Christian Giudice - Hands of Stone: The Life and Legend of Roberto Duran

Worldwide Praise for HANDS OF STONE

In the age of the tabloid we know more about many of our sporting heroes than we ever cared to know, but from the time he blasted his way into our consciousness with a punch to the scrotum almost four decades ago, Roberto Duran had been an elusive and enigmatic figure. With Hands of Stone , Christian Giudice has separated the wheat from the chaff in the most illuminating deconstruction of a mythic ring legend since John Lardner went toe-to-toe with the ghost of Stanley Ketchel.

George Kimball, author of Four Kings

My favourite book.

Ricky Hatton, former three-time world champion

Christian Giudice has succeeded brilliantly in separating the myth from the legend and produced a book that serves only to enhance further the reputation of an already astonishing fighter... Hands of Stone is the dazzling account of a breathtaking fighter and a remarkable man.

The Independent

A cracking book.

Daily Star

The first and definitive account of Durans extraordinary life both in and out of the ring.

Boxing Digest

Durans 120-bout career is vividly chronicled.

The Independent On Sunday

Compelling.

The Sun

A must for all fight fans.

Liverpool Echo

A gripping biography. Every page will keep readers enthralled.

Dublin Evening Herald

A profoundly detailed reconstruction of Durans world.

Gerald Early, Belles Lettres, A Literary Review

What a story!

Scotland on Sunday

If you buy only one boxing book this year, Hands of Stone should be it.

Boxing Monthly

This electronic edition published in 2011

Copyright Christian Giudice

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition beingimposed on the subsequent purchaser.

MILO BOOKS LTD

www.milobooks.com

I am not God but something very similar.

Roberto Duran

To my mother who faced down a deadly disease and beat it.

To my father, a fighter, a man, my hero who once threw a perfect left hook on Schellenger Ave. (between Atlantic and Pacific Aves.) on a summer night in Wildwood. Thank you for protecting us all of these years. I wrote this book for you, Pop.

Contents

Prologue

IT IS 26 NOVEMBER 1980 and Roberto Duran Samaniego stands naked in the middle of the ring. His arms sulk by his sides. He feels weak. His body has betrayed him, as he has betrayed himself. His eyes, the twin beacons of his demonic aura, search for the exit.

Always defiant, tonight he bleeds compromise. It is like watching a Ferrari sputtering to the closest gas station. With sixteen seconds remaining in the eighth round in the Louisiana Superdome, his mocking, face-pulling, showboating challenger, Sugar Ray Leonard, has affronted his dignity and stripped him of his macho . And so he breaks the contract that he signed the day he stepped in the boxing ring: To punch till the end. Duran has always boxed like he cursed, in quick, immediate thrusts; now the roughest, toughest, most feared fighter in the world raises his left hand and walks away.

No quiero pelear con el payaso, says Duran. I do not want to fight with this clown. He repeats the words, but a ringside broadcaster claims to hear him say no ms, the Spanish for no more. The phrase will live in sporting infamy.

After a second, Leonards brother Roger yells, He quit on you Ray. Leonard runs over and jumps on the ringpost. The fight is done.

People would later dub the man a coward, a fake, a phony. They said laziness and gluttony had precipitated his downfall; fame had accelerated it.

The first part of Durans career, his life, was over. Act Two was about to begin.

EVEN BEFORE I went to Panama, I knew one thing for sure about Roberto Duran: The man was not a quitter. I didnt understand the contradictions of the no ms fight but also didnt buy into the hype. When I told people that I was headed to his homeland, they joked about the infamous moment when he left the ring seven rounds early. Tell him no ms for me, they said.

With a face that reminded some of Che Guevara, others of Charles Manson, Durans feral stare never left me. His look was compelling, his image enigmatic, his fighting skills unsurpassed. In the ring, Duran came forward and intimidated; he didnt know any other way. Those who stood up to him paid the price in blood and hurt; those who ran were pursued and hunted down. Sportswriters devoured stories of his wild childhood, told of him swimming across bays with a bag of mangoes held in his mouth to feed his family. His eyes were dark coals of fire and anything that he sneered at froze in terror. But who was this man? Was he really pure evil lodged in the body of a 135-pound prince, or was it all an act?

Even when his ability to intimidate had waned, the Doo-ran, Doo-ran cheers still echoed around sold-out arenas. Even when he was only a quarter of his former self, a sad, overweight Elvis making his last call, he was still Duran. Watching those final years of futility it became clear that legends never die, they just age. So when the thought of finding and telling the Duran story crept into my head, I couldnt resist. With the purpose of finding this man, I decided to leave my job, friends and family and head to Panama City. I had a smattering of Spanish, a laptop and some old Duran fights on tape. I didnt even know if he spoke English, or how well.

I was six years old on that November night in New Orleans in 1980. I wanted to know about the young Duran, the kid whose face came to be plastered all over Panama City, and how someone who had nothing became a symbol for hope in a Third World country that suffered every day. I wanted to see how the mere glimpse of Durans smile could make a difference. Few people have the influence on a country as Duran does in Panama and the only way I would understand it was to follow him there. The only way I could comprehend the strength, the character of this man was to eat patacones and empanadas with his people, sip coconut juice straight from the fruit, dance salsa, and listen to the music of Osvaldo Ayala, Los Rabanes or Sandra y Sammy. I had to go to Guarare and the gyms in Chorrillo to let the legend seep into my blood amid the 100-degree heat. All his old managers, promoters, friends and schoolteachers would have something to say and I had to absorb it.

Finding him was another story. Somehow in Panama everyone knows Duran personally. He is everyones buen amigo . So when a taxi dropped me off at Durans home in the El Cangrejo neighborhood the night I arrived, I knew I was onto him. Duran never showed that night, but I knew deep down that I would find him and learn the secrets that many in Panama claimed already to know. Thats the reason that many people respect him because he never forget where he come from, said Chavo, his oldest son. Hes humble and always told me, Remember Im from El Chorrillo, a poor neighborhood, so you have to be humble. The people respect that. Hes always helping the poor people, especially with the kids. People like that. In a country of less than three million souls where many live on less than a dollar a day, that counts.