George Kimball - Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and the Last Great Era of Boxing

Although I was an eyewitness to all nine fights between Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, and Duran and have relied on (and quoted from) my notes, recollections, and clippings of well over a hundred stories I wrote at the timefor the Boston Herald and Herald American , as well as for several boxing magazinesI am indebted to a number of secondary sources.

Remarkably, only one of the subjects treated herein has been the subject of a comprehensive biography encompassing his entire ring career, and Christian Giudices Hands of Stone was a valuable resource in filling out the enigma that is Roberto Duran. I have attempted to credit him where I have quoted directly from that book, but I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the critical nature of Giudices work in recounting the background, and dispelling some of the tales, surrounding an almost mythic figure.

Sugar Ray Leonard was the subject of several biographies, three of which were written for the childrens market. Bert Rosenthals Sugar Ray Leonard: The Baby-Faced Boxer and James Haskins Sugar Ray Leonard, both written for a juvenile audience, were published in 1982. A childrens book also called Sugar Ray Leonard, authored by S.H. Burchard, was published in 1983 and concluded with the 1982 Baltimore retirement ceremony. Alan Goldsteins excellent A Fistful of Sugar was published even earlier, and while it takes the reader as far as the first two Duran fights, it was rushed into print to emerge before Leonards 1981 fight against Hearns, too early, alas, to capture the critical second phase of Leonards career. Sam Toperoffs Sugar Ray Leonard and Other Noble Warriors is not, as the title suggests, exclusively about Leonard, and gets its subject only as far as the 1984 Kevin Howard fight. (It would have been interesting to see how Toperoff dealt with Leonards subsequent encounterswith Hagler, Hearns II, and Duran III.)

Marvin Hagler was also the subject of a short (forty-eight pages) biography written for younger readers. Published in 1985, Carolyn Gloeckners Marvelous Marvin Hagler emerged before the Hearns and Leonard fights had taken place.

Happily, though, the era is well represented in the work of a number of outstanding contemporaneous boxing scribesMichael Katz, Hugh McIlvanney, John Schulian, Budd Schulberg, Dave Anderson, Vic Ziegel, and the late Harry Mullan among themand revisiting their coverage of the fights between the Four Kings (along with Pat Putnams and Bill Nacks Sports Illustrated accounts) was invaluable in the preparation of this book.

When I began to cover the sport, record-keeping was decidedly imprecise. The Ring s record book was often unreliable, and in many cases newspapers abetted exaggerations by accepting promoters often-fanciful estimates of a given fighters record. That situation was improved considerably by the emergence of FightFax in the 1980s, and has been rendered virtually obsolete by todays online resourcesparticularly Boxrec.com, which I found myself consulting almost daily as I worked on this book.

The author would also like to express his gratitude to each of the following for sharing their time, expertise, and memories: Ray Charles Leonard, Thomas Hearns, and Roberto Duran; Seth Abraham, Mike Acri, Dave Anderson, James Anderson, Bob Arum, Amiri Baraka, Al Bernstein, Teddy Blackburn, J.D. Brown, Kevin Buckley, Michael Buffer, Prentiss Byrd, Angie Carlino, Nick Charles, Jose Pepe Correa, Lou DiBella, Ray Didinger, Dan Doyle, Angelo Dundee, Ollie Dunlap, Steve Farhood, Leonard Gardner, Julius Juice Gatling, Christian Giudice, Bobby Goodman, Randy Gordon, Ross Greenburg, Bob Halloran, Pete Hamill, Thomas Hauser, Stan Hochman, Jerry Izenberg, Michael Katz, Jay Larkin, Jim Lawton, Hugh McIlvanney, Wally Matthews, Larry Merchant, Leigh Montville, Mike OHara, Reinaldo Oliveira, Andy Olson, Goody Petronelli, Freddie Roach, Lee Samuels, Rick Sennott, Budd Schulberg, Ed Schuyler, John Scully, Emanuel Steward, Steve Taub, Jose Torres, Mike Trainer, Steve Wainwright, Jeff Wald, Alex Wallau, and Jim Watt.

Thanks as well to Joe Fitzgerald, Mike Carey, Tom Gibbons, Jack Thompson, Peter Drumsta and Bob Sales, my old bosses at the Boston Herald, who at various times were responsible for paying my way to cover all nine fights between the Four Kings, as well as to Michael Gee, Tim Horgan, Richie Thompson, Eddie Gray, Frank DellAppa, Kevin Cullen, and Mike Globetti, Herald colleagues who rode shotgun on some of those journeys, and to Marvelous Marvin Hagler, who made it all possible.

Colin Wilkins of the library staff at the Boston Herald was particularly helpful in retrieving and assembling my own newspaper coverage of the fights described here, as was Richard OBrien of Sports Illustrated, who rooted out back issues containing that magazines coverage of the era. Thanks as well to Jim Mahoney of the Boston Herald, Karen Carpenter of Sports Illustrated, Janet Indelli and Pam Waring of HBO, and Scott Mosher of Ambient Studios for helping me to pull the illustrations together, and of course, to ace boxing shutterbugs Teddy Blackburn, Angie Carlino, Stephen Green-Armytage, Will Hart, John Iacono, Heinz Kluetmeier, Richard Mackson and Manny Millan, whose photos grace these pages.

The book publisher who is also a boxing buff is a rare bird indeed, and I count hooking up with Alex Skutt as my good fortune. My thanks also go to McBooks editors Chris Wofford and Jackie Swift for the countless hours they spent editing the manuscript.

Two Dr. Kimballsmy wife, Marge, and my mother, Sueproofread the manuscript and typeset pages, and Emily Snider coordinated some difficult logistics to arrange sit-downs with Ray Leonard in some far-flung and unlikely locales.

My everlasting gratitude to the Wolf Man, who, as ever, had my back at each step of the way, and to Tom Frail of Smithsonian, my old editor from the Boston Phoenix, whose editing of the manuscript made this a much better book. Thanks as well to Farley Chase of the Waxman Agency, who encouraged me at every turn and shepherded Four Kings from concept to finished product.

And thanks to Patrick Francis Anthony Nolan Putnam, R.I.P.

George Kimball
New York City

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