents.
COMMENTATOR: Laying it with left hand,
a hit at chin and another right hand.
KIRSCHENBAUM: Tommy would knock these opponents out.
And with that same right hand,
he would lift up the city's spirit.
MAN: Gotta have a winner. You need a winner.
And Detroit's got a winner.
We have so few role models.
And we need someone like him
to show Detroit how to do it right.
NEWSREADER: Hearns is trying to wrestle away from Benitez
the super welterweight title.
He has defended it successfully three times.
COMMENTATOR: The right hand, puts down Benitez.
And the winner by majority votes,
The new super welterweight champion...
Tommy "Hit Man" Hearns.
KALLEN: Winning that belt made him special again.
It made him feel like he was somebody
that everybody could look up to.
Tommy wanted Leonard again.
(CHANTING) I want Leonard. I want Leonard.
He was back to being himself.
He's the "Hit Man." Thomas "Hit Man" Hearns.
HAUSER: Each of these guys had his own persona.
Ray Leonard became Sugar Ray Leonard.
KALLEN: Sugar Ray has to get in there, be sweet.
Like sweet in his moves.
Tommy Hearns is the Hit Man who knocks everybody out.
[INDISCERNIBLE]
HAUSER: Roberto Duran, "Hands of Stone."
And he had a body of stone.
MERCHANT: But Marvin Hagler
had to give himself his own nickname.
It seemed a little fatuous to call yourself Marvelous.
There's some talk that mentions Sugar Ray Leonard,
who's a, who's a marvelous fighter.
No, I'm Marvelous.
Well, you're Marvelous. Yeah.
You're Marvelous.
Whatever you say.
WAINWRIGHT: The guy who was in charge of ABC Sport said,
"If you want us to use
the name Marvelous Marvin, go to court.
So I asked the probate court judge
to change the name of Marvin Nathaniel Hagler
to Marvelous Marvin.
HAUSER: Somehow "Marvelous" was at odds with his image
as a blue collar, grind-it-out fighter.
It wasn't that he was Marvelous.
He got in there and he fought.
ATLAS: He was strong of will strong of mental fiber.
That was his essence.
Where the hell do you think that came from?
In the beginning, my drive
and determination all came from injuries.
-(INDISTINCT SHOUTING) -(POLICE SIREN WAILING)
HAUSER: Marvin grew up poor
and Black in Newark, New Jersey.
When he got into boxing, it wasn't the first time
that he saw the system
was rigged against him.
IZENBERG: You can't live in Newark
and not have a chip on your shoulder.
You just can't do it.
You gotta know Newark, its aggression.
You know, Blacks really got the short end of the stick.
NEWSREADER: Race riots rocked
New Jersey's largest city, Newark,
for five consecutive days and nights.
HAGLER: I remember seeing all these tanks
and all these military people
coming down the streets and people carrying rifles.
IZENBERG: 26 people died.
It started over the beating of a cab driver
by Newark police. And there was a lot
of police brutality in those days.
And I know because I was there.
BARAKA: What is responsible for this violence
is the inability of the city government
to feel as human beings
the plights of the majority of the people in this city.
But let us remember that it is
law-abiding Negro families
who have really suffered most
at the hands of the rioters.
GREER: We didn't see nonviolence working anymore.
We didn't see the civil rights movement
working anymore.
You grew up in that, and the only way
you could express yourself
was just burn down your environment.
As long as the society is unjust and inequitable,
you will have resistance.
And much of it will be violent.
FARHOOD: People had decided finally that they had put up
with enough for too long.
And that anger, I think, you saw it in Marvin.
-(GUNSHOT) -(POLICE SIREN WAILING)
COTTLE: I sit here listening to a most intelligent,
a most sensitive,
a most quiet, lovely man.
A man who I know has the need,
I think you even said it about Antuofermo,
that in order for me to win, I might've had to kill him.
-So... -Where is this killer instinct?
Do you want to hurt a man in the ring?
No, but I tell you,
at the time when starting boxing,
I was beating so many good fighters,
they're still trying to keep you down
and keep putting other fighters in front of you
that you know that you're better than.
I mean, it grows a bitterness in you.
I used to wonder. Like I said, you know,
"What do I have to do to get the recognition?
Do, I have to hurt somebody really bad?"
EZRA: Marvin Hagler cost himself a lot of purses
by complaining about how the system was against him.
People during that time period want to hear about
how you don't need the system's help.
In Reagan's era, people don't need a safety net.
Marvin Hagler was just not good at that game.
MAN: Marvelous Marvin Hagler wants recognition
from non-fight people, too.
From the people who hated boxing
but still loved Sugar Ray Leonard
and before him, Muhammad Ali.
IZENBERG: Leonard represented a pinnacle
that Hagler couldn't reach.
He wanted a Leonard fight,
because if he could beat Leonard,
people would know who Hagler was.
LEONARD: Marvin Hagler,
he just felt that it was his time to shine.
The resentment was the fact that
I received so much exposure.
I was making a lot of money,
and he didn't feel that I deserved that.
But, uh, I wanted what I wanted
and I worked hard for it.
And I sacrificed everything.
I remember I was scheduled to fight this guy
in two weeks, and I was seeing,
like, someone pull a shade down on my eye.
So, I went to an ophthalmologist.
And they said, uh, "If you don't have the surgery
"in a week, you will be blind."
GUMBEL: Welterweight champion Sugar Ray Leonard
underwent eye surgery
to repair a detached retina.
MAN: Surgery was performed and reattached the retina.
A permanent silicone buckle was placed...
...operation that could end a great careers in boxing.
NEWSREADER: The feeling is, this is where
the injury was sustained,
with Thomas Hearns going up against Sugar Ray Leonard.
MIKE: What we're concerned about right now
is that Ray Leonard gets full use of his left eye.
And we're confident that the surgery was done properly,
and after today we're gonna let nature take its course.
GUMBEL: Is your boxing career over?
Well, I-I think it's too premature to say.
ARUM: Ray was finished, done.
The rule was you could not come back
with a detached retina.
LEONARD: My ophthalmologist said,
"Ray, if you want to fight again, you can fight again."
But the majority of the people
wanted me to retire because they said,
"Ray, you know what? You have fame,
"you have money. Don't risk it."
And that was very difficult when you're, uh, that young,
'cause I wanted to do what I wanted. Fight.
(SCATTERED APPLAUSE)
LEONARD: You know, I was very touched
by the call from President Reagan,
in my hospital bed.
Dr. Michaels stated that it would take almost
six months to really see
that everything is completely restored.
I have time to think whether I will resume boxing.
FARHOOD: He was actually better off when he was boxing.
It kept him structured and disciplined.
Ray had some Achilles heels.
ARUM: That period of time was a real dark period for Ray.
LEONARD: You know, I got involved with drugs
because I wasn't happy.
Alcohol became a factor and
those things almost took me down.
I was trying to find that thing that boxing gave me,
and I couldn't find that.
FARHOOD: He started hanging out
in Los Angeles quite a bit
and hobnobbing with actors, actresses, models.
He was happy to be Sugar Ray,
and Ray Leonard from Palmer Park
kind of receded into the background.
He was popular with women,
put it that way.
BELL: When Nita found out that
he was out there, you know, buying women cars,
putting them up in apartments.
That's the real deal.
There wasn't nothing perfect about Ray's marriage.
Nothing.
FARHOOD: That private side of Ray Leonard was nothing
like what the public perceived of him.
It was like a Jekyll and Hyde thing.
LEONARD: I was taught
to smile when there's a camera,
but I was hurting inside.
I spent over a quarter million dollars in cocaine.
My self-esteem dropped.
And the more I drank,
the more I lost my emotional stability.
FRIEND: There was one time Ray came home, high on coke,
was in a rage and he threatened
to burn the house down.
And Juanita had to get her kid
out of the house right away.
LEONARD: I knew that I hurt my wife.
I knew that I was hurting my son.
RAY JR.: She was saying, "Ray, don't leave."
And then I got back upstairs and her head's bloody.
I screamed at him and then he left.
BELL: And I caught Ray Leonard myself
slapping Juanita around.
So I really fell out with him, you know.
LEONARD: I don't blame the drugs or alcohol
for what I did.
I was just a bad guy. I was just a selfish guy.
I look back on my wife Juanita,
who I thank for maintaining the family,
keeping my son away from me when I was messed up.
When I used to have a hangover,
I used to say, "God, please!"
It was that painful.
And I remember one time I was in bed.
I woke up feeling sick.
I looked at TV, which was on.
And I reached out and grabbed my gun.
NEWS ANCHOR: On the athletic fields,
a child's eyes fill with your heroic achievements.
Please don't let them down.
-(GUN COCKING) -I shot the TV up.
(GUNSHOT)
(ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING)
REPORTER: It is 3:00 a.m. in the morning here.
To be perfectly honest with you,
I would prefer to be at a party right now.
(THUDS)
I should point out that Marvelous Marvin Hagler
is the man's legal name now.
LEONARD: I'm not happy.
My legacy fighting Hagler before I call it quits,
all those things were factors.
I'm sitting there, twisting, I'm turning.
I'm thinking, give me a drink or whatever.
I want to be in the action.
(ALL CHEERING)
REPORTER: ...right hand for Marvin Hagler!
The way this crowd has accepted Marvin.
That's a standing ovation.
Yes, I'm hoping that we could get together
and make this big money
that we've been talking about.
If Ray Leonard does decide,
"That's enough, I've had it. I'm not gonna have..."
He can't do that.
We're gonna make some of that money.
We want to show real artiste
that everything else out there
and I believe that it's us that can do it.
I'm gonna think about it.
All right, you gotta think about it.
We'll find out exactly what you are thinking
in just about a week.
November 9th, that's the day that Sugar Ray Leonard
will tell us exactly what Sugar Ray Leonard is all about.
FARHOOD: Ray has this, infamous now,
party in Baltimore,
where he's going to announce what he's going to do next.
He invites Marvin Hagler.
MARANTZ: He makes it sound like
he's going to announce a fight with Marvin.
It's going to be the biggest payday of Marvin's career,
and the whole fight world's there.
ARUM: It was a bizarre spectacle,
and, I think, Ray at that point
he was not behaving himself.
Ray would tell ya.
LEONARD: I would take a couple shots, hit cocaine,
and walk in there and be cool.
REPORTER: Howard Cosell was the master of ceremonies.
Muhammed Ali stole the show.
(CHEERING CONTINUES)
Here he comes, ladies and gentlemen,
Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
HAGLER: I like the way he introduced me there.
It took me so long to get that Marvelous so thank you.
I tell you, we gotta be the fight of the century.
(CROWD CHEERING AND CLAPPING)
All right.
ANNOUNCER: There is, in the often
tarnished sport of boxing,
a young man, clean and decent and caring,
who can live by the rules,
that's why he's so deserving of this evening,
Sugar Ray Leonard.
(CROWD CHEERING)
(CAMERAS FLASHING)
I understand now the true definition of beauty.
Beauty is a woman.
A woman that stands behind you no matter what
and also gave me my heart.
My lovely wife and my dear son, little Ray.
To Marvin Hagler, who I think is beauty also,
because he had the same desire,
the same want, the same belief,
a fight with this great man, this great champion
could be one of the greatest fights
in the history of boxing.
(CROWD CHEERING)
(TENSE MUSIC BUILDING)
But unfortunately, it'll never happen.
Thank you and God bless you all.
COSELL: All right, Sugar Ray Leonard has retired.
FARHOOD: Marvin looks like a total idiot.
I don't think it was one of
the shining moments of Ray's career.
MERCHANT: It was adding insult to insult.
It was very self-serving.
MAN: Would you have liked to fought him?
Sure. That's an opportunity I'm gonna miss,
but I believe he'll be back.
FARHOOD: That knocked Hagler out.
I had a beautiful career to walk away,
with no regrets,
and to remain content is even more beautiful.
ARUM: With any great fighter the problem is,
if they're really good, they can accomplish things,
when they should have quit
that you wouldn't expect them to.
It's what makes the story great.
(COMMENTATOR SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)
ARUM: After the 'No Mas' fight Duran was in disgrace.
He couldn't even go back to Panama.
FARHOOD: If the result of
the Leonard rematch wasn't enough
to pull the plug on Duran's career,
he went on to fight a series of mediocre fights.
He got badly out boxed by Wilfred Benitez.
COMMENTATOR: This may be the last round
that you'll ever see Roberto Duran fight.
FARHOOD: Duran was considered done.
ATLAS: To be special you got to feel special.
He lost that.
He still had the same abilities.
But he didn't have the permission
to feel like Duran again.
ARCEL: And he fought very ordinary fighters
and they would give him trouble.
They brought up a kid Laing or Lane or somebody.
Duran, his reflexes were gone,
he had no coordination.
He couldn't move.
COMMENTATOR: I don't want to remember Duran this way.
ARCEL: He beat Duran!
I couldn't believe it.
This fella couldn't beat you or me.
COMMENTATOR: Duran is already leaving the ring.
It's all over.
ATLAS: But Duran had a drive to exist
because he came from a place
that you could very easily not exist.
MERCHANT: Duran was the classic street kid
who just needs to beat up everybody in front of him
to compensate for all the bruisings in his life.
(CHILDREN LAUGHING)
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
PERKINS: Roberto Duran and Torrijos,
the two of them had a great deal in common.
There was a lot of mutual appreciation between them,
and Duran was, in his own way, political.
Because he was really a proponent
of Panamanian nationalism.
REPORTER: Omar Torrijos,
a peasant who became dictator,
has brought Panama one of its only stable governments.
PERKINS: I was extremely impressed by Torrijos.
I spent a lot of time with him.
He felt that the United States has no right
to interfere
in the politics of Latin American countries.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
TRANSLATOR: I've waited 22 years for a man
to come to Panama to defend the canal.
Now the time has finally come.
(CLAPPING)
Does he think the General got the best deal he could get?
TRANSLATOR: Yes. He got the best possible treaty
because he got the treaty with diplomacy.
Not with violence.
PERKINS: Torrijos absolutely knew
that he was taking his life in his hands
by standing up to the US government.
Once Reagan began to rise in the United States,
he would be a grave danger.
He was very aware of this.
Nonetheless, he had the courage
to stand behind his principles.
(MAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(RESPONDING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)
NEWS ANCHOR: Good evening.
One of Central America's best known
military and political leaders,
General Omar Torrijos,
has died in a plane crash in the jungle,
91 miles outside of Panama City.
NEWS ANCHOR 2: General Torrijos,
who had been Duran's greatest supporter,
was killed in a plane...
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
PERKINS: It was a very mysterious airplane crash,
that most people in Latin America, not just Panama,
have no doubt it was a CIA orchestrated assassination.
NEWS ANCHOR: The funeral for Panama's leader,
General Omar Torrijos, will take place tomorrow.
And today he was mourned in the streets
of the capital city.
REPORTER: The Panamanian National Guard
gave their general a military farewell.
It was the end of an era for Panama.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(FELICIDAD SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(FELICIDAD SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
PERKINS: Duran was looked at as a hero of Latin America,
not just a hero of Panama.
He provided a magnificent symbol
for the entire Southern hemisphere.
What do you think it was that made you win?
(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
TRANSLATOR: (IN ENGLISH) He says his heart.
(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(IN ENGLISH) He said, "As long as he can use his hands
"he will always eat."
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(INTERVIEWER SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
ANNOUNCER: (IN ENGLISH) Madison Square Garden
is electrified
as they get ready for Davey Moore
against Roberto Duran.
FARHOOD: He fought at Madison Square Garden,
on his 32nd birthday,
and Duran was a big underdog.
Davey Moore, the fighter from the Bronx,
got booed.
Duran got cheered.
(BELL DINGS)
(INDISTINCT COMMENTARY)
COMMENTATOR: You can see the blood
streaming down the face of the champion.
Look at Roberto Duran, just kind of
sneered at Davey Moore.
HAUSER: The screaming sold out Madison Square Garden.
He beat Davey Moore down.
That was Roberto as Roberto.
COMMENTATOR: Right on! Moore is down!
A left-right, a big strong right...
HAUSER: And when that happened, Roberto was back.
All was forgiven.
(BELL DINGS)
(TRIUMPHANT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING)
FARHOOD: Duran climbs the ring ropes,
tears flowing down his face,
and the crowd sings "Happy Birthday."
It was a chilling moment.
(CROWD CHANTING)
NEWS ANCHOR: On his 32nd birthday last night,
challenger Roberto Duran knocked out
24-year-old Davey Moore
as he came back from the disgrace
of two and a half years ago.
ATLAS: There is nothing more powerful
than the act of redemption.
But the reason why we're talking about these fighters
is because they had each other.
You got to have that dance partner.
Fred Astaire was great,
but when he had Ginger Rogers to dance with,
it was even greater.
You had to have adversaries.
COMMENTATOR: This could be out in Round 1.
MARANTZ: All these guys moved through
several divisions
except Hagler, who stayed at one weight.
He stayed at middleweight.
ATLAS: There's no disputing that turf
and who owned that middleweight turf,
Mr. Hagler.
FARHOOD: He was beating very very tough opposition
that were not big names.
So until he had the other
three kings come up and fight him,
he wasn't going to get the credit he deserved.
I think there was a temptation to say,
"Okay, Duran won a fight
"that a lot of people didn't think he'd win."
He had his moment. He's done.
And he fights Marvin Hagler.
BERNSTEIN: Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler.
This is the gold standard.
NEWSCASTER: Well, it is a rarity in these days
to have an undisputed championship,
but that's what'll be on the line tonight in Las Vegas.
HAGLER: I gave Roberto Duran a lot of credit
Leonard wouldn't fight me, Hearns wouldn't fight me.
Roberto Duran, the first one to have guts enough
to come out and fight me.
FARHOOD: When you look at Roberto Duran
you say, "This is no middleweight.
"He's just not going to be strong enough
"to keep Marvin off him."
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
FARHOOD: Hagler knows that the decisive victory
will gain him the kind of recognition
transcending boxing
earned by a man he almost fought, Sugar Ray Leonard.
Hagler's a favorite, but I still like Duran.
I've been ranked twice with this man,
I know what he's capable of doing.
This is going to be one of the great fights
of all times.
GOEHNER: Marvin Hagler knew the spotlight was on him,
unlike it had ever been before.
(CROWD CHEERING)
ANNOUNCER: Marvin Hagler!
HAUSER: Marvin had the advantage
in most of his fights.
He didn't have it over Roberto Duran.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Caesar's Palace
in Las Vegas.
At stake, the undisputed
middleweight championship of the world.
FARHOOD: Marvin expected Duran to come at him
and be the ferocious one.
It's not how Duran fought him.
He used a more tactical approach.
HAGLER: In the third round,
he caught me with over hand right.
I says, "How the hell did he hit me with that shot?"
(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
HAUSER: (IN ENGLISH) Marvin was a little intimidated.
MARANTZ: When Marvin came up through the ranks,
Duran was a superstar in the '70s.
So Marvin couldn't bring himself
to unload on this guy
that he respected, and Duran took advantage of it.
FARHOOD: Before Marvin knew it, it was a close fight.
COMMENTATOR: This is Duran's best round!
FARHOOD: The fact that Duran was as competitive as he was
against one of the greatest middleweights of all time,
came as a total shock.
And after 13 rounds, Duran is ahead on the cards.
(BELL DINGS)
MARANTZ: Marvin had the win the last two rounds
to take the decision.
COMMENTATOR: Hagler goes right to it
in the final round.
(CROWD CHEERING)
COMMENTATOR 1: Big left hand by Hagler!
COMMENTATOR 2: Hagler throws five punches
to every one in this round for Duran.
COMMENTATOR 1: Back to the rope, takes a right hook.
Twenty odd seconds to go in the fight!
Two warriors, two champions,
going the full 15 rounds.
He blocks Hagler with the right hand.
Hagler with a left. There goes the bell.
(BELL DINGING)
(CROWD CHEERING AND CLAPPING)
146-145.
144-143.
Still the undisputed
middleweight champion of the world...
FARHOOD: Marvin had a big 14th and 15th round
pulled out the decision.
But, yeah, the Duran fight showed that
maybe he was vulnerable.
Maybe he could be out boxed.
HAUSER: I couldn't get it going the way I really wanted to,
but the next time I fight Duran, I'll knock him out.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
MARANTZ: Duran whispered in Leonard's ear,
"You box him, you can beat him."
That planted a seed in Leonard's head.
NEWSCASTER: (IN ENGLISH) The atmosphere is electric
as the champ, Sugar Ray Leonard
has come out of retirement for the fight of his life.
He'll be facing his toughest opponent ever.
Blindness.
LEONARD: Two years is a long time of inactivity.
A lifetime.
Not fighting Hagler was kind of a void in my legacy.
To prove that you're the best, you fight the best.
(ALL LAUGHING)
And we as fighters if we don't let that go
when our career come to a head,
we continue to search.
The paramount story in fight circles this week
is the return of Sugar Ray Leonard,
His decision to come out of retirement,
now that his eye is healed,
surprised some and shocked even more.
REPORTER: His Friday night opponent
in Worcester, Massachusetts,
is unheralded
and certain to be forever unchampion, Kevin Howard.
LEONARD: I knew that I would win and Hag would be next.
I knew that. I just knew that.
People were so concerned about me,
because I had been out of the ring
and they heard about my antics.
PEPE: I am sad that Leonard
finds it necessary to fight again
and I cannot agree with him.
What is the going rate these days for a man's eyesight?
LEONARD: I trained, I was in shape,
but you don't know what you have
until you get in the ring.
Hey, guys. I'm back.
COMMENTATOR: One of boxing's most historic events.
LEONARD: When I fight, I have tunnel vision.
I see just my opponent.
COMMENTATOR: And here comes Kevin Howard.
Obviously, this is the biggest fight of his life.
LEONARD: And Kevin Howard?
It's like, something's not right.
ANNOUNCER: We'd like to welcome to the ring,
Marvelous Marvin Hagler!
COMMENTATOR: I can tell you who won
the popularity contest here.
LEONARD: I'm back in the ring again
and it's different.
I looked over at Kevin Howard,
I just didn't feel the special something
that was always present.
Then in the ring, I saw everyone.
I saw Marvin Hagler.
My wife, who's at ringside.
She was nearly eight months pregnant.
My mother and father.
My son.
The eye, quite naturally was a factor.
REPORTER: ...to repair a partially detached
retina of his left eye.
COMMENTATOR: Leonard's timing is a little bit off.
LEONARD: I just could not maintain my concentration
and every punch hurt.
So, this is not working.
And I was a little afraid. Not of Kevin Howard
but of being there. Being in that ring.
And I choreograph my fights and write the script.
He didn't read the script.
COMMENTATOR: And a right hand from Kevin Howard
puts Sugar Ray Leonard right on the seat of his pants.
LEONARD: All of a sudden now, I'm facing reality.
COMMENTATOR: I believe that was the first time
in his career that Leonard was down.
Marvin Hagler is probably more excited
than any man in this country.
LEONARD: I got up with the intentions
of just doing two things,
winning the fight and return.
COMMENTATOR: And the fight is over.
And Sugar Ray Leonard has won it.
I've never been hit like that before.
Especially knocked down.
One more round and he would've lost by decision.
He wasn't hurting me. I was hurting him.
LEONARD: I wasn't ready because
I'm not doing this for the right reasons.
I was coming back because I was lost.
My world was crumbling.
I just have this feeling that
it just wasn't there.
And, uh, I have retired for good.
REPORTER: Will you say that one more time please?
I have officially retired.
NEWSCASTER: He's gone for good.
He was one of the all-time greats.
So, it's my goodbye to Ray Leonard.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
LEONARD: (IN ENGLISH) I tried. It wasn't there.
That's it and that's it for good.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
MERCHANT: Hearns is a big welterweight.
It looked like a mismatch.
But it might not have been the first mismatch
that Duran was in
that turned out not to be a mismatch.
(BELL DINGING)
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
(HEARNS IN ENGLISH)
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
COMMENTATOR: Down the outside.
There's a big one. Wow, Duran.
HAUSER: I think Roberto Duran
could've fought Tommy Hearns five times
and each time Tommy would've whacked him out.
They just know, styles make fights.
And Tommy had the style
that Roberto couldn't cope with.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
COMMENTATOR: That's it!
(DURAN CONTINUES IN OTHER LANGUAGE)
COMMENTATOR: He's face first on the mat.
(DURAN SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)
FARHOOD: One of the truisms of boxing is that
no great fighter ever lost a fight.
There's always a reason.
I overtrained, I undertrained.
I had the flu. Whatever it is.
The best of all time is
Anthony Hembrick, who was a US Olympian
He said the Jerry curl he used for his hair
seeped into his brain and weakened him.
If a fighter is gonna use that as an excuse,
you kind of get it.
It's in a class by itself.
MERCHANT: Sometimes, the stars are aligned
in the right way
And there was a natural progression.
I would like to move on to the middleweight division
and challenge Marvin Hagler.
HAGLER: The biggest fight I've been waiting for
and that was Sugar Ray Leonard,
now that he's gone out of the game.
Now I only have one other thing to do,
and that's to fight Thomas Hearns
and I'm planning on breaking every bone in his body.
Thomas Hitman Hearns,
challenging Marvelous Marvin Hagler
for the middleweight championship of the world.
The richest fight ever.
Welcome to day six of the magical mystery tour.
FARHOOD: Maybe for the first time,
they both viewed themselves as the A-side.
These were two fighters who had
kind of earned their stripes as superstars.
REAGAN: If anyone is looking for heroes,
let them look at main street America.
HAGLER: This is the highlight of my career.
I remember the day when I couldn't get
anyone to listen to a word I had to say.
KALLEN: The press tours.
Unbelievable. We would send private jets for each guy.
and we would go from city to city.
ARUM: We were doing 26 cities in 14 days.
Hagler's plane. They would serve seafood.
Hagler would sit in his seat Maybe read a book.
Boring, boring, boring.
Now, on Tommy's plane...
That was the Detroit plane. The ghetto plane.
And that was a fun plane.
MARANTZ: You come out of poverty,
you come out of the inner city
and the next thing you know,
you're flying in private jets.
And only by trusting you, giving you opportunities
to climb high and reach for the stars
can we preserve the golden dream of America.
As the champion of peace and freedom
among the nations of the world.
Everything is booming, but the guns.
KALLEN: It kind of went along with the times.
People were living high.
REPORTER: Costumed Romans and well-heeled countrymen
and a guarantee of more than $5 million apiece
is a nice payday.
KALLEN: The casinos were absolutely packed.
Women were dripping with diamonds.
The guys were pulling up in these rented limos.
REPORTER: Good for the Las Vegas hotels,
limousine companies and the bookies.
Good too for the high rollers
who can't resist the raw spectacle of two men
squaring off against each other...
O'BRIEN: It very much had that greed is good kind of feel
that they were buying into
And I think everyone was happy to have that happen.
GREER: What's wrong with being rich?
What's wrong with walking around with diamond rings,
fur coats. What's the problem?
That's what the Reagan Revolution was about.
We're going to turn the bull loose.
(CROWD CHEERING)
GREER: For me, it was just awful,
unfettered, unapologetic, opulence.
O'BRIEN: America was also ready to embrace
that kind of, "It's morning in America,"
even if it wasn't morning for a lot of America.
I am a candidate and will seek re-election.
He has warped this nation's priorities.
He has taken from those who need our help the most.
REAGAN: Those in this campaign
who're telling you that those taxes were unbalanced
and benefitted certain groups more than others,
They are lying in their teeth.
JACKSON: Mr. Hart
is so far removed from the poor.
He thinks the poor are poor
because they don't have ideas.
Poor folks got more ideas than anybody.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
HAGLER: He had taken the underprivileged people
that don't have the education
and the only tool that they have is their boxing.
And for one that was me.
REAGAN: Each of you is an individual
worthy of respect,
unique and important to the success of America.
NEWSCASTER: CBS News estimates that
Ronald Reagan has been re-elected President
Come April 15 and three rounds,
I will be the greatest.
REAGAN: You brought America back
and you're making us great again.
It may or may not be the fight of the century
but, Las Vegas gamblers say a record $15 million
could be bet on tonight's middleweight title fight.
HOST: Three years in the making, we've come down
to the night of reckoning, here in Las Vegas.
Who would deal with the big event better?
Well, I think Tommy Hearns is prepared for it mostly.
The question to bring out, whether or not Marvin Hagler
can deal with this kind of event?
HUNTER: As a boxer,
you're representing the place you come from
as much as you're representing yourself.
They're proxy stories for their cities,
Newark and Detroit that feel very forgotten.
It's important to remember that,
while all of this attention,
spotlight, television and all of that going on,
people are struggling and striving back home.
Those are all the things
that they're carrying as motivation,
you know, because they're definitely in touch
with the other reality.
ATLAS: We've got too much bullshit
going on in this country.
Get to what matters.
People matter
and what it takes to get people to a place
that they feel like they're worth something.
I've been puzzling over why
this has become a major event.
Neither Tommy Hearns nor Marvin Hagler
has ever had box office magic
the way that Muhammad Ali or Ray Leonard did.
What is it then?
What I come up with is this.
It's great to wanna be great
And these two quality athletes,
desperately want to be great.
ARUM: You have to be chasing something.
You have to be burning to become something
that people, society told you, you couldn't be.
You have to be fighting for something.
More than a freaking check.
COMMENTATOR: And tonight, man to man
will decide which one of them
is the best at his trade.
Okay, I gave both fighters the instructions
in the dressing room.
STEELE: I'm looking at these two guys
and I know something big is about to happen.
MERCHANT: I have a vivid recollection
of Hagler before the bell
starting to pound his own head,
and it was a signal of what was to come.
(BELL DINGING)
FARHOOD: That first round will live forever,
probably the greatest round in boxing history.
It was just pure hell.
ANNOUNCER: There's a super-charged
right hand from Thomas Hearns.
Tremendous pace in the first round.
Both of them are going at each other.
Hearns having the better of him right now.
And a left hand by Hagler!
What a pace.
You know, both the guys just draining each other out.
So whoever becomes the champion they will...
(HEARNS SPEAKING)
ANNOUNCER: A left hand by Hagler
and it's gonna bruise him.
Now the right hand.
[INDISCERNIBLE]
Tommy is hurt.
And one was the right hand of Tommy Hearns
and it did catch Hagler.
Another good right hand by Hearns.
Tremendous pace in the first round.
Blood coming from the face of Marvin Hagler,
It is over the right eye, I believe, of Hagler.
There's a lot of blood early on here.
An awful lot of blood on the face of Marvin Hagler.
PETRONELLI: They're going to come down to a street fight
and whose chin's gonna hold up.
ANNOUNCER: Hagler. Punishing Hearns now.
This is still the first round.
There has been no boxing at all.
They're just fighting here.
Just slugging. Now Hearns
continues to...
And now Hearns has got his right back!
This could be the most brutal heathen round
-you've ever seen in boxing. -(BELL DINGING)
FARHOOD: Nobody could believe it.
It was just one long scream for three minutes.
ANNOUNCER: That's as good as it ever gets, folks.
I doubt that there has ever been
a better middleweight round than that one.
STEWARD: Thomas comes back, end of the first round.
First thing, he says, "My right hand is broke."
I said, "Oh, my God!"
But the thought of quitting
and stopping the fight never entered my mind.
But, just knowing Thomas's mental makeup.
(HEARNS SPEAKING)
STEWARD: He was actually slinging the right hand.
He really wasn't punching it straight anymore
because it was broken.
ANNOUNCER: That was a hook. Good left hook.
IZENBERG: The second round was much more Hagler.
But the blood was flowing much more.
COMMENTATOR: Another good right hand by Hagler.
(STEELE SPEAKING)
FARHOOD: It was a serious cut.
As much damage as Hagler had done to Hearns
in that round, it wasn't enough.
All of sudden, there was a new threat.
HAGLER: Goody, my corner man had stopped the blood,
He speak to me in the corner.
"Don't worry about your cut."
(GOODY SPEAKING)
ANNOUNCER: Without question, the two most prevalent words
on the lips of the 15,000 here, great fight.
IZENBERG: Now, the third round comes.
Hearns' legs look like wet spaghetti.
ANNOUNCER: He really is awkward.
IZENBERG: And suddenly, the referee stops the fight.
STEELE: He had split open like a watermelon.
So I got to get a medical opinion.
HAGLER: You see the referee pushing you away.
I'm like, "Don't do this to me."
STEELE: He looks at me and he says,
"I'm not gonna let you stop this fight
"because of no cut."
The referee said, "Marvin, can you see?"
Can I see? I'm hitting him, ain't I? (LAUGHING)
PETRONELLI: So they go back and fight.
I know if they playing this game,
I must not come out now.
I have to knock him out.
ANNOUNCER: ...some serious business.
(CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
[INDISCERNIBLE]
PETRONELLI: Right hook.
Right cross.
Right over.
HAGLER: When Tommy went down,
I find myself like a monster
because I felt, if this guy gets up,
I'm gonna kill this guy.
ANNOUNCER: I'm not sure he can make it.
...five, six, seven...
...eight, nine...
STEELE: I don't even know how he got up.
He was dead in my arms.
ANNOUNCER: This one is history!
Five and a half rounds. A tremendous victory.
REPORTER: Marvin Hagler just doesn't go down.
This is a man with such incredible grit
and such courage.
I just don't think you can say enough about that.
FARHOOD: He understood what he needed to do
and he said, I will walk through fire
I will take his best right hand
and then take his heart.
Because once he hits me with his best right hand
and sees he can't hurt me, fight is over.
ANNOUNCER: Hearns being carried back to his corner.
KALLEN: To see him carried back to the corner
like a baby.
That was hurtful.
I just wish they'd take a deep breath
and walk back to the corner.
He just had never experienced that before.
Hi, baby!
Yay!
You see Daddy's boo-boos?
PETRONELLI: I can't figure too many guys
that were better than him.
Now, everybody realize that above everything else,
he was marvelous.
And here is Marvelous, Marvin Hagler.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
It must be nice to hear that we got here tonight,
I know this is something you have been trying
to get in your professional fighting career for a long time.
And it really didn't happen until this fight, did it?
HAGLER: I look at the newspaper clippings,
and they say,
that was the best first round in history.
I've never seen a first round fight
like that in my life.
But you gave Hearns credit also.
You said it takes two to make a round like that.
It takes two.
Every time I talk about the Tommy Hearns fight,
I still get chills.
I give Tommy a lot of credit.
I mean, he's a true champion.
And he is a good gentleman.
KALLEN: There has not been one day that's gone by since
that fight that Tommy hasn't relived it in his mind.
And I'd say,
"Tommy, all the greats, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson,
"all of them have had their losses.
It hurts like crazy.
"But, you win some, you lose some."
That's life.
His boxing is life.
I finally gained recognition and that's what I wanted
from the public and from the media.
It took him so long to get his due,
and Marvin never gave up.
To me, he was a class act inside and out,
and I love the way he fought.
We talked about just how marvelous, Marvin Hagler was
When former fighters sit ringside and watch a fight,
they think they could still kick the butt of those guys,
even though they're retired.
So Leonard, seeing Marvin getting all the attention,
that's fuel.
Ray has retired more than Barbra Streisand.
That's just what Ray did.
It's definitely true with a lot of fighters.
Many of them just don't know when to quit.
Don't tell me not to fly I've simply got to
If someone takes a spill it's me and not you
Who told you you're allowed
To rain on my parade
I'll march my band out!
I'll beat my drum!
And if I'm fanned out
Y our turn at bat, sir
At least I didn't fake it Hat, sir